The editors of the Washington Post urge President Trump to take Russian Federation President Putin up on his offer:
IT IS not very often that the Kremlin issues a transcript of remarks by President Vladimir Putin with a sentence marked in highlighter, but that’s what happened Dec. 5 when Mr. Putin met with leaders of Russia’s defense industry. The highlighted sentences said Russia is willing to renew the New START nuclear weapons treaty immediately, before the year is out, and without any preconditions. This is an offer that President Trump ought not refuse.
I honestly don’t know enough about the merits to have a strong opinion one way or another but this sounds prudent to me.
I will repeat what I have said for years and what I heard Sam Nunn, now head of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, say yesterday: between our two countries we have 90% of the nuclear weapons in the world. Between us we have the ability to destroy life on earth. Consequently, the bilateral relationship between Russia and the United States is the most important one in the world.
For the last thirty years we have been the aggressors in poisoning that relationship. You may complain all you like about Russian interference in U. S. elections but there is practically no outrage about which we might complain with respect to Russia that we didn’t do first including that one.
Maybe it’s time we should heed that old proverb about not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
The neocons who have inordinate influence on our foreign policy have been systematically unravelling all the treaties we signed with the Soviet Union. I cannot believe we would be better off with several thousand warheads on IRBM’s in Europe or the Caribbean.
“You may complain all you like about Russian interference in U. S. elections but there is practically no outrage about which we might complain with respect to Russia that we didn’t do first including that one.”
Give Nads and Schiff a call. And while you are at it, give Mataconis a heads up. All for political gain or petty personal animus.
Trump has almost no chance to take Putin up lest he be called Putin’s buttboy and a Russian agent; an obvious traitor. Who are the real dangerous people?
Drew makes a good point about the no-win corner Dems have put the current president in. If he doesn’t try to work with Russia, regarding revisiting the nuclear weapons treaty, he will be viewed as uncooperative, at the very least. However, if Trump shows even a minor interest in entertaining Putin’s offer, he will be called a Russia stooge or some kind of Russian operative. The democrat press and democrat politicians give Trump absolutely no leeway in his foreign policy decisions, nor any credit for anything positive that has happened on his watch. It’s all very discouraging…..
That should not be an unanticipated problem. The response from State and DoD is what should be expected when you’re not a team player. But Trump was largely elected not to be a team player.
Considering being a team player consisted of participating in the pig trough called foreign aid, more and more details of which are coming out, I’m glad the POTUS has not acted like a team player. It’s our money that’s been and is still being laundered into our politicians’ pockets, and I’m not liking it one bit.
Trump should go big on this anyway. Good for the budget, good for everybody.
I will dispute these claims. Think that this is one of the things Trump can do with Putin that won’t get a lot of push back. Obama pushed for a new START treaty almost 10 years ago and the GOP shot it down. Having a new nuclear treaty is not the kind of thing that makes you a stooge, unless you are a Democrat.
Steve
START was a not starter because of lack of verification. Putin isn’t any more trustworthy this his Soviet predecessors. It doesn’t mean START shouldn’t be explored, but it’s definitely a buyer be aware situation.