WTF? Where's Shep? Obama to reduce US nukes!

[Count Chocula]

From the Telegraph UK, where the hell is the US media?

Is Obama the most naïve president in U.S. history?

By Nile Gardiner World Last updated: July 7th, 2009

36 Comments Comment on this article

It is hard to fathom what the United States will gain from Barack Obama’s much-hyped agreement with Dmitry Medvedev to further cut America’s nuclear arsenal. Washington and Moscow have agreed in principle a framework to reduce their nukes by about a third, to 1,500 to 1,675 warheads over the next seven years. Even more significantly, the two leaders have pledged to cut their nuclear delivery systems (intercontinental ballistic missiles and long-range bombers for example) to just 500-1,100 units, a move that works greatly to Russia’s advantage as its force projection is far weaker than the U.S. in this area.

The new deal, which Obama hopes to wrap up with the Kremlin by December, creates a far more level playing field for the Russians, whose strategic conventional weapons capability is greatly outclassed by that of the Americans, and whose deteriorating nuclear weapons stockpile is aging and in decline. The whole agreement makes no sense, and is little more than a vanity exercise for Barack Obama who has ludicrously pledged to carve out a nuclear-free world. Surely a better strategy would be to further build up America’s defences, including a global missile defence shield, rather than cut defence spending and further gut the superpower’s nuclear capability.

At this rate, even Jimmy Carter looks like General Patton compared to the dove-like current U.S. president. Why cut nuclear weapons at a time when rogue regimes such as North Korea and Iran are busy building their own programmes? Does the President seriously believe this move will encourage the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong Il to renounce their nuclear designs? What evidence is there in history that a unilateral policy of disarmament will prompt tyrannical regimes to change their behaviour?

It is also unclear what kind of odious quid pro quo deal Washington will have to sign up to in order move the agreement forward. President Medvedev, who serves as little more than Vladimir Putin’s right hand, has made it abundantly clear that the United States will have to sacrifice any plans for a ‘third site’ missile defence system in eastern and central Europe for Moscow to sign up to a news arms treaty. This would be a huge betrayal of key U.S. allies Poland and the Czech Republic. No doubt Moscow will also demand the Obama administration give the Russians a bigger say over NATO expansion eastwards, including blocking the entry of Georgia and Ukraine.

By agreeing to a grand bargain with the Medvedev/Putin regime, President Obama has unwisely opened a Pandora’s box of concessions that will only enhance Russia’s hand in its “Near Abroad”. At the same time, the Obama administration’s naïve approach will strengthen the resolve of America’s enemies such as Iran to aggressively pursue their nuclear ambitions and exploit the weakness of a president who is gravely undercutting American global power in an increasingly dangerous world.

So we have fewer, but more potent weapons, Pakistan is nuclear and in the throes of internal turmoil, Iran is marching towards nuke deployment, N. Korea has tested missiles that can carry their nukes, and France still deployes tac nukes on Mirages!!1!1! Somebody help me understand...diplomacy works best when you deal from a position of strength. Obama's offering (by Presidential directive, not necessarily treaty, which brings up another can of worms) to reduce our technical advantage to parity, for what? Access to land routes through Russian territory to bring APCs and M1A1s into Afghanistan overland? Ooops, that didn't happen. So what American security benefit does this bring? I'm stumped. We have somewhere around 8,000 nuclear warheads, which comprises less than 2,500 active strategic warheads, while Russia has ~12,500 warheads and also ~2,500 stated as active. Making this offer in Russia makes no sense: if Russia is not seen as a strategic threat, but other nations are seeking or making nukes, why make the offer at all?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

What the hell are you talking about? It's been in the NYTs and Washington Post for the last 1-2 weeks.

[Samuel]

Aren't we just junking the older missiles and warheads?

[Axis Kast]

Obama evidently feels that a nuclear war is nigh unthinkable. Probably, he is correct. The superpowers are certainly not going to exchange atomic volleys. Neither would it be strictly necessary, given our conventional advantage, to employ nuclear weapons even against a foe who deployed an especially nefarious weapon against a target in the mainland United States. If nuclear weapons have less value overall, too, then continuing to update their designs is also correspondingly less important.

Thus, the president is cultivating goodwill, and perhaps also credibility, in return for minor concessions that won't threaten national security. Personally, I think this is ridiculous. A nation that wants nuclear weapons will only be too happy to have them even if the rest of the world does not.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Somebody help me understand...diplomacy works best when you deal from a position of strength.

And having more than a fairly small number of nuclear weapons does nothing to increase that strength. Once you have enough to destroy an opponent, the rest are a waste. It's not like we are likely to use them after all, or that an enemy is going to be worse off destroyed ten or a hundred times than destroyed once.

Nuclear weapons are tools of deterrence, not to be used. Fewer weapons can do the same thing for less money.

Obama's offering (by Presidential directive, not necessarily treaty, which brings up another can of worms) to reduce our technical advantage to parity, for what? Access to land routes through Russian territory to bring APCs and M1A1s into Afghanistan overland? Ooops, that didn't happen. So what American security benefit does this bring?

Less wasted money ? Greater friendliness between America and Russia ?

[Prannon]

It's not like a deal like this has no precedent. The US and Russia have been agreeing to disarm their stockpiles of nuclear weapons for decades, and if you look at the graph at the bottom of this page, it's not like the Russians haven't kept up their end of the deals - at least since the 1980s and particularly when significant reductions in US stockpiles were made. You can argue that this has left the US more vulnerable in strategic defense, but I would point out that in that time the Russians have not significantly challenged US dominance until recently, and that was more because Russia was doing well economically with high oil prices, had just won a conventional exchange in Georgia, the US was tied down in its conventional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the whole Western economic model promoted by Bush was discredited with the economic slow down which was just starting. None of that has anything to do with the US nuclear stockpiles, and both countries more than acknowledge that they could destroy each other with the stockpiles they have left. If MAD is still ensured, then the deterrent still serves its purpose, and that goes for anyone who has nukes in this world, not just Russia.

Probably Obama figures that the US can afford to do without 1500 warheads and can still maintain the nuclear umbrella. In the mean time, it's more important to ensure US success in Afghanistan, especially after Uzbekistan closed off access to US military logistics. And then there's the angle of renewing diplomatic engagement with Russia following the chill during last year's Russo-Georgian war. Obama has had an interest in thawing relations with many of the US' long time rivals and enemies, and Russia is no different.

[Axis Kast]

Less wasted money ? Greater friendliness between America and Russia ?

One thing to say that we require only assured second-strike capability against multiple foes and can economize by avoiding "overkill." Quite another that reducing current stockpiles will contribute to better relations with Russia, which is well aware of our defensive strategic posture, and is troubled by completely unrelated issues. It isn't even as if we can use linkage here. A reduction in American nuclear stockpiles is going to be moot: we can still destroy them with whatever is left after cuts. You said it yourself.

[Count Chocula]

Hmm. I just took a third look at the BBC article both Prannon and I referenced, and it looks like G.W. Bush reduced the ready US stockpile by 50% from 2002 to today, at at time (2002) when the Russians had numeric superiority. Puzzling; maybe Stuart could take a break from Pantheocide to put it in perspective. As I said, I'm confused by Obama's motivation at this time; do we have so much superiority in targeting and effectiveness that we can maintain MAD with fewer warheads, or are other factors at play? We have more sea- and air- launched warheads, but Russia as of 2007 had ~650 more land-based warheads than the US. So, their long-range strategic balance seems to be superior to ours, while we have the edge in tac nukes. I can't help but wonder, what's the purpose? I can't realistically envision Russia reducing their strategic inventory; if anything, if the agreement happens and Russia sticks to the 1,500-1,675 total, I'd guess more of their nukes than ours would be land-based strategic warheads. It still doesn't make too much sense, unless we're planning to spend an unbudgeted large amount of money on Patriot and similar missile defense systems.

[K. A. Pital]

We have more sea- and air- launched warheads

That is the more survivable deterrent. So you clearly have more of it than we do.

Russia as of 2007 had ~650 more land-based warheads than the US.

Means of delivery are getting obsolete and their reliability is much in doubt both in USA and Russia.

I can't help but wonder, what's the purpose?

Sea and air based nuclear weapons are not "tac nukes".

[Count Chocula]

^ Conceded. Arty shells and B61s are tactical. That notwithstanding, as a Russian, does this gesture make sense to you? Are you, as a Russian with Pakistan, North Korea (OK client state, never mind) and China in tossing range, comfortable with a reduction in your deterrent capability?

[Omega18]

To further address the second strike capability point, as I have noted when a similar debate occurred on this forum in the past, the poor state of potentially hostile powers' SSN fleets also makes it easier for the US to engage in this kind of reduction without real risk.

Russia's current SSN fleet is simply getting older and most of it isn't going to remain in service indefinitely, and the new attack submarine class Russia is finally coming out currently certainly isn't being built quickly enough to replace the current numerically. Even the current submarine is force is clearly quite insufficient to track down the US's Ohio Class SSBNs.

China's diesel sub force simply is practically useless to tracking Ohio SSBNs in the middle of the ocean. Even if one gets incredibly lucky and stumbles across an Ohio SSBNs during peacetime and somehow manages to follow it without getting promptly detected, it won't take long for it to wear out its batteries and have to snorkel and run its engine which definitely will betray its presence. China's Han class submarines simply suck and China doesn't have that many in the first place. While China is building some more capable nuclear attack subs, its not clear how capable they will be and there still won't be that many anytime remotely soon. The hypothetical Chinese nuclear attack sub force would also have to deal with the fact the Pacific Ocean is so large and one detail about the nuclear warhead reduction numbers is the US Trident II Missiles the Ohio SSBNs have given them a less heavy payload increasing the missile's range, which means the Chinese navy would have an even larger area to try to search.

[MKSheppard]

We should have 65,000 nuclear weapons on hand, both in the US and Soviet Union Russia.

Because you never know when the aliens might invade.

[K. A. Pital]

That notwithstanding, as a Russian, does this gesture make sense to you?

No, it does not. Keeping obscenely huge nuclear arsenals is what I see as a necessity. Downgrading them is pointless.

Only the assured threat of utter annihilation is good enough.

[Samuel]

We should have 65,000 nuclear weapons on hand, both in the US and Soviet Union Russia.

Because you never know when the aliens might invade.

As SoTS taught me, you always give your first contact ships ridiculously good point defense. I doubt huge nuke stockpiles will help when the xenos slam asteroids into the planet.

That notwithstanding, as a Russian, does this gesture make sense to you?

No, it does not. Keeping obscenely huge nuclear arsenals is what I see as a necessity. Downgrading them is pointless.

Only the assured threat of utter annihilation is good enough.

Russia leadership is really willing to toss away half the country if they can "win"?

[K. A. Pital]

No, I meant only an arsenal that would decidedly annihilate the industrial centers of another nation (no matter be it Russia or the USA) in a nuclear strike is enough.

This is why all the SALT, SART and all that are just idiocy from my point of view. The balance is only there when you positively know in case of war your nation is destroyed. That way Russia or US will never go to war with each other period.

[Count Chocula]

To Stas:
Unless my understanding of geopolitics is completely sophomoric, wouldn't reducing your warheads be inadvisable? Hard-line Communist China has a couple hundred nukes and don't much like present-day Russia, Pakistan is under internal attack by Muslims and has nukes, India has nukes, Europe (well France anyway) has nukes pointed at you, Japan has a long memory and may have nukes (if I'm wrong flame on!), and of course there's Israel, which has nukes, a distaste for Russian ME client states, and also a long memory. Russia, frankly, seems to have more nuclear-armed adversaries than the United States.

From the perspective of a US citizen, we haven't forgotten the Cuban missile crisis, the USSR/Russia has been an existential threat for the last 50 or so years, China is emerging as a strategic threat and not just a trading partner, Iran is pursuing nukes, Israel is break-out-the-Geiger-counter nervous about Iran, North Korea has missiles and warheads (and integrating them is a matter of time), Pakistan is wobbly while we have troops one state east of them, and France still puts butter on everything they eat or drink!

Plus, again from an amateur's POV, you have the inevitable failure rate of maintenace-intensive weapon systems and limited effectiveness of kiloton-range warheads (most of the US inventory IIRC), and an insufficient number of available warheads equals an inability to decapitate an opposing state's government and industrial base. Without an "overkill" number of warheads, the so-far proven doctrine of MAD loses its teeth. Speaking as a father, I'd prefer the US have enough redundancy and power to ensure the MAD doctrine; if you, Stas, have progeny, I imagine you have equal motivation to ensure a balance of power without the temptation to let the missiles fly. In that context, my President's actions (and those or GW's, for that matter) make little sense.

[Falkenhayn]

Are we (The USA) saving any money on this? Like, some number in the billions, preferably?

[Nephtys]

To Stas:
Unless my understanding of geopolitics is completely sophomoric, wouldn't reducing your warheads be inadvisable? Hard-line Communist China has a couple hundred nukes and don't much like present-day Russia, Pakistan is under internal attack by Muslims and has nukes, India has nukes, Europe (well France anyway) has nukes pointed at you, Japan has a long memory and may have nukes (if I'm wrong flame on!), and of course there's Israel, which has nukes, a distaste for Russian ME client states, and also a long memory. Russia, frankly, seems to have more nuclear-armed adversaries than the United States.

From the perspective of a US citizen, we haven't forgotten the Cuban missile crisis, the USSR/Russia has been an existential threat for the last 50 or so years, China is emerging as a strategic threat and not just a trading partner, Iran is pursuing nukes, Israel is break-out-the-Geiger-counter nervous about Iran, North Korea has missiles and warheads (and integrating them is a matter of time), Pakistan is wobbly while we have troops one state east of them, and France still puts butter on everything they eat or drink!

Plus, again from an amateur's POV, you have the inevitable failure rate of maintenace-intensive weapon systems and limited effectiveness of kiloton-range warheads (most of the US inventory IIRC), and an insufficient number of available warheads equals an inability to decapitate an opposing state's government and industrial base. Without an "overkill" number of warheads, the so-far proven doctrine of MAD loses its teeth. Speaking as a father, I'd prefer the US have enough redundancy and power to ensure the MAD doctrine; if you, Stas, have progeny, I imagine you have equal motivation to ensure a balance of power without the temptation to let the missiles fly. In that context, my President's actions (and those or GW's, for that matter) make little sense.

Are you um. Seriously suggesting that Europe and Japan fear American nuclear attack? 'Hard-Line Communist China' also is a rather ridiculous indication of your view of international politics. While China is a developing Great Power, we're so economically tied that a real war would be very much economic suicide for both nations involved. They have no fundamental ideological opposition to the US aside from ambition to increase their own standing in the world, and are about as communist as bottled water.

How do you know that we have an 'insufficient' number of warheads to decapitate a state government? A single one of the US's 12 strategic missile subs can carry up to 96 independently targetable reentry vehicles. That's a potential retaliation that no country can afford to risk, and just a small fraction of what the US has.

Times have changed. The highest chance of a nuclear exchange is going to be between Pakistan and India, or a one-shot rogue deal, not even vaguely on the same scale of the US-USSR in the cold war.

[FedRebel]

So we have fewer, but more potent weapons,

In terms of nuclear, the good or bad depends on a few variables

Overall there is very little risk of an American-Russian war these days, so we don't have to give them night terrors like we did in the 50's

In my opinion we should be investing in new strategic bombers and shift nuclear responsibility to them. An ICBM is great and all if you want to blast away a country that covers half of asia, but the so called 'rogue nations' whom we are 'concerned' "might" lob a nuke at somebody we might not have a clean shot at, and the B-2 and B-52 would take the better part of the day to respond in kind (which'd be pretty lackluster as the BUFF's would be too valuable to risk sending into more densely defended airspace, and the B-2's would be clay pigeons as said 'rogue nations' know what's coming and would be sending up enough radar to thoroughly cook a frozen burrito at 50,000ft.)

Pakistan is nuclear and in the throes of internal turmoil,

For the most part it's blown out of proportion, at this stage there'd be more concern that the Pakistani President is trying to pull a "Chiang Kai-shek" on us

Iran is marching towards nuke deployment, N. Korea has tested missiles that can carry their nukes,

Yes these guys are a concern, to a degree

We are in need of a flexible deterrent system which is visible [if say North Korea were to make some noise ('test' missiles and make political threats) we'd deploy a strategic bomb wing to the region (at present good sized portion of our strategic bomber force, we need more aircraft to shrink that fraction and lessen the risk) to just give them the good old hairy eyeball, which the Russians are all too familiar (and still sleep with the lights on because of )]

and France still deployes tac nukes on Mirages!!1!1!

1. France is an ally

2. They need us on our good side

3. They'd sooner surrender to a slice of German chocolate cake than launch a single Mirage

Somebody help me
understand...diplomacy works best when you deal from a position of strength.

That was Eisenhower politics, sadly those days ended when JFK was sworn in

We are now dealing with the descendant of Kennedy and Carter policy reforms, were military strength (namely strategic) is an unwanted dead weight and obstacle towards achieving an optimistic future

Obama's offering (by Presidential directive, not necessarily treaty, which brings up another can of worms) to reduce our technical advantage to parity,

Obama's made it no secret, his goal is to abolish ALL American nuclear arms by the time he leaves office

for what? Access to land routes through Russian territory to bring APCs and M1A1s into Afghanistan overland? Ooops, that didn't happen. So what American security benefit does this bring?

[sarcasm] We will be all the closer to a world without nuclear arms, and everyone will be 'happy' and get along, cause those evil nukes are no longer around [/sarcasm]

I'm stumped. We have somewhere around 8,000 nuclear warheads, which comprises less than 2,500 active strategic warheads, while Russia has ~12,500 warheads and also ~2,500 stated as active. Making this offer in Russia makes no sense: if Russia is not seen as a strategic threat, but other nations are seeking or making nukes, why make the offer at all?

1. This is an attempt to improve relations with Russia

2. It's our way of saying "our bad" for the psychological trauma we caused by scaring them shitless with the 1950's strategic arms buildup

3. This furthers Obama's goal of seeing to a world without nuclear weapons

Neither would it be strictly necessary, given our conventional advantage, to employ nuclear weapons even against a foe who deployed an especially nefarious weapon against a target in the mainland United States.

The problem with our 'conventional advantage' is that it gives an adversary something they can cope with or think they can cope with, that pretty much nullifies the advantage (the fact that Gate's plans for the military will over specialize our 'conventional advantage' won't help matters either)

If nuclear weapons have less value overall, too, then continuing to update their designs is also correspondingly less important.

Nukes haven't really changed in terms of importance, they've just been downplayed (the Air Forces issues in '06, '07, and '08 illustrating both the embarrassing and bad reasons why)

Thus, the president is cultivating goodwill, and perhaps also credibility, in return for minor concessions that won't threaten national security.

Yes and overall we'll have to wait and see if Obama goes Caterite ('what's theirs is theirs, what's ours is negotiable') or files this treaty under 'toliet paper'

Personally, I think this is ridiculous. A nation that wants nuclear weapons will only be too happy to have them even if the rest of the world does not.

Really, the only way to stop a nation from developing nukes is making it clear to them (through diplomacy) which would they rather have, a 100,000 US troops knocking on the door if they piss enough of the world off enough, or a thousand bombers ready to turn their asses into glass if they so much as sneeze in the wrong direction. When given the tangible facts (new high mach strategic platforms dropping JDAMS like no tomorrow in whatever war we might face next and well publicizing that they can carry nukes too, would suffice, bringing back a certain USAF MAJCOM would go a long way to help also) 95% of the eager beavers wanting nukes would happily abandon those nuclear projects, as facing possible defeat is far preferable to facing probable annihilation.

[Nephtys]

Obama's made it no secret, his goal is to abolish ALL American nuclear arms by the time he leaves office

Do you even live in the same reality that I do? Because he never said that. His speach where he was talking about nuclear weapons was saying 'In an ideal world, someday', which certainly isn't right now. Nobody is under any illusions that removing every single nuclear weapon in the arsenal is a practical or even a good idea.

[Omega18]

Plus, again from an amateur's POV, you have the inevitable failure rate of maintenace-intensive weapon systems and limited effectiveness of kiloton-range warheads (most of the US inventory IIRC), and an insufficient number of available warheads equals an inability to decapitate an opposing state's government and industrial base.

Your obvious problem then is you simply are wrong about the real nature of the US nuclear arsenal's potential destructive power.

The US has absolutely NO actual tactical nuclear weapons to the best of everyone's knowledge.

The primary nuclear weapons the US has are the 100 kiloton nuclear warheads and 475 kiloton nuclear warheads, with my understanding being the 475 kiloton ones are becoming increasingly predominant as the size of the US arsenal decreases overall. You also have B-83 nuclear bombs which apparently can go up to 1.2 megatons. (Keep in mind the Hiroshima bomb was only about 13 to 18 kilotons.) It doesn't actually take many nuclear weapons of this size to destroy cities and other key targets. With modern targeting systems, the weapons can be carefully directed to maximize their destructive effectiveness. (Really accuracy allows this kind of power to be sufficient to destroy key targets.) Keep in mind that Russia has fewer potential targets in the first place compared to what the USSR had.

The basic point is once you hit a city to a certain degree, fallout will handle the most of the rest and sufficient damage has been inflicted. To be sure you may not be able to destroy every inch of territory, but you can destroy the country as any sort of functioning nation. Keep in mind that there are other potential consequences from enough destruction as well involved here, such as if Russia has been devastated enough and actually used up all of its nuclear arsenal, China may decide to move in and take over what's left of Siberia for instance.

You simply only need so large an arsenal to have one profoundly convincing deterrent capability.

[Omega18]

In my opinion we should be investing in new strategic bombers and shift nuclear responsibility to them. An ICBM is great and all if you want to blast away a country that covers half of asia, but the so called 'rogue nations' whom we are 'concerned' "might" lob a nuke at somebody we might not have a clean shot at, and the B-2 and B-52 would take the better part of the day to respond in kind (which'd be pretty lackluster as the BUFF's would be too valuable to risk sending into more densely defended airspace, and the B-2's would be clay pigeons as said 'rogue nations' know what's coming and would be sending up enough radar to thoroughly cook a frozen burrito at 50,000ft.)

This is just extremely odd talk in my view frankly.

The reality is with the only rouge nations that we are really concerned about regarding nuclear weapons wise, we have perfectly good shots from ICBMs and SSBNs. We can actually shoot over allot of countries if necessary without any concern about them shooting back since they flat out lack the ability to hit the US even if they have nukes. If we're worried about alarming China or the USSR, we can give them a phone call warning making it clear who we are targeting in advance to avoid them doing something rash in response. If its a small number of missiles on a proper trajectory to hit Iran or North Korea, they are not going to be crazy enough to shoot off ICBMs and ensure MAD with the destruction of their country when all available evidence suggests it is in fact the rouge country being targeted. (Don't forget the rouge country has presumably done something to provoke the action in the first place and Russia or China should no about this.) If the leadership is really paranoid they can get some nuked armed bombers in the air and the like, but those can be ordered to land again as soon as its clear the nukes hit the targets the US said they would.

[Prannon]

Obama's made it no secret, his goal is to abolish ALL American nuclear arms by the time he leaves office

Do you even live in the same reality that I do? Because he never said that. His speach where he was talking about nuclear weapons was saying 'In an ideal world, someday', which certainly isn't right now. Nobody is under any illusions that removing every single nuclear weapon in the arsenal is a practical or even a good idea.

And just to illustrate the fact that the Obama Administration is not insane, I do believe they recently extended the nuclear umbrella to South Korea in retaliation to North Korea's bellicosity. The Norks reacted with typical outrage, belying the fact that there is nothing they can do about it. The nuclear deterrent and MAD are very useful tools in international diplomacy, so even though Obama wants to reduce stockpiles I do not see him actively pursuing complete elimination.

[Count Chocula]

You also have B-83 nuclear bombs which apparently can go up to 1.2 megatons. (Keep in mind the Hiroshima bomb was only about 13 to 18 kilotons.) It doesn't actually take many nuclear weapons of this size to destroy cities and other key targets.

Just for shits and grins, I went to ye olde nuclear weapons effects calculator and plugged in 1MT. I discovered that I would survive a 1MT burst in Tampa, since I'm 45 miles away. In fact, it appears that the blast from that kind of detonation would not even reach Clearwater, across the bay from Tampa, although fallout would be a factor. The implication, to me, is that it would take hundreds of megaton detonations to cripple an opposing state's production capability, and that that ability would be severely impaired in any attack on the US, Russia, or China, which each have hundreds of defense-related manufacturing plants distributed across their rather large land masses. Hell, the Boeng plant all on its own would need at least a 500 kiloton warhead to destroy. Again, that would imply that we should have more nukes, not less, if mutual annihilation is our standing doctrine for a nuclear exchange.

[Omega18]

Obama's made it no secret, his goal is to abolish ALL American nuclear arms by the time he leaves office.

As noted this is preposterous, with nothing Obama has said possibly allowing such an interpretation. This claim makes the members of the John Birch Society and "Obama is a secret Muslim and a Al Queda cell sleeper cell member" conspiracy crowd look reasonable by comparison.

In fact, if you do your research, the current proposed agreement would not even be fully implemented UNTIL THE END OF A THEORETICAL OBAMA SECOND TERM. In other words you would be looking at a minimum of 1,500 nukes if Obama leaves office in January of 2017 under the agreement.