Is An 80% Reduction In Deployed Nuclear Weapons Insanity,Bad Judgment,Or Carefully Crafted Treason?

Foolish. The whole reason to have a lot of nukes is to deter the enemy from trying to develop enough countermeasures. With an arsenal of 300 mid range ICBMs, even a country like Iran could eventually neutralize our weapons.

How about a good idea. The threats we are facing today and are bound to face for the foreseeable future do not include an enemy like the former USSR which had thousands of weapons. While we still need a nuclear deterrent we do need the current number of nuclear weapons.

The money saved on reducing the number of nuclear weapons we have deployed could field more UAV's, more Littoral combat ships, buy more body armor, field a better assault rifle for the Army and Marine Corps, etc.

Oh yes because the ability to destroy only 310 cities on a moments notice is so much less of a deterrent than the ability to destroy 1,550.

How many potentially hostile countries have 310 cities and strategic sites anyway?

One of my high school teachers was part of the underground nuclear silo program. Even way back in the '50s and '60s, most nuclear missiles were apart in storage. There would be no way to assemble them to shoot them off after a nuclear war and no way to assemble them and put them on a launch pad before a nuclear war. Those missiles were meant to be destroyed in nuclear treaties.

Because he--like Ronald Reagan--would like to pursue a world without nukes.

Even if we cut our arsenal of warheads by 80% (which is unlikely), we'd still have more than China (250) or North Korea (12).

Way back in the day to actually deliver a nuke warhead required a large, slow and vulnerable bomber to fly through foreign airspace with less than a one in three or four chance of actually avoiding getting shot down or even finding the target. This ratio meant that a large number of aircraft and a large number of bombs would have to be dispatched to insure a successful drop...not to mention the end of civilization! Later missiles came on line...unstoppable, but not particularly accurate or reliable either...that meant that while fewer weapons could be dispatched as compared to bombers to insure the end of civilization a whale of a lot of missiles still needed to be fired off. Moving on! Times change. Even with the advent of anti missile technology more accurate missile technology once again reduced the number of missiles that would have to be fired to insure the end of the world. Now maintaining huge stocks of nuclear weapons is an expensive proposition. You just can't store them in a bunker.....each weapon must be constantly monitored, upgraded, checked, maintained and tested for positive function....several million dollars a year per warhead...and that doesn't include the same level of maintaince of the missiles themselves. So, we have a new situation that has evolved....more bang for the buck so to speak. Far more accurate technology and survivablity per weapon, and far more reliability has made a total reduction of nuclear weapons possible without any loss of overall lethal effect....human kind will cease to exist if these things are allowed to go off...fear not. As you can surmise from the above the US has over time reduced our mass of weapons for fewer though with more firepower. As an example, a hundred infantrymen now have more firepower than a thousand troopers had even two decades ago, and each infantryman has a longer survivablility time per hour hour of combat...again, more bang for the buck. Nuclear submarines EACH carry enough nuclear warheads to destroy the entire planet...each one of them! And as a plus at any given time we have a half dozen on patrol. So, a continued reduction in NUMBERS has nothing to do with effect. No insanity, no bad judgement and while the GOP/Tea/Fox/Jesus party would like to believe that there's 'treason' involved on the part of their arch enemy, Barack Obama, as everything else this party of morons believes...it's all bull #$%^ !

You're out of your mind. What possible reason is there for nuclear war today? Who's threatening you? Did I miss the memo that France wants to bomb New York all of a sudden? Or perhaps you're somebody who thinks Russia is still evil.

I know, right!? I want to be able to turn the surface of the planet to glass at least 30x over at all times. If we could only destroy the whole world 5x the terrorists win.

Carefully crafted Treason...

Don't worry, there will still be plenty enough to bring about xtians dreams of armageddon.