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President Obama could make a huge positive mark on human history if he appeared at dawn on a bright summer morning at Andrews Air Force Base, standing beside a table with twenty nuclear nose cones from U.S. missiles. The following words are a suggestion of what he might say:
"Good morning. As we welcome the sunrise of a new dawn, I would like to announce the dawn of a truly new era. These are nuclear nosecones taken from twenty armed American missiles. It is time to begin to eliminate the nuclear arsenals that threaten all higher life on the planet, so I ask the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, to immediately send inspectors to verify, monitor, and provide constant vigilance 24/7 as we move these nukes to Western repositories.
"Second, I respectfully demand that President Putin match my move by putting twenty strategic Russian nosecones before the cameras and request that the IAEA send inspectors to verify and monitor the Russian weapons. Hopefully, this will be the first step of a process in which the U.S. and Russia will reduce our nuclear stockpiles to twenty nuclear weapons, ten in each nation, within six years.
"Third, China must match the superpowers with four strategic nosecones before their cameras. France will place three before the cameras, Great Britain and Israel two, and India and Pakistan one. All of these warheads in the eight nuclear nations musts be monitored by IAEA inspectors 24/7 and be broadcast on TV and internet channels worldwide until we develop well-regulated arms reduction.
"My fourth point: We know North Korea has a handful of nuclear weapons and that Iran wanted nuclear weapons until their 2014 change in government. However, as soon as the eight nuclear nations place warheads before the cameras and begin reductions with parity as the guiding principle, humanity is reducing nuclear weapons. Then, no non-nuclear nation has a need for or right to nuclear weapons. North Korea will dismantle their weapons, and Iran will allow entry to IAEA inspectors to monitor their nuclear activity. I'm confident this is the right move and the non-nuclear world will applaud loudly. I say to everyone worldwide, 'Let us hear from you! The more you applaud, the more you pressure all nuclear nations to match this move by the U.S.' Thank you, and I'll now take questions."
Consider the reaction internationally to Obama's bold move, or, if he ponders for days as these ideas are discussed nationally, another nuclear head of state could act first and pressure the others to follow. The non-nuclear world--with everything to lose and nothing to gain from nukes--will applaud loudly, pressuring the reluctant seven to follow.
By coughing up 20 each, Russia and the U.S. will be reducing only a tiny fraction of each superpower's arsenals, and the other six nuclear nations will be reducing about 1% of their arsenals. The numbers themselves only become very important once every nation has to reveal the exact nuclear weapons in its arsenal in later stages of disarmament.
This unprecedented step would become the most important positive develop in the sixty-nine years of the nuclear age, for once humanity starts to reduce nuclear arsenals under the watchful eyes of IAEA inspectors, everything changes for the non-nuclear nations that aspire to come nuclear nations, such as North Korea and possibly Iran. Every nation on Earth has the right to build nuclear weapons as long as the U.S. and Russia have that right. That is just basic cannon sense and fairness.
However, as soon as the U.S. and Russia put twenty on the table and are followed by the other nuclear nations, reducing nuclear stockpiles becomes the goal of all nuclear powers because nuclear weapons are dangerous, useless in any reasonable sense, and even suicidal. To use them is to invite massive retaliation. A limited nuclear war or serious nuclear terrorism is a threat to the well being of the planet, for all major rivers run into the sea.
So Ends the One-Two Punch to Turn Around the Arms Race
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