Morning Joe: Countering Arguments Against Nuclear Elimination

Stories we're following today:

Rebutting the Standard Arguments Against Disarmament - George Perkovich and James Acton in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [link]

• In any debate, there is a tendency to set up and knock down straw men. The emerging debate about whether the United States should work toward abolishing nuclear weapons is no different.
• In the interest of improving the quality of the debate in future, here's how disarmament proponents should respond to the "fatuous five":

Nuclear Reductions and Nuclear Nonproliferation - Nukes of Hazard [link]

• Is there a link between the nuclear postures of the nuclear weapons states and nonproliferation?
• Sen. Kyl and Richard Perle scoffed at another interpretation of this link, which is that in maintaining thousands of nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapons states, particularly the U.S. and Russia, increase the incentives other states have to acquire nuclear weapons and make it more difficult to, among other objectives, marshal international support to put added pressure on North Korea and Iran.
• We have very little to lose and everything to gain from testing this hypothesis...

The Power Of Example And Hard Cases Like Iran And North Korea - David Shorr in Democracy Arsenal [link]

• Our hard-liner friends are having a grand old time ridiculing the idea that reductions in US and Russian nuclear arsenals will help induce greater cooperation from Tehran and Pyongyang. The slam is popping up in so many places all at once that you start to wonder about a spin campaign. I don't know anyone who believes that nuclear arms cuts will cause a spontaneous change of heart in Iranian or North Korean leaders, but here's what I do believe:

UK Governments says could cut warheads if U.S., Russia go further - Reuters [link]

• "Once the strategic conditions are established that allow the U.S. and Russia to make substantial reductions beyond those being currently negotiated of their warhead stockpiles, we believe that it is likely to be appropriate for the UK to reconsider the size of its own stockpile... As soon as it becomes useful for our arsenal to be included in broader negotiation, Britain stands ready to participate and to act," Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a statement.
• "We must work globally ... to establish the security conditions that will enable a world free from nuclear weapons," he said.

Russian Weapon Is in Need of Rescue - New York Times [link]

• The nuclear-armed Bulava missile would be unlike any weapon in the world in its speed, accuracy and ability to defeat any defense the West might throw up, Russian officials claimed, helping to propel the country’s armed forces into the 21st century. Today, however, the Bulava is having trouble just propelling itself... But as Russia and the United States work on slashing their nuclear arsenals, the emerging question for many critics is not whether the Bulava can fly, but whether it should.
• “My view is that the government is failing to recognize the current threats,” said Nikolai Zlobin, a Russian defense analyst at the Washington-based Center for Defense Information. “This is very much an old way of thinking, when you believe that if you have better weapons you are more secure.”

40th Anniversary of Apollo 11

Time to Boldly Go Once More - Buzz Aldrin in the Washington Post [link]

• Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins and I began our quarter-million-mile journey through the blackness of space to reach the moon.
• Our next generation must think boldly in terms of a goal for the space program: Mars for America's future.

Remembering Apollo 11 - "Big Picture" by the Boston Globe [link]

• Collected here are 40 images from that journey four decades ago, when, in the words of astronaut Buzz Aldrin: "In this one moment, the world came together in peace for all mankind".