Obama has been criticized by Republicans for attempting to renew a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia.  The new START treaty would limit the number of nuclear warheads to 1,550, a two-thirds reduction from the original START treaty.  The number of nuclear missile launchers will be reduced by half.  It’s seen by the international community as a break through to stop nuclear proliferation.  It has even led to Ukraine announcing today that it would get rid of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, enough to build several nuclear weapons, which the U.S. has been attempting to accomplish for nearly 10 years.  China and Russia are now on board with sanction for Iran, which George Bush was never able to accomplish.  These are important steps to reach Obama’s goal of locking down all nuclear weapons and nuclear material in four years in order to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.  Republican criticism of Obama’s nuclear proliferation stance is counter to what their platform views were under Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan said that nuclear weapons are “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.” … “[F]or the eight years I was president,” he wrote in his memoirs, “I never let my dream of a nuclear-free world fade from my mind.” … “We live in a troubled world, and the United States and China, as two great nations, share a special responsibility to help reduce the risks of war. We both agree that there can be only one sane policy to preserve our precious civilization in this modern age: A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And no matter how great the obstacles may seem, we must never stop our efforts to reduce the weapons of war. We must never stop at all until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of this Earth.”