Obama’s Youthful Ideals Shaped the Long Arc of His Nuclear-Free Vision

In college, Barack Obama wrote about nuclear arms. As a senator, he viewed a deactivated Russian nuclear missile. Chicago Tribune Photo, 2005

From New York Times:

In the depths of the cold war, in 1983, a senior at Columbia University wrote in a campus newsmagazine, Sundial, about the vision of “a nuclear free world.” He railed against discussions of “first- versus second-strike capabilities” that “suit the military-industrial interests” with their “billion-dollar erector sets,” and agitated for the elimination of global arsenals holding tens of thousands of deadly warheads.

The student was Barack Obama, and he was clearly trying to sort out his thoughts. In the conclusion, he denounced “the twisted logic of which we are a part today” and praised student efforts to realize “the possibility of a decent world.” But his article, “Breaking the War Mentality,” which only recently has been rediscovered, said little about how to achieve the utopian dream.

Twenty-six years later, the author, in his new job as president of the United States, has begun pushing for new global rules, treaties and alliances that he insists can establish a nuclear-free world.

“I’m not naïve,” President Obama told a cheering throng in Prague this spring. “This goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence.”

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My Comment: What President Obama said 25 years ago was what many were believing at the time. If I was to read his comments and not know the author .... I would say that it was "main stream", and that almost any politician at the time could have voiced these same words. Even President Reagan remarked on numerous occasions that the ultimate goal for any arms agreement was to ultimately lead to a "nuclear free world".

Jump start to today, Barack Obama is now approaching nuclear discussions as the President of the United States .... not as a student from 26 years ago. We all know what his ultimate goal is when it comes to nuclear weapons .... what we do not know are his proposed steps on how to get there. It is these steps that will generate heated discussion .... and it is these steps that may ultimately doom any serious agreement to nuclear arms. The Russians have their own view of what an arms agreement should be between the two sides .... and I would wager that it would not be the same as President Obama's.