No, I am not a military strategist – I was just forced by my father to learn chess at a fairly young age, and have long since quit playing. Otherwise, I’ve been known to play Risk from time to time. No, I am not stupid enough to think that makes me any sort of “expert” on anything to do with the military. However, I also am not stupid enough to think that getting rid of nuclear weapons when there are multiple threats from unstable leaders around the world attempting to acquire their own is a “good” idea.

That said, I know I am echoing the thoughts of many Americans right now. While I have no love for nuclear weapons, and wish that we could get rid of all of them, that just isn’t the way it works. Reducing the number of weapons at this point also shouldn’t be considered an option. Many years ago I would joke about the arms race in terms of boys with their toys, and the race to have the biggest guns as a way to prove their manhood. That was the Cold War. Now, it is a new crop of boys – unbalanced dictators – and their envy of our “toys” is driving them to get their own.

Simplistic, facile, maybe even a bit naive, but nonetheless, true. No matter how much anyone would like to try to complicate the situation with analysis, theories, pros and cons, foreign policy debate, or whatever else the pundits would like to toss about, the bottom line remains that this is the wrong time to consider disarmament, period.

But it’s a “done deal.” Obama hashed out the details, and signed his name to the treaty. The people have no say about it now, so we’ll just have to deal with the consequences, even if they include Iran as a nuclear power. It would be nice if there was a group of people that have to sign off on this, and even better if they were even a little concerned about keeping their jobs.