John Noonan recently wrote here on the Obama administration’s plans to reduce the size and scope of the U.S. strategic arsenal independent of arms reduction negotiations with nuclear rivals Russia and China. John touched on one downside of the president’s initiative, specifically the unilateral reduction in the U.S. arsenal without any equivalent cuts or other quid pro quo from our adversaries. As Noonan put it, “That means that both nations are free to continue the aggressive upgrades to their strategic nuclear forces (particularly so in Putin’s Russia), without having to worry about what the U.S. or international community thinks.”

This is true, but John’s brief note did not address some of the deeper, and potentially more serious implications of America’s headlong embrace of nuclear disarmament.