MOSCOW — A plane carrying the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, his wife and other high-ranking officials crashed in a heavy fog in western Russia on Saturday morning, killing all aboard, Polish officials said.

Russian television showed chunks of still-flaming fuselage scattered in a bare forest near Smolensk, where the president was arriving for a ceremony commemorating the murder of more than 20,000 Polish officers by the Red Army as it invaded Poland.

The governor of Smolensk region, Sergei Antufiyev, said early reports suggested that the plane, landing in a thick fog, did not reach the runway but instead hit the treetops and fell apart. Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev ordered top officials to rush to the scene and opened an investigation into the causes of the crash.

The crash came as a stunning blow to Poland, killing many of the country’s top leaders and reviving, for some, the horror of the Katyn massacre.

“It is a damned place,” former president Aleksander Kwasniewski told TVN24. “It sends shivers down my spine. First the flower of the Second Polish Republic is murdered in the forests around Smolensk, now the intellectual elite of the Third Polish Republic die in this tragic plane crash when approaching Smolensk airport.”

“This is a wound which will be very difficult to heal,” he said.

Yes, there is a rather bitter irony here in that Kaczynski was headed to a ceremony to honor the massacre of thousands of Polish officers and other leading figures of pre-World War II Poland by the Soviet NKVD, precursor to the KGB.

Condolences to the Polish people.

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President Obama and Russian President Medvedev took major steps today to further reduce nuclear arsenals that once terrified the world:

PRAGUE — President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a sweeping new arms reduction pact Thursday that pledges to reduce the stockpile of deployed, strategic nuclear weapons in both countries and commits the old Cold War adversaries to new procedures to verify which weapons each country possesses.

Obama arrived in this historic city Thursday morning to formalize a step toward the vision he laid out here a year ago — of a world without nuclear weapons.

The leaders met privately for about an hour before signing the pact in a ceremony hosted by the Czechs and full of symbolism. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was among the many dignitaries looking on as Obama and Medvedev began signing, at one point exchanging amused glances as if to say, “This isn’t so hard.”

“Together, we have stopped the drift, and proven the benefits of cooperation,” Obama said in remarks a short time later. “. . . This day demonstrates the determination of the United States and Russia — the two nations that hold over 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons — to pursue responsible global leadership.”

No doubt many on the right will criticize Obama for this, but the truth of the matter is that this is exactly in line with what Ronald Reagan hoped would happen:

President Reagan was a nuclear abolitionist. He believed that the only reason to have nuclear weapons was to prevent the then Soviet Union from using theirs. Understanding this, he argued in his 1984 State of the Union Address, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. But then would it not be better to do away with them entirely?”

Ronald Reagan regarded nuclear weapons, according to Nancy, as “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.”

(…)

In his book, Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Paul Lettow quotes Reagan as saying, “I know that there are a great many people who are pointing to the unimaginable horror of nuclear war…. [T]o those who protest against nuclear war, I can only say, ‘I’m with you.’” Lettow also quotes Reagan as stating, “[M]y dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth.”

We aren’t at that day yet, Mr. President, and it may still be a long time before the world is peaceful enough that these weapons can be fully abolish, but I think you’d be pleased with what happened in Prague today.

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Last night it broke that the President would be announcing what is clearly a major change to American nuclear strategy:

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons.

But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.

And, the specifics:

It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the Cold War. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons, or launched a crippling cyberattack…

White House officials said that the new strategy will leave open the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack, if the development of such weapons reaches a level that makes United States vulnerable to a devastating strike.

Mr. Obama’s new strategy is bound to be controversial, both among conservatives who have warned against diluting America’s most potent deterrent, and among liberals who were hoping for a blanket statement that America would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.

And boy has it brought the conservatives out of the woodwork alright. Just take a trip over to JammieWearingFool, Riehl World View, Power Line, or Fausta’s Blog to get a taste of what I mean.

Before getting to the substance of the new policy, my most immediate problem with this is quite simple —- why would we announce to the world when we would and won’t use nuclear weapons if we’re threatened or attacked ? Wouldn’t it be better to keep them guessing, keep them thinking that if they attack the American homeland with chemical, biological, or radiological weapons, or a cyberattack, they they could face the risk of a massive American response, including the possible use of nukes ? That’s what deterrence is supposed to be about isn’t it ?

As for the substance, I see problems with the idea that we would allow a WMD attack (and biological weapons are WMDs) on U.S. soil without leaving open the possibility of a response in kind. That doesn’t mean we would have to use nuclear weapons in such a case. After all, there might be a smaller scale method of retaliation that would have the same impact. However, telegraphing in advance that we might not respond to, say, a small pox attack in Denver, with massive nuclear retaliation on the country that sent it our way strikes me as a mistake simply because of the message it sends to a potential attacker.

But, does this policy really matter when it comes to what would actually happen if we ever got into a situation where using nuclear weapons would be considered necessary ?

Probably not.

I think Allahpundit makes an excellent point here:

The idea here, of course, is deterrence — comply with the NPT and you have nothing to fear — but (a) no one, least of all Iran, thinks Barack Obama’s going to use nuclear weapons against targets inside a non-nuclear state whether it’s following the NPT or not, and (b) everyone, including Iran, understands that a devastating attack on the U.S. by whatever means will create such unbearable pressure on the president to retaliate that these rules will be revisited instantly. It’s the nuclear equivalent of his interrogation protocol, essentially. America does not and will not torture captured terrorists as a matter of national policy — but if the CIA really, truly believed that a bomb was about to go off somewhere, don’t be surprised to see that policy politely ignored, to great public acclaim for Obama afterwards for having done what he needed to do to try to get the information.

Or, as Power Line puts it:

Does anyone doubt that the administration would use nukes in a heartbeat if it considered such measures necessary? I don’t. The problem is that when the time comes to actually use nuclear weapons, it is too late. The danger here is not that the Obama administration has really gone pacifist. On the contrary, the significance of today’s announcement appears to be entirely symbolic–just one more chance to preen. The problem is that our enemies understand symbolism and maybe take it too seriously. To them, today’s announcement is another sign that our government has gone soft, and one more inducement to undertake aggressive action against the United States.

In other words, if an attack happens a President will respond with nuclear weapons if they believe it’s necessary regardless of what’s in this policy paper.

It’s the “if an attack happens” part that is the problem.

My concern with this new policy is that it seems to scale back the deterrent value of nuclear weapons. Ronald Reagan of all people knew that the only way nukes “worked” is the extent to which they prevented war. If you ever get in a situation where using them is necessary, you’ve already lost, and if we ever get to the point where there has been a terrorist attack on the United States massive enough for the President to be considering nuclear retaliation, we’ve already lost. The point is to deter the attacks from happening in the first place. And the danger I see is that this policy dilutes the deterrent value of America’s nuclear arsenal.

But Obama’s policy isn’t aimed at that issue, it’s aimed at fighting the last war:

The problem is that the President is fighting the last war, not the current one. The nuclear arms race was a desperate problem of the 70s and 80s – but the nuclear problems we face today come from rogue states like Iran and North Korea and from terrorist organizations attaining a small nuclear device. The President is wasting time putting diplomatic pressure on Russia and China over a Cold War issue when he should be more worried about putting pressure on Tehran and Pyongyang.

Let’s face it, the Russians aren’t going to attack us and neither are the Chinese. The people we need to worry about are the Iranians, the North Koreans, and any other nation or terrorist group for whom the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction hasn’t quite sunk in just yet. By telegraphing in advance our plans, we’ve lost a strategic advantage, and we’ve sent a message that the world is going to interpret in ways that the President probably doesn’t want them to.

I will leave the last word, for now, to Roger L. Simon:

I detest nuclear weapons as much as the next person, but this approach seems — I hate to repeat myself, but I will — deranged. It also has very little to do with actually reducing nuclear weapons in the world. Again, it seems like the act of an extreme narcissist, someone who wants to parade himself as anti-nuke while ignoring the checks and balances that have, in fact, kept nuclear weapons in their silos for decades.

Deterrence has worked. And now Obama wants to abandon or diminish it at the very moment Russia is modernizing their arsenal. What a strange person. President Weirdo, indeed. As I said in my previous post, “good luck to us.”

Good luck indeed.

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A Chechen rebel warlord and self-styled “emir” of Russia’s seething North Caucasus region has claimed responsibility for the Moscow metro bombings, which killed 39 people Monday. He warned of more attacks to come.

Doku Umarov – whose own violent path has traced a transition from nationalist rebel and president of the unrecognized independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria to Islamist warrior who aspires to lead all Muslims of the region away from Russian rule – is emerging from the shadows as the key leader of a loose confederation of Islamist groups who are fighting against Moscow and its local proxies across Russia’s turbulent and mainly-Muslim southern flank known as the North Caucasus.

“On March 29 in Moscow two special operations were carried out to destroy the infidels and to send a greeting to the FSB (Federal Security Service – the former KGB). Both of these operations were carried out on my command and will not be the last,” Mr. Umarov said in a videotaped message posted on Kavkaz Center, a multilingual website run by Chechen rebels.

The attackers, believed to be Chechen female suicide bombers, struck first at Lubyanka station, located beside FSB headquarters in Moscow, and 45 minutes later at Park Kultury, which is just across the street from a huge complex that houses the Kremlin’s news agency RIA-Novosti and the studios of the state-run English-language Russia Today satellite TV network.

About a month ago, in a threat that went largely unnoticed, Umarov warned that the “zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia… the war is coming to their cities.”

Some experts now believe that an unclaimed blast on a Russian luxury train last November, which killed 25 people, might have been his work as well.

“This is a major change in tactics, to hit Russian cities, begun about six months ago,” says Alexei Malashenko, an analyst at the Carnegie Center in Moscow. On Thursday, another blast in the southern republic of Dagestan killed two suspected militants, who officials accused of transporting explosives.

The New York Times has the video of the statement and a translation.

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MOSCOW — Two explosions killed at least 12 people in the volatile North Caucasus region on Wednesday in what appeared to be attacks targeting the police, investigators from the Russian prosecutor’s office said.

One of the explosions was caused by a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform, officials said.

The bombings, which also injured at least two dozen people, occurred in Dagestan, a region of southern Russia that borders Chechnya, where attacks against the police occur almost daily.

The attacks came two days after two female suicide bombers set off explosions in the Moscow subway during the morning rush hour, killing 39 people, and they seemed to offer a further challenge to the Russian authorities.

Law enforcement agencies throughout the country have been on alert since the Moscow bombings, and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin has ordered the security forces to drag those responsible “out of the bottom of the sewer and into the light of God.”

Those Russians aren’t ones for subtlety are they ?

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Moscow, Russia (CNN) — Russian investigators combing two subway stations attacked by female suicide bombers think Chechen rebels may have been behind the rush-hour strike that killed dozens of people.

“Our preliminary assessment is that this act of terror was committed by a terrorist group from the North Caucasus region,” said Alexander Bortnikov of the Federal Security Service, in reference to the investigation at one of the blast sites.

“We consider this the most likely scenario, based on investigations conducted at the site of the blast,” Bortnikov said. “Fragments of the suicide bombers’ body found at the blast, according to preliminary findings, indicate that the bombers were from the North Caucasus region.”

Two female suicide bombers set off explosions that rocked the two subway stations in central Moscow during rush hour Monday morning, killing at least 38 people and wounded more than 60 others, officials said.

Although the Chechen rebels have yet to claim responsibility, Bortnikov’s statement is a strong implication that Chechen rebels fighting for independence were behind the strike.

This isn’t the first time that Chechen terrorists have struck in the heart of Russia. In 2002, a group of Chechen rebels took over 800 people hostage in a Moscow theater. By the time that was over over 120 hostages were dead. And, in 2004, a group of Chechens invaded a school in Beslan and more than 300 people, including 150 children were killed.

No doubt, Moscow will respond.

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MOSCOW — What’s powering your home appliances?

For about 10 percent of electricity in the United States, it’s fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones.

“It’s a great, easy source” of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Capital and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war.

(….)

In the last two decades, nuclear disarmament has become an integral part of the electricity industry, little known to most Americans.

Salvaged bomb material now generates about 10 percent of electricity in the United States — by comparison, hydropower generates about 6 percent and solar, biomass, wind and geothermal together account for 3 percent.

Utilities have been loath to publicize the Russian bomb supply line for fear of spooking consumers: the fuel from missiles that may have once been aimed at your home may now be lighting it.

But at times, recycled Soviet bomb cores have made up the majority of the American market for low-enriched uranium fuel. Today, former bomb material from Russia accounts for 45 percent of the fuel in American nuclear reactors, while another 5 percent comes from American bombs, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade association in Washington.

Frankly, it doesn’t spook me at all.

It is, though, a testament to just how much the world has changed

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MOSCOW, Oct. 13 — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held lengthy talks with senior Russian officials Tuesday as part of an intense American effort to improve relations, but she made few gains on a top U.S. priority — increasing pressure on Iran.

Clinton urged her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to work together on developing possible sanctions in case international negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program fail, said a U.S. official close to the talks.

But the Russian was cool to the idea, saying he was concerned about backing Iran into a corner, the U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive sessions.

Emerging from four hours of talks with Clinton, Lavrov told reporters that “threats, sanctions and threats of pressure” against Iran would be “counterproductive.”

Senior administration officials said that the differences are tactical rather than substantive. Both sides agreed that Iran would face sanctions if it failed to carry out its obligations, a State Department official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Of course, there are different kinds of sanctions and if all the Russians are willing to agree to are meaningless sanctions then we’re really gained nothing.

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• AP: Hillary And Obama Met Yesterday In Chicago

In a story that’s receiving headline treatment from Matt Drudge, Robert Fisk is reporting in The Independent that several oil producing states, along with China, Russia, and France are working on a plan to abandon the dollar:

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

(…)

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years’ time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.

“These plans will change the face of international financial transactions,” one Chinese banker said. “America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate.”

There’s really no way to over-estimate the impact that something like this could have for the U.S. economy.

The end of the dollar as a global reserve currency would mean the end of dollar hegemony, and the end of the ability of the Federal Government and the Federal Reserve to hide the consequences of endless budget deficits and inflationary monetary policy. It would mean that trillions of dollars in reserves held by foreign governments and banks would be dumped on the market, and that would mean that the value of the dollar would finally begin the decline that has seemed inevitable to anyone who understands the inherent instability of a fiat currency system.

As for why it’s happening, well we’ve got nobody to blame for that but ourselves.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Giving some ground on a top priority of President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that sanctions are rarely productive but he opened the door to tougher ones to halt Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program.

”In some cases, sanctions are inevitable,” the Russian leader said after he and Obama held talks on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meetings.

Negotiations are scheduled for Oct. 1 between Iran and a group of six nations, including the U.S. and Russia, over its nuclear ambitions. Obama wants to pursue tougher sanctions if those meetings yield nothing. And yet Russia, which has close economic ties with Tehran, has stood in the way of stronger action against Iran in the past.

That made Medvedev’s admittedly muted support for sanctions bigger news, and something that pleased the White House.

”Unfortunately, Iran has been violating too many of its international commitments,” Obama said. ”What we’ve discussed is how we can move in a positive direction that can resolve a potential crisis.”

He and Medvedev share the goal of allowing Iran to pursue peaceful nuclear energy, but not nuclear weapons, Obama said. ”This should be resolved diplomatically and I am on record as being committed to negotiate with Iran in a serious fashion to resolve this issue.”

However, if Iran does not respond during negotiations, ‘’serious additional sanctions remain a possibility,” Obama said.

Medvedev said Russia and the U.S. could help ensure success by providing incentives for Iran to comply. He did not elaborate.

Too early to say whether this will result in anything, but if a war that nobody can afford is to be avoided, Russian cooperation is essential so this is a hopeful sign.

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