Last week’s announcement from Moscow, of a new treaty between the U.S. and Russia to begin cutting their nuclear stockpiles by a quarter to a third, is indeed “modest” and perhaps downright “disappointing” in its tentativeness, as critics have pointed out.
Even so, the heart of the future beats here.
To cobble such an accord together, the Eagle and the Bear have to dance an awkward, uncomfortable dance. They have to go against their natures, vacate, you might say, their souls and begin letting go, for the sake of a vague higher good, what they cherish most deeply: their claws, their fangs, their ferocity.
This is nuclear ferocity, of course, and it’s absurd, but I think I’m beginning to understand at last a lifetime of intense disappointment in the realm of disarmament, nuclear and otherwise.
