ArchPundit

Via Rich

.Schock’s campaign manager, Steven Shearer, responded that “academia routinely looked down on President Reagan and ridiculed him when he said that the Soviet Union was going to fall into the ash heap of history.” Reagan’s controversial positioning of Pershing missiles in Europe in the early 1980s “led to the first arms reduction in history,” Shearer claimed.

Rich makes this point:

Here’s the difference: Reagan deployed American missiles to Western Europe, and America controlled those missiles. Selling Pershings to Taiwan means they would control those missiles, not us.

Rich is leaving one important point unstated–this would violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty and destroy the entire international framework for controlling the spread of nuclear weapons.

Oh, and start a war with China.

But let’s go to Ronald Reagan and his views on Non-Proliferation–views I happen to strongly agree with:

President Ronald Reagan lists the following basic guidelines for U.S. nuclear non-proliferation policy:

– The U.S. will seek to prevent the spread of nuclear explosives to additional countries as a fundamental national security and foreign policy objective.

– The U.S. will strive to reduce the motivation for acquiring nuclear explosives by working to improve regional and global stability and to promote understanding of the legitimate security concerns of other states.

– The U.S. will continue to support adherence to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (Treaty of Tlatelolco) by countries that have not accepted those treaties.

– The U.S. will view a material violation of these treaties or an international safeguards agreement as having profound consequences for international order and U.S. bilateral relations, and also view any nuclear explosion by a non-nuclear-weapon state with grave concern.

– The U.S. will strongly support and continue to work with other nations to strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to provide for an improved international safeguards regime.

– The U.S. will seek to work more effectively with other countries to forge agreement on measures for combatting the risks of proliferation.

– The U.S. will continue to inhibit the transfer of sensitive nuclear material, equipment and technology, particularly where the danger of proliferation demands, and to seek agreement on requiring IAEA safeguards on all nuclear activities in a non-nuclear-weapon state as a condition for any significant new nuclear supply commitment.

In fact, Reagan brought China into the framework:

1984

1984 — April U.S.-SINO NUCLEAR TRADE PACT The United States signs a nuclear trade pact with China after Peking agrees to join the IAEA and accept IAEA inspection of any exported nuclear equipment and material. The agreement comes into force December 16, 1985.

Ronald Reagan would think Shearer and Schock are dangerous lunatics.