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By Shoshana Bryen
 WASHINGTON, D.C.—If you are eloquent in the forest, do you make a sound? President Obama's speech to the New Economic School in Moscow was not broadcast by any of the major Russian television stations, so most Russians will have only Kremlin-packaged news of the summit. A sort of "plus ça change..." moment in Russian-American diplomacy.
The speech had some very good sections but one very troubling non sequitur. We really, and surprisingly, liked the way the President followed the obligatory announcement that America isn't perfect with all the reasons we are better than the Russians.
But he also said both:
"The notion that prestige comes from holding [nuclear] weapons, or that we can protect ourselves by picking and choosing which nations can have them, is illusory"; and
"That is why America is committed to stopping nuclear proliferation, and ultimately seeking a world without nuclear weapons."
To seek a world without nuclear weapons means precisely picking and choosing which nations can have them - the President chooses none. What if another nation chooses differently? Iran and North Korea say through their actions, "Our arsenal is our choice and our business." Is their national determination to have them less valid than Mr. Obama's determination that no one should have them?
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Yes, actually. But only because we are willing to make a value judgment about the nature of governments and the threats they pose to the rest of the world. The value judgment the President has made is only that nuclear weapons are bad.
We do not fear American nuclear weapons, or French or British. Our relationship to Soviet nukes changed when they became Russian, but both they and Chinese nukes give us some cause for concern. We have less trouble with Indian nuclear capability than Pakistani. The same goes for the theoretical Israeli capability rather than the North Korean or Iranian. See a pattern?
Which leads to a problem with the President's suggestion that we cannot "protect ourselves by picking and choosing which nations can have them." Actually, you protect yourself with defenses and the good news is that he did not back down on the radar and interceptors for Poland and the Czech Republic. On the other hand, he did say elsewhere on the trip that if the Iranian program could be eliminated, missile defenses wouldn't be necessary, which looks a lot like asking Russia to help us choose against the Iranian nuclear program. Unless the President means the rest of us should disarm first to encourage the Iranians to make the right choice themselves. We don't think so.
As a straightforward matter, the United States and a likeminded consortium of countries - including Russia if they wish - should proceed to expend the money and technological prowess in which the President has such great faith (a faith we share) to build the missile defenses that could protect us from whatever countries do not de-select themselves for a nuclear arsenal.
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