Is it good or bad for the United States and Russia to reduce their nuclear arsenals?

Either answer is wrong. But it was a trick question, based on a false equivalency.

A reduction in the Russian arsenal is a self-evident good. While no longer operating under the old Soviet model of world domination, Russia is a lumbering third-world nation run by paranoid leaders still nostalgic about the days when Moscow made other capitals snap to attention with a nuclear threat.

A reduction in the American arsenal means mitigating the strength that won the Cold War and kept evil nations at bay for 65 years.

While we are told daily that we have enough nukes to destroy the world several times over, that's not the point. A city's police force has enough bullets to slaughter huge segments of the population, but that's not what they're for.

A well-armed police force makes criminals think twice about committing crimes. A well-armed America makes global tyrants and terrorists think twice about plying their dark will.

The ignorant assertion that our nukes and their nukes are the same is not new. Ronald Reagan ignored such droning 30 years ago, driving the Soviets to their knees by refusing to gut U.S. nuclear capability and by refusing to scrap missile defense technology.

Is no one alarmed that modern-day Russia still bristles at missile defense? After years of complaining about our plans to protect two U.S. allies that were once Soviet satellite states, Moscow enjoyed the satisfaction last year of seeing President Barack Obama yank the rug from beneath Poland and the Czech Republic.

The White House announced - with a straight face, I recall - that this would prod the Russians into an ambitious partnership to pressure Iran to ditch its nuclear ambitions. The unreliable Russians have given some lip service, but always with limitations that render their words meaningless. The administration has told us that even China might join in this serendipitous goal. But this week, at his own summit designed to foster a mirage of nuclear competence, Obama learned that Chinese President Hu Jintao has no such harsh intentions against his Iranian friends.

As this latest political theater whimpered to a close, it took its place alongside other examples of meaningless puffery designed to pass as thoughtfulness and substance.

But real clarity has been all but lost on the nuclear issue. Here's what it sounds like, and if it is jarring, it is because so is the reality.

The treaty Obama signed with the Russians was worse than meaningless; it was dangerous, giving the illusion of progress even as President Dmitry Medvedev suggested that U.S. missile defense projects in Europe might cause Russia to back out.

But that treaty and the useless "Nuclear Security Summit" are not the worst developments of the last few days. That distinction goes to Obama's decision to alter one of our most important positions, the Nuclear Posture Review, the general statement of how we view our arsenal and our responsibility to weigh its potential use with wisdom.

For decades, the most valuable part of America's nuclear policy has been that no misbehaving nation has known what exactly might trigger a response. Well, they know more now.

Obama has done every tyrant the favor of hedging on nuclear retaliation in the event of a chemical or biological attack against America. Evil leaders enjoy further comfort from knowing America will not develop any new nuclear technologies, such as limited-yield devices that could deter terrorist nations from their most dangerous plans.

As America lets down its guard, Obama describes his actions with the typically self-congratulatory term "historic." I will not argue. Such sad appeasement by the world's only superpower is surely nothing less.