Nuclear weapons are a paradox.
On the one hand they are the most useless weapons of all, since wars are usually fought for control of land/economy/populace, each of which would seriously damaged, if not wiped out altogether in the event they were used. It is arguably this scenario which has prevented their use since WW2. I believe also that this is the viewpoint of most advanced/democratic nations. It could be argued, therefore, that nuclear weapons are weapons of peace, since the existence of "mutual assured destruction" (MAD) keeps an effective lid on hostilities.
On the other hand, though, they are excellent weapons of terror and if a nation's powerbase is threatened, with no hope winning either a fight war or, domestically, a political battle, there could be some who would use it as a suicidal act of defiance. Such countries might be identified among the dwindling number of rogue states and, of course, terrorists, for both of which groups the future is of little relevance and a "glorious" death is honourable.
One hopes that the latter group are squashed or overthrown, for they are the dangerous ones.
Nuclear weapons are then, paradoxically, both the best peace enforcers and the most dangerous weapons ever. However, they exist. The genie is out of the bottle and no nuclear-capable nation would agree to surrendering them whilst there are those who can make them and use them. Even if all the countries of the world agreed to scrap them, what guarantee would there be that someone, somewhere, would be secretly building them? None.
That's why, sadly, we have to keep our deterrent, despite the cost.
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Topic: trouble on the 38th Parallel world....again (Read 4145 times)