My answer to Could nuclear proliferation guarantee world peace?
Answer by Desmond Last:
When ISIS invaded Iraq they did not care that there are 18,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Al Qaeda does not care, neither does Boko Haram and Al Shabaab. Nor did the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam war and neither do the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The children who live in absolute poverty in Pakistan and India, whose poverty pays for the nuclear weapons their respective countries have, do not benefit from the supposed peace nuclear weapons bring.
Nuclear weapons can never be used. The first that will be used will set-off a chain reaction that will end our world.
Why then do we have them? Because Putin does not trust Obama? Because we cannot all agree to get rid of them?
Partly. But in the main because we do not know where they all are. If we knew where they all were, and could detect nuclear weapons being built, we could get rid of them all. That of course, and our world leaders working together.
However as they cannot even unite in bringing peace to Syria I doubt if that is likely to happen.
That we need so many, is a question we should be asking.
We should be working towards a system of tracking everything in the nuclear weapon build list, including those who can make them. Once we have a system of nuclear weapons ‘track and audit’ in place we can then reduce their numbers.
More nuclear weapons brings more risk of them being used. We need less.
Could nuclear proliferation guarantee world peace?
