Should countries be allowed to have / test nuclear weapons?

[bboss]

Ever since the end of the Second World War, the nuclear power has loomed like a dark cloud over civilization. Currently, there are five nuclear states under the NPT, or Treaty on the Non-Proliferaton of Nuclear Weapons. These are:



Russia, currently with 1,790 warheads

United States. currently with 1,750 warheads

France, currently with 290 warheads

United Kingdom, currently with 150 warheads


China is part of the NPT but does not currently possess any nuclear weapons.


Another sovereign state widely considered to possess nuclear weapons is Israel (up to 400 warheads).



Non-NPT states declaring possession of nuclear weapons are India (110 warheads stockpiled, estimated), Pakistan (120 warheads), and North Korea (10 estimated warheads).



So what do you think? Which, if any, of these countries should be allowed to have nuclear weapons?

 

[lady_sky skipper]

None of them, nobody should have any nuclear weapons. At least with conventional weapons there's always a chance for the Earth to recover. With nuclear weapons we would be condemning our Earth to a slow death, while I'm smart enough to know that banning nuclear weapons won't stop war. A nuclear weapon ban will at least prevent the world from committing suicide.

 

[bboss]

None of them, nobody should have any nuclear weapons. At least with conventional weapons there's always a chance for the Earth to recover. With nuclear weapons we would be condemning our Earth to a slow death, while I'm smart enough to know that banning nuclear weapons won't stop war. A nuclear weapon ban will at least prevent the world from committing suicide.

While it is true that one or two countries and none of the rest possessing nuclear weapons is a bad thing, there is a little-known fact that is actually quite interesting: no country with nuclear weapons has ever been declared on by another with nuclear weapons, and no country with nuclear weapons has ever had any nuclear weapons used on them.

while I'm smart enough to know that banning nuclear weapons won't stop war. A nuclear weapon ban will at least prevent the world from committing suicide.

Nuclear weapons bans won't stop countries like Russia, North Korea, and Iran from pursuing these designs and / or obtaining yellowcake uranium for this purpose. It is impossible to completely limit the building of nuclear weapons as we do not have a monopoly on uranium or plutonium. I think nuclear weapons are here to stay.

One of the most glorious times in the United States was actually during the Cold War. The 1950s was a decade of prosperity for most people. And yet we lived under the shadow of the bomb for nearly fifty years.

With nuclear weapons we would be condemning our Earth to a slow death,

Most nuclear / radiation - affected areas are completely stable within one to two centuries, albeit with higher rates of background radiation.

Just think about it: if most nations on the planet had nuclear weapons, would there be more or less wars? Probably less, because the threat of nuclear warfare is usually enough to deter conflict. Not very many countries declared war on the United States and Russia during the Cold War.

Another thing to consider is that: 1) nuclear weapons have not been used in combat for over 70 years, and 2) extreme provocation would have to result for nuclear weapons to be used. It took a World War for United States to develop and use the bomb.

Lastly, if we banned all nuclear weapons from everyone, there would be no "world powers", there would just be the nations with the largest armies (which, among the top 5, currently include China, North Korea, Russia, and Pakistan.) So I think that the United States having nuclear weapons can be viewed as a very good thing.

 

[GatGoat]

there is no rational reason for any country to do this

 

[Nohbl]

I'm a conspiratard so I worry what would happen for the world if certain countries abandoned one of the greatest deterrents Earth has ever known. The NWO is on the brink of bringing everything under its control. It's not going to invade the holdouts if they possess nukes. So long as there are holdouts, there's hope.

 

[Crooked Crow]

Every single nation has the *right* to protect its own capital and citizens.

If the threat of nuclear retaliation ensures this- that's fine. Otherwise you have bullies like USA & China destabilizing regions with the sole purpose of monopolizing resources, but that's a subject for another time.

None of them, nobody should have any nuclear weapons. At least with conventional weapons there's always a chance for the Earth to recover. With nuclear weapons we would be condemning our Earth to a slow death, while I'm smart enough to know that banning nuclear weapons won't stop war. A nuclear weapon ban will at least prevent the world from committing suicide.

>i realize banning stuff doesn't work
>but let's try banning it anyway

Right, sound logic.

 

[Alsyght]

No. Not at ****ng all. Nuclear weapons are 1/3 of the bull**** that could condemn us to the apocalypse. Donald Trump and Kim Jong and possibly Putin are THE WORST possible people to be in charge of all that power. Have you seen regular bombs? Military bombs? The TSAR BOMB. No one, not even an entire utopian civilization should have that power. But since WE DO HAVE THEM, I’m not saying the should be disarmed, but I’m saying they should be disarmed. There is tension with America and other countries and something big is gonna happen where there will be a high, near threat, that someone will use them because some old white pissbaby will get his feelings hurt and press the button.

 

[Deleted member]

Ideally? No. But practically it's going to take quite some time and political shifting to get every country with nukes to get rid of them.

Funny thing is though, ideally we'd have no reason to actually use nukes. But I believe that nukes being launched is a possibility. Why? Just the circumstance of human stupidity alone really.

 

[Dattix]

Funny thing is though, ideally we'd have no reason to actually use nukes. But I believe that nukes being launched is a possibility. Why? Just the circumstance of human stupidity alone really.

This right here is the biggest concern that organizations like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (the guys behind the Doomsday Clock) have about nukes - not their potential use in warfare, but them being accidentally used.

There have been many times throughout the past few decades where nuclear war almost happened by accident, but one incident I like to cite is the one that happened on September 26th, 1983. For context, Reagan's first term is widely considered one of the tensest, if not THE tensest, points in the Cold War, and at this point in particular, the shooting down of KAL 007 over Soviet airspace brought East/West relations to the brink.

One lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov was manning a radar bunker that day. It was supposed to be his day off, but he was covering for a colleague. He was working when he suddenly got an alert on his screen, showing five inbound ICBMs from Minot Air Force Base. At this point, the Soviets were very paranoid of a "decapitation strike" by the Americans, so seeing this would have set most radar operators off. Petrov, however, had the courage to log it as a technical error, with his reasoning that a genuine decapitation strike would involved several orders of magnitude more missiles than what was reported on the screen. As it turned out, the equipment (which was recently installed) was faulty, and was reacting to the Sun's rays hitting them in an odd enough manner to make it look like ICBMs coming from that direction. Once the Soviet Union fell and his actions became more widely known, he was given several awards and accolades for quite literally saving humanity. It's likely that had anyone else been in that chair that day, Super Smash Bros. would never have been created, to say the least.

The moral of the story is that communication and trust are very important in reducing the dangers nukes or any other weapon of mass destruction pose - and unfortunately, we live in a day and age of once again tense relationships between big, nuclear powers and failing arms control treaties. This can be reversed, by coming together and building a close network of trusts, and not resort to chest-thumping and arms races to stay ahead. It's also important to realize that nukes have come to be a defining force in global security. Before their creation, wars could be started outright for any reason. Now, open war between powers carries the risk of global annihilation. It's likely that if I waved a magic wand and removed all nukes and missiles from the world today, all Hell would break loose tomorrow as that constraint was removed. So, reductions based on trust and cooperation are important, but keeping the lines of diplomatic communication are perhaps moreso.

 

[Sucumbio]

Ever since the end of the Second World War, the nuclear power has loomed like a dark cloud over civilization. Currently, there are five nuclear states under the NPT, or Treaty on the Non-Proliferaton of Nuclear Weapons. These are:



Russia, currently with 1,790 warheads

United States. currently with 1,750 warheads

France, currently with 290 warheads

United Kingdom, currently with 150 warheads


China is part of the NPT but does not currently possess any nuclear weapons.


Another sovereign state widely considered to possess nuclear weapons is Israel (up to 400 warheads).



Non-NPT states declaring possession of nuclear weapons are India (110 warheads stockpiled, estimated), Pakistan (120 warheads), and North Korea (10 estimated warheads).



So what do you think? Which, if any, of these countries should be allowed to have nuclear weapons?

Have? No one. The first was the worst decision any human ever made, ever...

To do it more than once is just asking for Game Over. Man.......