http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2010/04/09/feature-01
Is it worth ratifying? Does it compromise US sovereignty?
I don’t think it hurts our sovereignty any more than congress does when it is in session. The ultimate goal of limiting the state’s possession of nuclear weapons is a good one. However, would like it to go much farther.
Screw treaties. Unilaterally disarm.
My biggest fear about nuclear disarmament is that it allows states to once again engage in their favorite pastime: total war.
That’s assuming nuclear weapons will never be used again which isn’t a valid logical conclusion. nukes can still be used. just cause they were only used against a population, aside of nuclear fallout from testing, twice that doesn’t mean they will never will be used again. An argument that they will be absolutely used again or won’t be absolutely used again are good stories but not grounded in anything logical. It’s still possible to use nukes and that’s certain.
An tell the “total war” theme to individuals of the UK, U.S., Spain, France, Canada, Africa or Iraq and Afghanistan, Vietnam, North and South Korea, etc… and any other country that has invaded or been invaded since the two atom bombs fell in Japan and see what they think.
I will state it. Nukes will never be used again. And I don’t care if I can’t prove it.
When was the last time a decent war erupted between nuclear powers? If it weren’t for nukes would not exist, Europe would be a big crater and US troops would still be fighting a 6-years old COIN campaign in . Nukes are the best thing that ever happened. If they become cheap enough we can say bye-bye to war for good. Even if they come to be used again, I know that every victim of a nuclear attack will have saved a hundred-fold its number by preventing all-out war.
But I also partially agree with John: the should unilaterally disarm and keep only its SSBNs and tactical weapons. Screw what the Russians want to do.
That’s a point already made. If nukes can’t be used again then what’s the deterrence in the knowledge of some people?
Then you metaphorically shoot yourself in the foot if you want them for deterrence. I didn’t say “never”. I made that absolutely clear in my post. I said they possibly will be used again. If they absolutely couldn’t be used again, then any arguments that nukes are good for deterrence are baseless.
A good point indeed. But now, please put yourself into the Israeli PMs shoes: Syria has just punched through the Golan heights and is dead set on making you disappear from the map. They have S-400s which keep you fighters form even taking of and your ground forces are being decimated. The US is incapable of moving a single soldier as it is pineed down on some upheaval in Iraq. Now, will you or will you not nuke a whole armored colum just to get the point through? Sure you will.
When most people say that “nukes won’t be used” they do not mean (and I certainly did not) that God has decreed so, and that there is something inherently unusable in nuke. When it comes to atrocities, conventional bombing produces much more destruction and suffering than nukes. What is meant is that nukes will deter enough to prevent the rise of a situation in which their use will be commendable. To think that in order to deter nuke must be used from time to time, is to fall into Franklin’s trap: that blood need to refresh peace form time to time.
true, you saw no argument from me to this.