Nuclear Weapons: a Complicated Question
by The question of whether or not nuclear weapons should be a part of this world has been widely debated. There is no real right answer to the question when it is contemplated deeply enough. It can be a simple morality question or for many people including myself, it is a moral dilemma. On the one hand, nuclear weapons do damage life everywhere and threaten an end to the world but on the other hand, they did end a war and they do deter further war among the superpowers. Either way, this is not a question that is to be considered on only the moral level. It makes more sense when thought of from an international standpoint when taking the politics of the world into account.
Last quarter I took an International World problems class that discussed this topic in fair depth. It reminded me that nuclear weapons are not an easy problem to solve. I had always been against the use of nuclear but this was the first class to mention the other problems related to the weapons. I had always thought of nukes as a bad weapon of war that should never be used. What I had not taken into account was their role on the earth today. Yes, nukes were developed as a war weapons but they have evolved into political weapons (Roskin et Berry 224).
The first bombs of nuclear caliber were “little boy” and “fat man” which were developed by the United States to help end World War 2 without a bloody invasion of Japan. I don’t think this was necessary because Japan was near surrender already after Soviet entry to the war (Our Hiroshima). Since this basically proves that the bomb drop was not necessary, we must conclude that it was a political act. By dropping the bombs, the U.S. was flexing its muscles and telling other countries not to mess with us. The problem with that was the same problem that we have to deal with today. Other countries are scared of countries with nuclear weapons and they seek to even the odds by gaining nuclear weapons of there own. This is the same problem we are dealing with in North Korea and Iran right now.
North Korea and Iran are seeking nuclear weapons in order to deter war with other countries. The sad part about this is that until the country actually has the nuclear weapons, there is no deterrence. An example can be found in Iraq. Although we never found any WoMDs one could argue that the reason for Iraq having them would have been to deter war. As the results show, just thinking that Iraq was producing weapons caused a war in itself. In this way, striving for nuclear deterrence actually causes war. Yet countries still seek the even playing field.
Deterrence in itself is not a real concept. Yes, having nuclear weapons makes a would-be attacker less likely to attack but it does not change the way the war is fought once an attack is launched. If both sides have nuclear weapons, neither side will use them in the war. This is due to the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). This concept which governs nuclear war is based on the belief that an all out nuclear war would be the end of all the countries involved. Since neither country wants to be destroyed, neither will use nuclear weapons. Because of this, the war would be fought using conventional means. Therefore, war hasn’t really changed because of nuclear weapons. So basically nuclear weapons are just for show, at least in most cases.
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