The Obama bid to rid the world of nuclear weapons boosts US security -- minus the threat of Armageddon
The Obama plan to rid the world of nuclear weapons would mean more US focus on non nuclear weapons, which would give the US more military leverage, without causing a nuclear Armageddon.
Tokyo
As tensions over Iran and North Korea’s programs rise, President Obama continues to push for his ambitious quest to rid the world of nuclear armaments.
His detractors see it as, at best, another sign of ivory tower idealism, and, at worse, as a surrender of America’s most potent tools. The Nobel Peace Prize
Committee, meanwhile, praises him for a “vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”
Both sides misunderstand the consequences of a nuclear-free world. Politics and technology make it preferable for the United States to eliminate the Bomb, not out of generosity, but to strengthen its military might. There are multiple scenarios in which the use of nuclear weapons could go wrong. Consider these three:
The US might resort to atomic warfare:
1. If an enemy nation decided to engage in a massive act of aggression against vital US interests, generally defined as the US homeland or that of America’s closest allies.
The logic is that no one will ever think of attacking the US given the certainty of immediate and terminal punishment, with possession of the Bomb.
But today, there are nonnuclear options that can, in Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay’s immortal words, “Bomb them back into the Stone Age.” These include nonnuclear attacks on electric grids (a very soft version of these were used against Serbia during the Kosovo war), destroying telecommunication networks, and, if one wishes to kill millions of enemy citizens, high-precision weapons that can wreak havoc on dams, bridges, chemical factories, oil refineries, nuclear reactors, water treatment plants, toxic dumps, and so forth, thereby causing countless fatalities.
