Nuclear Weapons Essay

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The world, as a whole, faces a critical decision point in history. This decision is not a conflict taken lightly. Ever since the World Wars, Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Cold War, nukes are still an ongoing experiment. Nowadays it seems that the nuclear crisis has only gotten worse. With the thousands of terrorist groups and several rogue countries capable of making the bomb, the horrific threat of total world destruction has only been heightened. Many people have tried to put this conflict into perspective. There are many plausible paths one can take in arguing for or against possessing nuclear missiles. A great point is made by Graham Allison, a professor of government at Harvard University, in the Technology Review where he states; "Consider the consequences if just one nuclear bomb exploded in just one U.S. city. The immediate reaction would be to block all entry points to prevent another bomb from reaching its target, disrupting the global flow of raw materials and manufactured goods. Vital markets for international products would disappear, and financial markets would crash. Researchers at Rand, a think tank funded by the U.S. government, have estimated that a nuclear explosion at the Port of Long Beach, CA, would cause immediate indirect costs of more than $1 trillion worldwide and that shutting down U.S. ports would cut world trade by 7.5%. " (Graham, 68-73). Allison goes on to explain that the long-term economic effects would be even worse than the initial impact. In my opinion, this basically comes down to the risk factor. The consequences will be death of the innocent and economic depression if the right thing is not done. Only one minor screw-up could change the whole world as we know it, if nukes are not secured and destroyed. As a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard, Stuart Koehl, in The Weekly Standard, puts it, “Without the inhibitions imposed by nuclear weapons, there was really nothing to constrain the propensity of some countries to settle disputes by warfare, and nothing to restrain the level at which wars were waged.” (Koehl, 2). This quote most nearly states that nukes basically prevent wars, nuclear wars, and bloodshed. I counter Koehl with the fact that there are many wars that have occurred and many wars that are going on in which countries with nukes participated and or participate in. Ward Wilson, an independent scholar, in the magazine DISSENT counters with the fact that; This is hard to prove. "Imagine a man who says that the lucky penny he keeps on his dresser has prevented nuclear war. When he asks for proof, he says, ‘Well, I’ve kept that penny on the dresser for sixty-two years and there’s been no war, so it must be working!’ Nuclear weapons may provide crucial safety and security, although it is hard to imagine how dangerous weapons that cannot be defended against are the best means of providing safety." (Wilson, 65). This shows that countries with nukes have a sense of security since they have such powerful weapons they are able to use to defend their country. This idea comes down to how useful are nuclear missiles in preventing war. I’d say they’re not useful and they’re not safe either. The safety of the worlds citizens should always comes first. What are nukes good for? Because if you fire a nuke, other countries will retaliate causing worldwide destruction and chaos in multitudes never seen before. In the Air and Space Power Journal, the established author Robert R. Monroe talks, in an article titled ‘A Perfect Storm over Nuclear Weapons’ about the consequences of other countries, including North Korea, obtaining the bomb saying that; "If North Korea solidifies its nuclear-weapons status, it’s likely that other neighboring states (e.g., Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) will opt to go nuclear in self defense. If Iran produces nuclear weapons, the same will probably occur with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and other Mideast states Monroe then en goes on to say that this
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