Comments on: Military Madness

By: Sharron Clemons

Sharron Clemons — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 20:16:50 +0000

I can see your point. As long as all countries are disarming at the same time, option 3 is the best. And we both agree, I think, that the US government’s first priority in foreign policy is to protect US citizens. But I think that it would be extremely difficult to maintain our position of military superiority without nuclear weapons, unless we can find a way to ensure that other countries will follow the rules. And past experience says they won’t.

By: Jeremy Cave

Jeremy Cave — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:03:22 +0000

Continually through this debate the recurring theme is that the U.S leads disarmament. One of the primary reasons for U.S hatred is the belief that it acts like a bully, pushing or applying leverage to weaker countries to follow it’s bidding – though maybe Obama can overturn that. Furthermore, from reports it seems like America is as bad as the rest when it comes to secrecy, abuse of human rights and injustice. Though many issues raised about America’s honesty have been directly linked to the Bush Administration I, as a UK Citizen, wouldn’t feel trusted in the Americans following the requirements they make of the Globe and therefore of themselves.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 04:19:01 +0000

By: Rastaban

Rastaban — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:53:29 +0000

I should add that biological & chemical WMD (both research and development) should be outlawed by universal treaty as well. So far it has been primarily the United States which has stood in the way of banning chemical weapons. Which again is a terrible strategic mistake. The U. S. simply doesn’t need chemical weapons to be successful at war. In fact, chemical & biological weapons are far more useful for stateless terrorists than they are for us. If anything, such weapons “even the playing field” — it is to our strategic benefit to outlaw them since we are already so militarily dominant.

By: Rastaban

Rastaban — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:41:41 +0000

Negotiation nuclear disarmament would not be easy, but as a goal it is not "blindly idealistic". What is absurd (and blind) is the assumption that the proliferation of nuclear weapons that is currently occurring can be stopped or even slowed down. The technical knowledge necessary has spread beyond a stopping point. The result is that we have 3 choices: 1) accept a world in which 40 or 50 countries add a weapon to their arsenal which is only useful against the United States when clandestinely provided to stateless terrorists. (Because states have territories that can't be defended against nukes, but stateless terrorists have nothing to defend -- this is why weapons of mass destruction are better suited for terrorists organizations than for nations.) 2) aggressively and preemptively bomb any adversary state we suspect of developing nukes, thus increasing the rank of our enemies and providing them even more motive to get WMD into terrorist hands. 3) negotiate a world-wide nuclear disarmament treaty. This has to include Israel and Pakistan and India as well as wannabes like N. Korea and Iran and Turkey etc. Options 1 & 2 are clear losers for the United States. That leaves some version of 3. Note that nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation has already been done successfully. In fact under the non-proliferation treaty the U.S. and Russia have already committed in principle (I believe) to eventually eliminating their nuclear weapons. The U. S. has in recent years backed away from these existing treaties. (In fact it appears that U.S. Government officials in Washington sold nuclear secrets to Turkey which passed them on to Pakistan which then gave them to Iran and N. Korea.The Bush administration is trying to prevent investigation of this horrendous betrayal.) I believe the surest way to bottle up the nuclear threat is to prohibit both weapons and nuclear power plants. As we see with the debate about Iran, a nuclear weapons program can conceivably be hidden behind a nuclear power plant program. So the surest option is to outlaw both peaceful and non-peaceful programs. And of course, as Ronald Reagan said, "trust but verify" -- there would have to be a sweeping inspection program covering every country in the world. Fortunately, the world as a whole does not require nuclear power to replace dwindling oil supplies. The technology exists to do it with solar alone, if necessary. The elimination of Indian nukes makes Pakistan safer, and vice versa. The same goes for Russia, China, Europe and the U.S. And the elimination of the risk of nukes getting into terrorists hands makes everyone safer. Israel is arguably the toughest sell, but their 200-400 nukes can't really be used against their enemies, and the existence of those weapons forces Israel's enemies to develop nukes of their own. I believe a nuclear-free middle east enhances Israel's security in the long run. (Besides, by law the United States can't send foreign aid to Israel if they have nuclear weapons -- which is leverage which can be used to encourage Israel to join in nuclear disarmament.) It won't be easy but it can be done. It must be done if the 21st century is to have a happy ending. And that's just being realistic.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:05:37 +0000

Prove that we could everyone else to get rid of their WMD, and I’ll gladly advocate getting rid of ours. Only a fool doesn’t realize that there are quite a few thugs in the world. To be a thug, top-of-the-line weapons are necessary to stay in business. For everyone else, top-of-the-line weapons are necessary to make sure the thugs don’t kill them.

Since we’re being blindly idealistic here, why stop at getting rid of weapons? Why not just get rid of all the people who would misuse them, both in our country and other countries?