Nuclear Weapons: Destructors or Saviors?
When one thinks of complete and total annihilation, the plumage of an infamous mushroom
cloud is undoubtedly an image which comes to mind. This ominous image is ". . . a tiger
which must be looked in the eye," (Looking the Tiger in the Eye, 1982). The reason for
which we must examine the issue of nuclear weapons, is best stated in the words of J.
Robert Oppenheimer, ". . . until we have looked this tiger in the eye, we shall ever be
in the worst of all possible dangers, of which we may back into him." In an attempt to
prevent ourselves from backing into this proverbial tiger, we will discuss the following
subheadings of nuclear arms: should countries dismantle their nuclear arms; and whether a
nuclear war can occur, without resulting in a total nuclear holocaust of both conflicting
parties.
Virtually all, who know of the rise in modern-day technology, oppose the first
subheading, dismantling nuclear weapons; but, before stating their reasoning, we will
change our viewpoint to that of the naive (no insult intended) or too optimistic.
Assuming all nations dismantled their nuclear weapons tomorrow; the world would be
peaceful: no more nuclear weapons, no more eminent destruction, no more bad guys. What?
Exactly! How can we eliminate the evil side of humans, their inherent dark side? This
leads to the reason supporting the maintenance of existing, and the development of future
nuclear weapons. When a nation, terrorist group, or someone with ill intent secures
sole-control of nuclear capabilities, the world will be at the mercy of this group's
sanity, since the world is currently nowhere near an acceptable defensive system. So
from this scenario, one can infer that in the present, the only deterrent to nuclear war
is the existence of nuclear arms in opposition to each other.
The second subheading, whether a nuclear war can occur without escalating into a
victorless, nuclear holocaust, is an evolving argument due to its dependency on modern
technology. The two stances on this topic are known by their acronyms of NUTS and MAD
(Nuclear Utilization Target Selection, and Mutually Assured Destruction respectively).
The position taken by NUTS is that limited use of nuclear weapons can occur, without
igniting an all-out, nuclear holocaust-resulting in the devastation of both conflicting
parties, and hence a mutual loss. The major fault on which NUTS lies is that no nuclear
nation possesses, or is expected to soon possess, an acceptable defensive shield against
nuclear weapons. While this fault is not due to our ability to destroy inbound weapons,
it is due to our accuracy in destroying the sheer quantity in which they can be deployed.
For instance, even if the kill percentage of an inbound nuclear strike is 98 percent
(unrealistically high), the remaining 2 percent can have a substantial result, when one
finds that the strike consists of 6,000 nuclear weapons-which translates into 120 nuclear
detonations on C3I (command, control, communications, and intelligence) capabilities in a
country. The most austere disadvantage to NUTS, is the cruel and blatant torture which
would result from its implementation-stemming from the collateral effects of fire,
genetic damage, and slow agonizing deaths. In the aftermath of a nuclear war, some have
said, the living would envy the dead (The Nuclear Controversy, 1985). Having said this,
it is easy to see why the accepted and foreseeable position of the masses is MAD. The
thesis to MAD, which states that the world is inherently MAD (due to its inability to
protect its population from a large-scale nuclear war), is dead on target, when one
realizes that this protection-while being physical-may also be concerning their conscious
states.
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote that in war, "we are all embued with the
feeling of participating in a world event . . . it's during peacetime that we should
have had that dedication and that seriousness-we'd perhaps have avoided the war."
Recently, true to the wishes of Sartre, an international panel of nuclear powers convened
to adopt a policy of "No-First Strike." This occurrence, while weighting popular opinion
on the MAD stance, also exemplifies the words of an American Nobel Laureate, William
Faulkner, "I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal,
not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a
soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance . . ."
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