The A bomb

[Tgace]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007066

Reflecting on this history, there's a tendency to wax melancholic about the dangers of letting the proverbial genie out of his bottle, and to suggest we stuff him back in. Thus the reflexive opposition by Democrats and some Republicans to developing new nuclear weapons such as the "bunker buster" and to the resumption of nuclear testing. The Senate has even zeroed out of the President's budget funding for a high-powered laser that would help gauge the reliability of the U.S. arsenal without testing. We also frequently hear calls for the U.S. to lead by example by further reducing its arsenal, and for the Bush Administration to "strengthen" the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by agreeing to the useless Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Yet the notion that the nuclear genie can be willed out of existence through the efforts of right-thinking people is as absurd as it is wrongheaded. Just as guns and knives will be with us forever, so too will the bomb. We need bunker busters because North Korea and Iran are using underground facilities to build weapons that threaten us, and we must be able credibly to threaten in return. We need to have nuclear tests because the reliability of our principal warhead, the W-76, has been seriously called into question, and China must not be enticed to compete with us as a nuclear power. In neither case does the U.S. set a "bad example." Rather, it demonstrates the same capacity for moral self-confidence that carried America through World War II and must now carry us through the war on terror.

 

[MA-Caver]

Yet the notion that the nuclear genie can be willed out of existence through the efforts of right-thinking people is as absurd as it is wrongheaded. Just as guns and knives will be with us forever, so too will the bomb.

Actually it is very conceivable that guns knives and "the bomb" can be eradicated. It is the willingness to do so and the all around lack of trust that is the problem.
Still the very idea of reducing nuclear weapons or downsizing them is equally. It is the same as trading swords for daggers and a cannon for a .22 pistol... either way these weapons are just as destructive... meaning... they kill just as well as their larger counterparts.
It is a utopian idea that the human inhabitants of this planet will live in an H.G. Wells (Things to Come) or a Gene Roddenberry type of society in the future. There will always be violence between peoples. Sounds cynical but we've haven't had a peaceful moment on the entire planet since man became civilized. I'd be surprised if anyone can find at least ONE day where one group of people was not fighting another group. Even one on one there hasn't been a single day. There's no data or research or anything like this to support this statement/theory/whatever but ask yourself if this is true or no. No matter how small a conflict, man has and always will be violent in some-form or another towards his fellow man for whatever reason.
Some tribe deep in the amazon wasn't fighting another. A pair of street gangs duking it out in some alley or field? Some bar fight somewhere? A couple of siblings?
On a large scale we've had relative peace throughout the world, but on a medium to small scale we're still tussling with each other. The hottest spot being the gulf.
Getting rid of nuclear weapons? Not likely when they've proven an effective deterrent to the large scale conflicts. The big-boy testosteroned muscle flexing of the cold war was nothing more than a "oh-yeah?" "yeah!" contest when you come right down to it.
Now that smaller countries like Korea, India, Pakistan, Iran and so forth are holding nuclear capabilities... the big boys are getting nervous. It'll make them tighten their grip on the weapons that they have (left). The smaller countries probably will be damned to let go of the ones they have.
No, such ideas of total world wide disarmanent is a pipedream at best.
Far as China goes... the adage still applies "... you fell for one of the classic blunders... first of all is this... never get into a land war with Asia..."
Morally right as we were during the 40's? Interesting concept... hmm, did we have an secondary interest like we do now? We were in a depression sure at the time Hitler and Tojo was flexing their muscles but we still came out ahead didn't we? At least in europe and that was with the help of other countries equally threatened. On the pacific side... we ended up developing and using an atomic weapon to minimize the cost in human lives.
Morally huh?

Hmmm...

 

[sgtmac_46]

Men are a base lot, that is clear. Until all nations on this planet become nations of laws, not men, then we will continue to find the need fight nuclear proliferation. The nuclear genie is only dangerous because certain rogue nations seek to gain them for the purposes of ensuring their continued existence against democratic forces.

Until the day when all men are free, these large level conflicts will loom heavy over us. Conflict will always be with man, but someday that conflict may at least take place in a court room or, at worst, on an individual level, not with massed armies or high-tech weapons.

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
John Adams

"There is no good government but what is republican. That the only valuable part of the British constitution is so; for the true idea of a republic is "an empire of laws, and not of men." That, as a republic is the best of governments, so that particular arrangement of the powers of society, or in other words, that form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the law, is the best of republics.
John Adams

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[MA-Caver]

Smart man that John Adams... :asian: