USA’s great nuclear weapons stockpile belies its talk about disarmament

Limiting nuclear weapons: Diplomacy and dialogue The Hill, By Catherine Thomasson, M.D. 13 Dec 13, As diplomats seek a negotiated solution to Iran’s nuclear program, another crucial dialogue has escaped notice. The need remains for further dialogue in the U.S. to limit the stockpiling of nuclear weapons at home. Twenty years after the Cold War, the United States maintains a nuclear arsenal that far exceeds any strategic requirement.

The U.S. still has 8,000 nuclear weapons while only 300 warheads would annihilate our entire population. With changing global realities, it’s time the United States eliminated the nuclear stockpiles that cost billions, do nothing to address 21st Century security challenges, and instead only pose a great security risk to U.S. citizens.Nuclear weapons cause more damage than can be imagined and kill indiscriminately. A twenty megaton bomb vaporizes all living things within a two mile radius with temperatures higher than the surface of the sun; the explosive force in a four mile radius flattens everything in sight including underground structures, and causes spontaneous fires from flammable materials for a 16 mile radius. There is no “acceptable” level of nuclear weapons that is consistent with the ultimate survival of civilization.

Under agreements such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996, many countries have agreed to limit the testing and detonation of nuclear weapons with the goal of achieving total nuclear disarmament. The UN provides a necessary forum for multilateral diplomacy and cooperation – but progress isn’t being made fast enough…….

The conversation about reducing the U.S. nuclear stockpile must happen now. This is an urgent threat, a threat that cannot be ignored while we attempt to eliminate other proliferation risks. As former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) recently wrote “The continuing risk posed by nuclear weapons remains an overarching strategic problem, but the pace of work doesn’t now match the urgency of the threat.”…..

As long as there are arsenals of nuclear weapons, we are living on borrowed time. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to eliminate from the world weapons that destroy not only those we consider the enemy, but also ourselves . Thomasson, M.D. is executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility.http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/192844-limiting-nuclear-weapons-diplomacy-and-dialogue

December 15, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war

4 Comments »

This is a reality that US claims a lot about nuclear disarmament and arms reduction but stands at the top of nuclear stock piles. It is very dilemma of US double standards which speed up the nuclear proliferation rather than reducing or culminating them. US also its ally Israel made much hue and cry on Iranian nuclear issue but actually they themselves are culprits. In order to divert the world’s attention from their own nuclear assets, the Americans voiced aloud about global nuclear disarmament. This is called the power politics.

Comment by Zoonash | December 16, 2013 | Reply
To date, the international community has paid lip service to erecting strong new barriers to nuclear acquisition while mustering only a unenthusiastic and inconsistent effort to do so. By contrast, a truly unified coalition could overcome that inactivity by enforcing the Global Zero program worldwide. It would engineer universal verification and enforcement regimes, using hard incentives and punishments, not moral example, to convert the wayward.

Comment by Aadesh | December 16, 2013 | Reply
Nuclear weapons have proved to be destructive and lethal by nature in the hiroshima and nagasaki incidents. Disarmamnet is an ideal concept and world cannot be make free of nuclear weapons. No doubt nuclear non proliferation treaty has limited the number of nuclear weapons state but not the number of nuclear weapons itself. US and Russia used to talk about the arms reduction or disarmament but excluding themselves from the required criterion of being non nuclear weapon state. US started talking about arms reduction treaty in collaboration with Russia but that treaty was limited to words only, there wasn’t practical implication of New START. which shows the dubious nature of US policy towards arms reduction. To set the norm of arms reduction, it is mandatory to for the super power to play a major role and act like a role model for the rest of the states of the international community.

Comment by Zoe | December 16, 2013 | Reply
Quite Interesting, One hand Obama talks about Global zero on the other Hand US has more than 8000 nuclear weapons. What i feel Obama wanted to get just Nobel peace prize but in reality he was following the policy of cold war era that is maximization of nukes. Today, the lethality of latest weapons have increased thousand times more than earlier ones. But unfortunately, the drive for nuclear weapons has increased.

Comment by Aazar Kund | December 16, 2013 | Reply