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Ethical, but very real, dilemma about nuclear power

in a nuclear context, total destruction of the target is assured and so, if one’s own annihilation is certain, is retaliation for its own sake a valid course of action?….is a reaction that wipes out the rest of humanity morally justifiable? Further, if one decides it is, what would the post-holocaust world look like and would it be worth living in for those who were not part of the original conflict?
This is just one of the dilemmas we face when considering the application of nuclear power,…..

Review: How the End Begins by Ron Rosenbaum | CultureMob, 24 Feb 2011, “………………. argues Ron Rosenbaum, author of the highly-acclaimed Explaining Hitler and The Shakespeare Wars, in his sensational new book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III . We are, and always have been, perilously close to nuclear war at any given time, and the threats are not just external. Glaring, to the point of grimly comical, flaws exist in our own nuclear response processes that make very real the possibility of a global inferno started by mistake.
The book goes further than just an examination of our nuclear infrastructure and asks some penetrating questions of both human existence and the nature of war. An example of this, and I cannot stop thinking about it, is about retaliation. When under attack a nation almost always responds in kind, with the exercise of military power to fend off the aggressors, preserve remaining lives and, ultimately, win the war. However, in a nuclear context, total destruction of the target is assured and so, if one’s own annihilation is certain, is retaliation for its own sake a valid course of action? Instinctively, if one is struck one strikes back, but when the weapon of choice can kill tens (if not hundreds) of millions of people at once, is a reaction that wipes out the rest of humanity morally justifiable? Further, if one decides it is, what would the post-holocaust world look like and would it be worth living in for those who were not part of the original conflict?
This is just one of the dilemmas we face when considering the application of nuclear power,…..

Review: How the End Begins by Ron Rosenbaum | CultureMob

February 24, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics, resources - print