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The world’s white elephant – nuclear weapons

Fortunately there are renewed calls for the elimination of these outdated weapons. The risk of possible use of nuclear weapons by terrorists calls for completely new strategies and does nothing to justify the growth and preservation of existing strategic arsenals by new and aspiring nuclear states.

On the uselessness of nuclear weapons Scientific American By Ashutosh Jogalekar | January 13, 2013 “……..The future   Nuclear weapons are often compared to a white elephant. A better comparison might be to a giant T. rex; one could possible imagine a use for such a creature in extreme situations, but by and large it only serves as an unduly sensitive and enormously destructive creature whose powers are waiting to be unleashed on to the world. Having the beast around is just not worth its supposed benefits anymore, especially when most of these benefits are only perceived and have been extrapolated from a sample size of one.

Yet we continue to nurture this creature. Much progress has been made in reducing the nuclear arsenals of the two Cold War superpowers, but others have picked up the slack and continued to pursue the image and status – and not actual fighting capability – that they think nuclear weapons confer on them. The US currently has about 5000 weapons including 1700 strategic ones, many of which are still on hair trigger alert. This is still overkill by a huge margin. A hundred or so, especially on submarines, would be more than sufficient for deterrence. More importantly, the real elephant in the room is the spending on maintaining and upgrading the US nuclear arsenal; several estimates have put a figure of $50 billion on this spending. In fact the US is now spending more on nukes than it did during the Cold War. In a period when the economy is still reeling and basic services are continually threatened, this kind of spending on what is essentially a relic of the Cold War should be unacceptable……

the US especially now has enough conventional firepower to protect itself and to overpower almost any nuclear-armed state with massive retaliation. The fact is that nuclear weapons as an instrument of military policy are now almost completely outdated even from a technical standpoint. But until zealous and paranoid politicians in Congress who are still living in the Cold War era are reined in, a significant reduction on maintaining the nuclear arsenal doesn’t seem to be on the horizon.

Fortunately there are renewed calls for the elimination of these outdated weapons. The risk of possible use of nuclear weapons by terrorists calls for completely new strategies and does nothing to justify the growth and preservation of existing strategic arsenals by new and aspiring nuclear states. The most high-profile recent development has been the introduction of a bipartisan proposal by veteran policy makers and nuclear weapons experts Henry Kissinger, William Perry, Sam Nunn, George Schultz and Sidney Drell who have called for an abolition of these weapons of war. Some would consider this plan a pipe dream, but nothing would be accomplished if we don’t fundamentally alter our thinking about nuclear war. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/01/13/on-the-uselessness-of-nuclear-weapons/#add-comment

January 14, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general