> -----Original Message----- > From: Chris Olson - SunPS [mailto:Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM] > Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 9:33 AM > To: Dragaera at dragaera.info; Bato001 at aol.com > Subject: Re: Defender always wins? (Was: Re: on contradictions and s > > John D. Barbato, wrote: > > I like the idea of nuclear weapons when we are the only > ones to have them. > > Heh. Every other country feels the same way, I'm sure. As > long as *you're* the only one with a gun (sword, WMD, etc.) > you're going to feel fine. > > I can see two viable options: give everyone one (and wouldn't > it be great to have your own nuclear weapon?;) or get rid of them all. There is a third option, although how "viable" it is may be contentious: Give nuclear weapons to those who have governments and political philosophies that are unlikely to allow them to be used in the modern age. While the US is the only country to have used nuclear weapons in the past, I have trouble envisioning the situation where we use nuclear weapons despite our current knowledge of their effects and dangers; we are most likely to use conventional weaponry. A group of people who don't consider themselves a nation with certain shared ideologies can't be allowed to have nuclear weapons, since any government they put in place would be too unstable and would be just as likely to be overthrown by radicals as continue. A group of people who do have a shared ideology, but which ideology that subordinates all human life, including their own, to some principle that is not related to stability for tomorrow, also should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons, since they are more likely to use them, even though their government is safe from radical usurpation. Whether we belive the US, or Britain, or Canada, or Germany, etc...to be one of those countries with a government and political philosophy that makes them unlikely to use nukes, is contentious (although I seriously doubt Canada would ever use a nuke, since they've never even wanted to develop one). Maybe we think there is no government or nation based on a political philosophy that is not reasonably suscepitible to radical revolution; maybe we think there is no government or nation that ultimately places human life before everything else except stability. I, personally, don't think the U.S. is likely to use nukes in either the near or distant future, so I don't see a danger to the rest of the world in allowing the U.S. to have them. The same is true of Canada, Germany, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland...but I don't know about Iran...they have a stable government now, based on a recent radical revolution, and their philosophy seems to subordinate human life to prinicples that are not related to stability in this world. North Korea, also revolutionary, and as a dictatorship is vulnerable to the problem of succession and the instability brought about when there is a nation ruled by a person and not by a principle. In the end you may ask "if they are unlikely to use them, why give them to these nations at all? They wouldn't be a credible threat to use them, so there would be no deterrent value to them having nukes. Having any nukes on the planet at all must contribute in some way to the chance that someone crazy will get their hands on one and detonate it, so why not just get rid of all of them?" The only answer I can give to this is: Even though these nations are "unlikely" to use them, their systems of government (stable, based on shared ideology, placing human life ahead of most principles) are the ones I would like to see continue on the planet as the best organizing principles for humanity. To allow them to be destroyed by a radical nation, or overrun by a horde of disparate groups who then fight amongst themselves, is unconscionable. So as a last resort against the hordes and radicals, these nations get nukes. And they are the ones who would only use them as a last resort, given what they know about the effects of nuclear detonation. I can't believe I let myself get dragged into this.... Shawn