RE: Nuclear Advice

Milan Vodicka, a Czech national living in Prague, was present at a speech given by President Barack Obama during his tour of Europe earlier this month. Amongst all the things said by the president, the one item that stuck out the most to Vodicka was his call for the complete eradication of all nuclear weapons in the entire world. In his article, Nuclear Advice, Vodicka points out all of the flaws with this particular proposal. For starters, these weapons are the only things keeping countries such as Great Britain, France, and Russia from losing their status as world powers, thus making it virtually impossible to get them to go along with Obama’s proposal. In addition, supposing that by some miracle all nations agreed to dismantle their weapons, all it would take is a single rouge state or organization or even a group of rouge scientists to plunge the world into chaos if they managed to acquire a nuke. All in all, despite living in the Czech Republic, a country with no nuclear weapons, Vodicka feels much safer in a world where many countries have nuclear weapon capability than he would if all nations decided to completely eliminate their nuke supplies

I agree strongly with Vodicka on this matter, and find it very hard to comprehend those who think the elimination of nukes is a plausible idea, including Mr. Obama. Without a doubt there is a strong danger stemming from the absurd amount of nuclear weapons in existence, and I have absolutely no problem with countries working together to reduce their stockpiles because lets face it, there really isn’t any good reason for countries to have enough weapons to destroy the entire world more than a thousand times (barring an alien invasion or something). However, to suggest that nations get rid of all of their nuclear weapons is just ignorant and naïve. Even in the extremely unlikely case that every single nuke in the world is eliminated, what would prevent them from being built again sometime down the road? Just because we get rid of the weapons won’t mean we’ll have forgotten how to make them, and if one country decides sometime that they don’t feel like cooperating anymore, then they could build a few nukes and assert themselves as the world’s leading power.

For the sake of argument, lets go one step further and say that by some act of God, no one builds a nuclear weapon ever again. I would still say that the world is better off and safer with a good balance of nuclear powers. The existence of nuclear weapons is the single greatest deterrent against war that the world has ever seen, as well as the greatest contributing factor of the general stability the world has seen since World War II. During the years of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were bitter enemies and during any other period in human history, they very likely would have went to war with each other over something eventually. Both sides were terrified of conflict with the other due to the fear of nuclear escalation, and thus World War III was prevented. Vodicka brings up a perfect example of nukes as a deterrent and a stabilizer when he mentions the situation in Israel. Israel's nuclear weapons are, and have always been, the only thing preventing the slew of neighboring Islamic states from overrunning and conquering them. I strongly believe the elimination of nukes would be a grave mistake on any level, and it was refreshing to read an article by a citizen of a non-nuclear power who agrees with me.