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[audigy7]

I was reading up on Atomic weapons today for whatever reason and I was curious about your opinions about them. Do you think the world would be a better place without Atomic weapons

Comments

[uraniun235]

I've heard (from someone who claims to have worked at one of the aforementioned civilian think-tanks in Washington DC, plotting out possible nuclear attack strategies among other things) that it may not necessarily be nuclear weapons themselves that are the most threatening in terms of total annihilation as it is the ICBM, which cannot be recalled. He tended to advocate that it would be awesome if we could all agree to ban ballistic missiles and rely solely on bombers for nuclear attack; bombers can be recalled, bombers can be more easily detected and defenses erected against. I don't know if I agree with him, but that's another perspective.

I'm inclined to think that we would in fact be better off without nuclear weapons. The potential for the greatest cataclysm in human history, for what would basically be the end of society as we know it, is simply too great. It's not likely, but it's there.

However, realistically, nuclear weapons are a logical derivative from nuclear power (any civilization with the technology to build nuclear reactors can semi-easily progress from there to nuclear bombs), and I'm totally pro-nuclear power plants, so in my world there would probably still be nuclear weapons. Multilateral disarmament is a nice dream, but I doubt we'll see the end of nuclear weapons in our lifetimes.