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762000-219075 Essay Essaynuclear weapons have made the world a more dangerous place GROUP10 HamadsaeedALshamsi(BSBAW 171023) HamadhadefAlshamsi(BSBAW -171024) Khalifaibrahimalhamadi(BSBAW -171014) Does the spread of nuclear weapons make the world safer or more dangerous? Most people usually have an instinctive reply to this question: Of course, it makes things more dangerous. How could it not? It might seem surprising, therefore, that not all nuclear analysts agree, and the debate remains unresolved. Like so many of the issues relating to nuclear weapons, the debate is built largely on speculation and ambiguous historical experience. Nuclear weapons remain attractive to insecure or ambitious states. In regional rivalries such as the subcontinent, East Asia, and the Middle East,the bomb still has influence. Whatever else one has to say and presumably not much has been left unsaid about the nuclear strategy of the past six decades nuclear status still imparts extraordinary prestige and power. The nine current members of the nuclear weapon club still possess about 27,000 operational nuclear weapons of various types between them. At least another 15 countries have on hand enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. Since 1945, many influential voices have expressed alarm that the spread of nuclear weapons will inevitably lead to world destruction. So far, that prediction has not been proved right. But is that because of effective efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, or, to borrow a phrase from former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, just plain dumb luck?Nuclear proliferation remains urgent not just because of the risk of a terrorist organization getting its hands on nuclear weapons, but because the proliferation of weapons necessarily means a proliferation of nuclear deterrents. Nuclear weapons have long been a force multiplier, able to make up for imbalances in conventional military power. Paradoxically,then, the unassailable lead of the United States in military power and technology might actually invite other nations to acquire the bomb as a way to influence or even deter American foreign policy initiatives. The lesson of the first Gulf War, one Indi an general was reported as saying,is that you do not go to war with the United States without the bomb, the 2003 invasion of Iraq serving as yet another glossy advertisement of the protective power of a nuclear arsenal. This is not a new development. It is, in fact, a lesson American policymakers have been concerned about for some time, and one for which no easy solution seems likely. Bill Clintons Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, outlined the problem in December 1993:During the Cold War, our principal adversary had conventional forces in Europe that were numerically superior. For us, nuclear weapons were the equalizer. The threat to use them was present and was used to compensate for our smaller numbers of conventional forces. Today, nuclear weapons can still be the equalizer against superior conventional forces. But today it is the United States that has unmatched conventional military power, and it is our potential adversaries who may attain nuclear weapons. Accordingly, Aspin concluded, the United States could wind up being the equalized. To take an earlier example, John F. Kennedy acknowledged in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis that even a small number of nuclear weapons could deter even the most powerful states. A central element of the proliferation debate revolves around the perceived effectiveness of nuclear deterrence. If deterrence works reliably, as optimists argue, then there is presumably less to be feared in the spread of nuclear weapons. But if nuclear deterrence does not work reliably,pessimists maintain, more nuclear weapons states will presumably lead not just to a more complicated international arena but a far more dangerous one. A Lesson Before Dying EssayMoreover, recent scholarship in the fields of history and deterrence theory questions deeply held beliefs regarding how nuclear weapons might influence the behaviour of national decision-makers. For example, declassified official documents from the Cold War reveal occasions when nuclear catastrophe was avoided by luck or seemingly random events rather than by the clearly identifiable operation of nuclear deterrence. There are further examples where existential characteristics of alerted nuclear forces appear to have caused crises that nearly resulted in their use. Finally, a growing number of strategists and technical and political elites regard nuclear weapons and deterrence theory as anachronistic. Some view the whole idea of nuclear weapons as out of step with todays global threats, understanding of power and notions of human rights and the rule of law. Emerging structural changes in the international system (such as globalisation) undercut traditional theories of nuclear deterrence, while trends in information technology make possible much more agile and discriminate forms of military power. These arguments dovetail with others that assert that our greater understanding of the Earths environmental systems and humankinds interdependence with those systems has made eliminating nuclear weapons more salient. A quite limited exchange of nuclear weapons against urban areas could trigger or accelerate global climatic catastrophe (cooling rather than warming), leading to the deaths of millions who had been uninvolved in the conflict itself. Many citizens, scientists and laymen alike, view nuclear-weapons abolition as an essential milestone in the development of human civilisation, a moral, ideological and practical campaign that could catalyse the transformation of international relations and improve the outlook for civilisation at a critical time. Humanity stands at an historic juncture, facing multiple interconnected threats within a compressed timescale. Besides the potential use of nuclear weapons, these include environmental degradation, resource scarcity, climate change, overpopulation, global disease pandemics, financial crises and natural disasters. The sort of international cooperation needed to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is similar to that needed to address these other transnational threats. Elimination of nuclear weapons would at least symbolically improve the chances of successfully addressing other existential threats. Obama, and others who seek a world without nuclear weapons, are right. Eliminating nuclear weapons is profoundly in the national-security interest of the United States and its allies and friends. Without major progress towards the elimination of nuclear arms, moreover, it is unlikely that the world will be able to avoid nuclear use for a prolonged period or respond adequately to security challenges related to climate change, resource scarcity and environmental degradation. The international community must reject the myths and expose the risks of the ideology of nuclear deterrence if it is to successfully meet the mutual global challenges of the twenty-first century.