Nuclear Weapons  - Seth Windmuller

Nuclear weapons have been a sensitive topic ever since they were created and eventually used by the United States in World War 2.  Since then, none have been used with the intent to kill but the fear they still strike in the world is pretty significant.  The reason for this is the outstanding amount of damage even one can cause to people and infrastructure of an opposing state.  There are many arguments of whether nuclear weapons should be allowed or banned throughout the world.  I believe that nuclear weapons are an essential part of maintaining safety and security throughout the world.  With that being said, my argument is that nuclear weapons should not be banned or disabled.

Nuclear weapons serve a great purpose with the powerhouse states that have them.  These states are China, United States, Russia, France, UK, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea.  This purpose is a balance between these states in specific.  There is mutually assured destruction that is known between these states with nuclear weapons.  This means that basically if for example, France decided to bomb the UK with nukes, they better be ready to receive the same thing in return which of course would cause so much damage that no one would really benefit from doing it.  With this realization, most likely these states won’t be attacking each other, which creates a sort of balance between them. 

A way that nuclear weapons maintain a sense of safety and security would be keeping terrorist threats and actions to a minimum.  Although there is still terrorism, I believe that nuclear weapons keep terrorists away for fear of what states with these weapons can do by fighting back.  Without such weapons what is stopping terrorists from constantly working to destroy lives of every country. 

There is an argument given by Thomas Schelling where he talks about although banning nuclear weapons would be counter-productive, he believes that reducing the amount of them worldwide might be helpful.  There are a couple of reasons why this would be a good idea.  One would be if the states with nuclear weapons would reduce their numbers and amount of weapons at the ready, the tension between these states dramatically.  Lets say the United States dropped the number of nukes at the ready, China and Russia would feel a little better and less worried about the United States using them ever.  Therefor could increase cooperation between states.  Another good reason to reduce the amount of them worldwide would be so theses nukes have a better chance of not falling into the wrong hands.  By this I mean possibly terrorists or groups who would use these nukes to kill people innocent people all over the world.  This almost happened with Iraq back when we went to war with them.  We believed they had either learned how to build nukes or have somehow gained possession of them.  If a group like ISIS gained possession of nuclear weapons the amount of destruction they could cause would be catastrophic.

These are reasons of why nuclear weapons are needed in this world to maintain balance.  But also at the same time, putting a restriction on the amount of weapons to have at the ready would be smart to control the bad possibilities that come with nukes.