Five members of the United Nations which are known to have nuclear weapons have signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT); the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China. Four more members of the U.N. have never signed the NPT; India, Pakistan, Israel and South Sudan. The first three are known to have nuclear weapons. North Korea which is not a member of the U.N. has nuclear weapons and has not signed the NPT. All together, nine countries are known to have nuclear arsenals. North Korea is thought to have only a few bombs. The U.K, France, China, Israel, Pakistan and India each have a few hundred bombs at most. The U.S. and Russia each have over four thousand nuclear devices and the means to launch them at each other. It is estimated that the detonation of as few as a hundred nuclear warheads could bring on a "nuclear winter" and end human civilization. So, with the exception of North Korea, any conflict that "went nuclear" between the other eight countries with nuclear weapons could "end the world." For decades, there has been an international effort to get rid of nuclear weapons. The NPT was a result of international cooperation with that goal.
Barack Obama, the current U.S. President gave an important speech in Prague in 2009 in which he strongly endorsed nuclear disarmament. However, lately he has been working on upgrading the U.S. nuclear weapons program. He has asked for twelve new submarines that can carry nuclear missiles, up to as many as one hundred new nuclear bombers and at least four hundred new land-based nuclear missiles. He has also requested funds to upgrade storage and development sites. Obama has called for spending three hundred and forty eight billion dollars over the next ten years and a total of one trillion dollars over the next thirty years.
Obama's requests constitute the biggest expansion of U.S. nuclear weapons since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Part of the reason for this move to expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal is because of the current expansion of the Russian nuclear arsenal and the increasing belligerence of Russian foreign policy which includes the threat to use nuclear weapons.
Needless to say, the plans for upgrading and expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal have met with strong criticism from those who have been working for nuclear disarmament. A member of the Union of Concerned Scientists said that “The plan to spend a trillion dollars over the next three decades on a new generation of nuclear warheads, bombers, submarines, and intercontinental ballistic missiles — all for a weapon that can never be used — is reckless, wasteful, and downright dangerous. Nuclear weapons are useless against the military challenges we face today, and the world would be safer if the United States reduced its spending on nuclear weapons systems, not throw more money at them."
Hillary Clinton is a Democratic candidate for President. She was a Secretary of State under President Obama. She is not known for being opposed to the use of the U.S. military and she voted for the Iraq war when she was in Congress. However, she did say in a Democratic debate that the spread of nuclear weapons was the greatest threat to national security. When asked recently about the nuclear expansion plans, she said "Yeah, I’ve heard about that. I’m going to look into that. It doesn’t make sense to me." Marco Rubio, a Republican candidate for President said, "no country in the world faces the threats America faces. The bottom line is that deterrence is a friend of peace."
I understand the idea of having a nuclear arsenal to deter other nuclear powers from attacking. However, we are entering a more complex and multi-polar world that the simple two super powers of the Cold War era. The world is slipping closer and closer to the possibility of World War III with nuclear weapons. The future of the human race may depend on our ability to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear triad:
