Ed Rasimus wrote:

Yeah, they do ignore some very valid points, but I think you're missing
one too. If you look at various plans for military expansion over the
last several decades, attempts are repeatedly made to "regularize"
nukes; to make having, testing, and using them become so common that
nobody questions it.

Not to wave paper, but as someone with a degree in International
Relations (education coupled with operational experience lends a
modicum of credibility), I've never heard of "regularizing" nukes. The
nuclear club has been, so far, quite exclusive. The non-proliferation
of nukes has been the goal of club members for the entire period. More
members is destabilizing. Your basic statement as a premise for
further discussion is flawed.

Although it's a risky premise, I wonder if possession of nuclear weapons
(by a state as opposed to private whackos) forces a degree of care in
decision making that might not otherwise be there? Would the world be a
more peaceful place if *everyone* had nukes???

I still think the only reason WWIII never happened is because of the
possession of these weapons. I don't think there has ever been a period
in recorded history where two rival camps, armed to the teeth, with no
common ground or reason to get along, in intense competition with each
other over the entire world, never actually went to war against one
another.

Yes Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan and a host of coup locations and alliances
represented a de facto war, but never really directly. Really unusual I'd
say, and due certainly to the fact that both understood all too well what
MAD meant!

Would that sort of "responsibility" be instilled in Pakistan and India now
that they are club members? Would it show up in N. Korea if the South goes
nuke too? Would nuclear weaponry restrain Iraq and Iran?

Don't really know, and the fact that all "terrible weapons" of the world
have eventually been used and become "accepted" in their use doesn't bode
well for the idea that universal nuclear club membership might be a good
thing for the world.

It's a little bit on the whacky side of my normal thinking process, but
I've been wondering about this quite a bit with the WMD talk in Iraq, and
the NK and Iran development programs, and India and Pakistan "on the brink"
a while ago. Does one dare think that everyone having a nuke would make
for a safer world (assuming a clear policy of MAD)???


SMH