Victoria Ellington
Blog Post 3
Nuclear Weapons: Worth the price?
This L.A. Times
Article explores the issue of the cost of nuclear weapons. It raises the question of whether the money
the U.S. is putting into the nuclear weapons program is legitimately worth it
or not. I believe that this is a
sensitive issue and it is difficult to determine what the correct way to handle
nuclear weapons is, but ultimately I think that the expenses are
justified. Global disarmament is a
utopian concept and completely unrealistic, therefore nuclear weapons must be
maintained. A nuclear war has never
occurred and in order for the U.S. to successfully participate, they must have
completely up to date weapons. On the
other side of the argument though, up to this point it only seems nuclear
weapons exist for the point of negotiations.
Much of a nation’s power depends on the perception of their attack
capabilities. For example, we, as in the
U.S. fear any nation we suspect has nuclear weapons and therefore their power
over us is increased and our security threatened. The only way to combat this is to “fight fire
with fire” and make them fear us by developing weapons that are equally as
destructive. The issue lies within the
fact that there are other more urgent and realistic military threats which need
to be funded at the same time. In a
convoluted way, maintaining nuclear weapons may actually be a means of keeping
the peace because it ensures that if nuclear war were to begin, the destruction
would be mutual and therefore it is not even worth engaging in such a conflict. Game Theory is what instills fear in each
nation and the unpredictability of what other states might do compels the U.S.
to continue spending money on nuclear weapons.
Instead, more focus should be placed upon developing and maintaining
weapons in a more efficient manner and handling outdated weapons so that they
do not increase unnecessary costs.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-nukes-cost-20141109-story.html#page=1
I think the best we can hope for in the short term is a treaty to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the US and Russia. This would allow us to decommission some of our older weapons and should reduce costs. Unfortunately with the current climate of Russian aggression and their concerns about our anti ballistic missile systems I don't think we will be seeing a new treaty any time soon.
ReplyDeleteThis proves a good point on both ends of the argument, although, I do believe that all the money going towards nuclear weapons is not worth it. I don't believe that nuclear weapons, and all the money being spent on them, are even relevant to today's military threats. I agree that the costs aren't worth it since it doesn't just go towards the nuclear weapons themselves, but more to the maintenance and security they require, additionally to all the health damages they produce. I think all the money spent on nuclear weapons puts a halt on spending that money on greater programs that actually deal with 21st century threats so I do agree with you that the focus should be somewhere else.
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