Why the World May Be Safe with More Nuclear Weapons, Not Fewer

Note the “may” in the title

a post by the Big Think editors for the Big Think blog

The United States tries hard to keep nuclear weapons away from countries it considers foes. Given how close the world came to nuclear armageddon during the Cold War, and recent threats from so-called “rogue states” like North Korea, it may seem like an essential goal. But America’s strategy for thwarting nuclear proliferation may be reaching a point where the costs outweigh the benefits.

The first nuclear bomb was exploded the same year as the invention of the microwave. Nuclear technology is no longer new, and therefore more difficult to keep from spreading. (Imagine trying to keep microwave technology under wraps all these years.) Developing a nuclear bomb from scratch, however, is much more costly than reverse engineering a microwave.

But snuffing out a country’s nuclear capabilities is perhaps even more costly. It requires crippling a country’s economy so its government can’t invest in nuclear research (of course, its innocent citizens bear the brunt of that burden). It requires destroying factories and laboratories with aggressive bombing or cyber-sabotage campaigns. And it can even require kidnapping or killing scientists and engineers who conduct nuclear research.

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That’s the problem with economic sanctions. Ordinary people suffer the most – until maybe they rebel but I am not convinced that would be classed as “a good idea”.

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