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Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear Weapons: A matter of Military or Psychology?

The year 1945 witnessed the fruit of humanity’s ingenuity and invention. Awesome and great, revolutionary and audacious, this was an ambitious undertaking to end a world war with the hopes of preventing future ones. The creation of the nuclear weapon did achieve the surrender of Japan and the end of the Second World War. However, this was but the opening Act of an ongoing drama, ending potentially as a tragedy. At first, the logic of such a concept would seem counterintuitive, even out right foolish. After all, with the push of a button we have the capability to annihilate all life on this planet. Consequently, the dynamic and character of international relations and diplomacy has changed significantly. Prior to this shift, the idea of the conventional superpower, its relative superiority in its capacity to wield war, became irrelevant when obtaining nuclear weapons sufficiently placed countries upon equal grounds. An example of this is Pakistan. In the post nuclear world, unlike in the past, conflict, of any degree, regarding any matter, may no longer be viewed solely as an isolated or sovereign issue. When disagreements among nuclear powers threaten to escalate into an armed response, i.e., India and Pakistan, the entire world now is a potential causality. Naturally, the possibility that a nuclear war will take place, destroying all of humanity in the process, leaves many fearful and apprehensive of the future. Just like in the Cold War when they predicted that nuclear bombs would fall inevitably, so too are the alarmists foreseeing nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Not all share this pessimism. Rather, a review of history provides evidence of basic truths and predictable responses of nuclear states. I shall represent the sentiments of both pessimist and optimist, explain the positive and negative of the United States’ policy on proliferation, and explain my views on nuclear weapons....