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Originally Posted by waynet
If we give up one third of our nuclear stockpile we still have enough power to destroy the ENTIRE world 6-7 times....If, God forbid we are nuked it will be by a terrorist group not a country. That's what makes things so difficult. Terrorists have no country. Many of them are enemies in their own country.If we find out that they were from Pakistan do we nuke them? Nuclear weapons are a deterent to countries,they are not to terrorist groups.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Donna2
...We cannot afford to allow countries like Iran to develop these weapons. They will make the Cold War seem like a walk in the park...
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That's kind of the way I thought about it, as well. Even by cutting our nuclear stockpile by 2/3, we'd still have plenty to nuke the world. When I hear of some Senators resisting the treaty because it doesn't permit further nuclear weapon development and underground testing, I ask "so what?" The Russians are similarly limited and between the two countries we are lightyears ahead of anyone else in weapons development. What would we lose, the right to develop a 250 megaton nuke that could toast an entire continent? Would we ever use that kind of weapon? If no one else thought we would, it's not much of a deterrant.
If terrorists with no country--say Saudis who trained in Afghanistan to come over and explode a dirty nuke in Manhattan--what would we do? Nuke Afghanistan? Nuke Saudi Arabia? Nuke the whole Arab Middle East? Even with two-thirds less nuclear warheads, we'd still have plenty to do that. What are the chances we'd do anything? You know as well as I do...and so do the terrorists.
I think I posted earlier that all this posturing has a whole lot more to do with politics than it does actually reducing the stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. If the treaty fails to be ratified for purely political reasons, that would be a tragedy.
It would leave the entire rest of the developed world to conclude, "...hey, the U.S. isn't willing to reduce it's stockpile of nuclear weapons, why should we listen to them when they want us to stop developing or using nukes?" This treaty seems to have marginalized both Iran and North Korea. If it fails to be ratified by our Senate, it'll be Katy Bar The Door as far as nuclear weapons development is concerned. And while our politicians and foreign policy negotiators will make blustering noises to the contrary, that's all it will be--blustering. The bad guys will continue to try to make nukes, pretty much with impunity based on our own example, and then probably sell them to even "badder" guys.
Very specifically, if our Senate refuses to ratify the treaty between the U.S. and Russia, what are the chances that Iran will be the least bit motivated to slow or stop it's own weapons development program? If the answer is that they will feel they can continue on their course with impunity, ignoring what the U.S. or others in the world demand, what's going to stop them?