Weapons of Mass Destruction Bringers of Peace Nuclear - Free Essay Example

Weapons of Mass Destruction: Bringers of Peace Nuclear weapons are peacekeepers. The world has not seen a world war the United States dropped two on Japanese soil. Hostilities nowadays are between nations that dont have WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) that instead wage conventional warfare. During the 31 years leading up to the first atomic bomb, an Earth without WMD engaged in two world wars resulting in the deaths of an estimated 78 million to 95 million people, combatants and non-combatants alike. (Drehle) The world wars unraveled the human tendency to try new technologies against one another. As for current technologies, the United States spent one trillion dollars to overhaul the nuclear triad in 2016. The 39th Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army said, I just want to be clear, I dont have a part of the triad, but I can tell you that in my view.that nuclear triad1 has kept the peace since nuclear weapons were introduced and has sustained the test of time, that is not unimportant and the system is deteriorating, Congressman, and it needs to be revamped. It needs to be overhauled. The United States is upgrading their nuclear arsenal, but has it justified? According to the Washington Post, approximately 7 million to 10 million people have died from conventional conflict s ince 1945. Before the introduction of nuclear weapons, two world wars alone led to the deaths of 70 million to 100 million- an extreme contrast. Robert Spalding, a writer for the Washington Post, writes,Nuclear weapons are an affordable deterrent. Which he goes on to explain how in 2014 $16 billion was the cost for maintaining US nuclear arms, that is just 3 percent of the overall Department of Defense budget for that year. In August 2018, congress finalized $717 billion dollars to the Defense budget. Projections are now simulating that the United States nuclear arsenal will cost 1.3 trillion to maintain over a period of 30 years. However when researcher sees the budget growths yearly, one will notice how incredibly low cost in comparison the nuclear triad is to the overall military spending. Now because of the threat of nuclear war, nations were forced to the diplomatic table as a way to not escalate tensions. Globalization is a product of the nuclear age, in fact one of the best ways to stop an enemy state creating WMD is to cripple their economy, so that they no longer have the funds to continue research and development. That is basic war strategy. But what happens when one state is attacked from a nationless rogue group? Broken arrows refer to nuclear warheads missing, most of the incidents happening during the fall of the Soviet Union. There have been no confirmed reports of missing or stolen forme r-Soviet nuclear weapons, but there is ample evidence of a significant black market in nuclear materials, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported more than a hundred nuclear smuggling incidents since 1993, eighteen of which involved highly enriched uranium, the key ingredient in an atomic bomb and the most dangerous product on the nuclear black market. Notes an article from the Council on Foreign Relations. Barry Posen, Director of MITs Security Studies Program, argues that the best approach the United States should head towards to prevent nuclear terrorism isnt to wage conventional war on nations attempting to find nuclear deterrence, rather its to make certain that WMD making capabilities stay in the domain of countries and not radical groups. Posen says quite accurately, After all, nuclear deterrence loses its power in situations where nukes are wielded by organizations without defined borders.