Background:
The Nuclear Age began, when the first bomb was tested on a quiet stretch of desert in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945.
There are currently around 36,000 nuclear weapons in the world’s arsenals, primarily in the five Nuclear Weapon States – USA, UK, Russia, France and China.
These states possess what is estimated to be 2,667 times the firepower experienced in the entire six years of world war II.
At the height of the Cold War there were around 65,000 nuclear weapons.
In September 1996, the United Nations completed negotiations on a treaty banning all nuclear testing.
Under international law, it is illegal to threaten to use or use nuclear weapons.
The US and Russia still keep some 4,500 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert ready to be fired on a few moments notice.
The World Court ruled that any use of nuclear weapons, like other weapons, must not indiscriminately kill civilians and must not cause unnecessary suffering. No use of nuclear weapons could meet this criteria. Therefore, the threat or use of nuclear weapons is illegal under international law.
The Conference on Disarmament (CD) is the world’s sole multilateral disarmament treaty negotiating body. While the CD is independent of the United Nations, its secretary is appointed by the UN Secretary-General; it is required to consider recommendations from the General Assembly; and it submits reports at least annually to the UN General Assembly in Geneva. Most items on the CD agenda are discussed in ad hoc committees, held in private. The whole conference must agree by consensus to the mandate given to ad hoc committees.
The Term Paper on Nuclear Weapons World People Country
Nuclear Weapons In the beginning The Atomic Bomb was constructed to end a war and save lives. Since that time fear and power have risen because of the threat of world destruction. Coming from Los Alamos, New Mexico a town that makes nuclear weapons I have a different view than most. In Los Alamos we always have protesters with big signs calling the scientist, that work at The Los Alamos National ...
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima became death. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, Nagasaki became death.
By 1950 those two bombs and the radiation from them had claimed 350,000 lives.
Nuclear arms control treaties have been placed by the un on both qualitative and quantitative limits on nuclear weapons.
Some Say:
The sheer folly of trying to defend a nation by destroying all life on the planet must be apparent to anyone capable of rational thought. – Queen Noor of Jordan
“The United Nations must assume world leadership to end once and for all the threat of nuclear war. It is our moral responsibility.” – Harisson Ford
“We the Peoples of the United Nations are determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” – UN Secretarty General Boutros Boutros-Ghali
“…if there was a third world war a fourth world war would probably be fought with sticks and stones.” – Einstien
“… it is my profound conviction that nuclear weapons did not, and will not, of themselves prevent major war. To the contrary, I am persuaded that the presence of these hideous devices unnecessarily prolonged and intensified the cold war.”
– General George Lee Bulter (Ret.)
Others Say:
The US government continues to consider nuclear weapons to be “essential” to its security. NATO has referred to nuclear weapons as a “cornerstone” of its security policy.
Position: The United Nations should control all nuclear weapons and do all it can to achieve global nuclear disarmament.
Argument 1: Nuclear weapons do not provide `national security’ but increase insecurity and paranoia.
Evidence:
– Time and again since the Nuclear Age began in 1945, the world has come to the brink of a nuclear exchange by design, miscalculation, or accident, such as in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and The Cold War.
The Essay on Nuclear Weapons
In its attempts to harness the power of the atom, mankind has itself in the possession of weapons with unbelievable, destructive power. Nations now have the ability to destroy entire cities from hundreds of miles away, in only minutes. These weapons are nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons cost the citizens of the United States billions of dollars in taxes each year, the testing and maintenance of ...
– The India-Pakistan nuclear face-off is an obvious danger, even if not the only one. The myth that nuclear weapons provide security was disproved by the 1999 Kargil conflict.
– Nuclear weapons and the arms race generate mutual suspicion and fear all around.
-The new nuclear arms race in South Asia is increasing the threat of war.
– The fear of nuclear arms being stolen by terrosrists is very real and possible.
– An estimated 50 nuclear warheads still lie on the bottom of the world’s oceans
-In 1961, an American president publicly warned his citizens that the possibility of nuclear war could not be ignored — and urged citizens to do what they could to protect themselves.
– it has been said by certain military generals the the presence of nuclear weapons unnecessarily prolonged and intensified the cold war.
Argument 2: Nuclear weapons are means of mass destruction regardless of who wields them. They are weapons of genocide. They can impose horrendous suffering on victims across generations. They can destroy the ecosystem. The damage they do is lasting and incurable. The sheer scale and character of the devastation they can cause make them a profound and distinctive evil. For this and other reasons, the possession, use, or threat of use of nuclear weapons is absolutely immoral.
Evidence:
Populations and individuals around the world have been affected by the increase of radioactive materials in the global ecosystem. Cancers, birth defects, genetic damage, lowered immunity to diseases: these are only some of the potential effects of nuclear testing, uranium mining, radioactive waste burial and all the phases of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy production.
The environmental damage resulting from nuclear technology is not limited to the two largest nuclear weapons states. All nuclear weapons and nuclear energy producing nations have caused some level of environmental contamination, both in their own countries and abroad – such as, nuclear testing in the South Pacific, Nevada, Kazakhstan, China, India and Pakistan; water and airborne discharges from reprocessing plants in the UK and France; and uranium mining in Namibia, Canada, former East Germany and Australia. Moreover, the ongoing production of both nuclear weapons and nuclear power continues to create nuclear waste. Any long-term approach to ‘clean-up’ must be tied to a halt in the production of nuclear weapons, weapons usable materials and nuclear power.
The Essay on Why North Korea Should Stop It Nuclear Weapons Program
Decision The U.S. should take a diplomatic approach to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. If the U.S. uses the hard-line approach, there is a bigger risk of North Korea attacking the U.S. in revenge and killing thousands of people. The diplomatic approach on the other hand would allow both countries to agree on a solution that can make everyone happy within reason. The U.S. and North ...
As well there have been many accidents involving nuclear weapons, which have killed innocent people, as well as harmed are environment
Argument 3: Nuclear arming is not only dangerous but also economically wasteful.
Evidence:
U.S. spent roughly $27 Billion in 1995 to prepare to fight a nuclear war.
U.S. spent roughly $2.2 Billion in 1995 to prevent nuclear war.
– From 1940 through 1996, expenditures for nuclear weapons ($5.5 trillion), exceeded the combined total federal spending on education, training, employment, and social services; agriculture; natural resources and the environment; general sciences and space research; community and regional development; law enforcement; and energy production and regulation.
– It is estimated that building a `minimum credible nuclear deterrent’ for India over the next decade can cost upwards of Rs. 70,000 crores. Alternative use of such resources will eliminate illiteracy, dramatically improve health care, and provide a basic social security net for all Indians. The economic cost of a spiraling arms race will be ruinous and the marginalized will be pushed further to the periphery.
– Distributed evenly to everyone in the United States, the cost of nuclear weapons comes to $21,646 per person.
Represented as a brick of new $1 bills (such as the type available in banks, with $200 per inch), the stack of bills spent for nuclear weapons would stretch to the moon and nearly back to Earth.
Laid end-to-end, those bricks of $1 bills would encircle the Earth at the equator more than 100 times, building a wall nearly nine feet high.
-the United States still spends about $35 billion each year — more than $96 million a day
The Essay on Should All Nuclear Weapons Be Destroyed
Since 1945, when the first nuclear bomb was exploded by the Manhattan Project team in the US, nuclear weapons have proliferated across the globe. Currently, the US has about 7,000 warheads and the nations of the former Soviet Union have approximately 6,000. There are enough nuclear weapons in the world to destroy all civilization as we know it. They are perhaps the most powerful forces that man ...
From 1989 to 1996 the U.S. sold more than $117 billion of arms, about 45% of the global total.
Conclusion:
It is naïve to assume that it will be easy to overcome the current stalemate in nuclear arms reduction negotiations. Domestic political obstacles and the resurgence of “old thinking” in key states pose a major challenge for those who take seriously Article VI of the NPT. Although efforts should continue to be directed toward reducing the arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons, it is increasingly urgent to reinvigorate the process of eliminating tactical nuclear weapons. The failure to do so may result in a reversal of prior arms control and disarmament accomplishments and the onset of a new and destabilizing arms race.
There are many reasons to oppose nuclear weapons. They are illegal, undemocratic, hugely expensive, and they undermine rather than increase security. But by far the most important reason to oppose these weapons is that they are profoundly immoral.
The abolition of nuclear weapons is the most important issue of our time. I do not say this lightly. I know how many other important life and death issues there are in our world. I say it because nuclear weapons have the capacity to end all human life on our planet and most other forms of life. This puts them in a class by themselves.
