Bill asks: "I can imagine a world without nuclear weapons. Can you?"

I answer "Nope".

The last year the world had no nuclear weapons was 1944 - and wasn't that a peaceful year, hey Bill?

Pete

To Pete: we have come within minutes of nuclear annihilation on several documented occasions. I am sorry that you cannot see any more than such a disastrous future, obliterating everything we have and have ever fought to protect.

"But for good luck, we would all be dead,"
- Professor Stephen Hawking, 18/1/07, as the symbolic Doomsday Clock is moved forward from 11.53 to 11.55, with midnight marking global catastrophe.

In support of Bill Williams, a saner future world, and a long overdue Treaty to ban nuclear weapons and their immense unnecessary diversion of resources and funds, we can see what's possible:

“I fully share the commitment of the US President Barack H. Obama to the noble goal of saving the world from the nuclear threat and see here a fertile ground for a joint work.”
- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in a statement to the UN Conference on Disarmament on March 11, 2009.

"I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."
- US President Barack Obama

It's up to us to understand what is at stake and to demand nothing short of nuclear weapons abolition.

Atom1

I base my opinions on what I see as likely not idealism.

As I think it extremely unlikely that countries with nuclear weapons would junk them, thus losing their military advantage, I am resigned to thinking of a world WITH nuclear weapons.

The Russians and US are playing nuclear disarmers for suckers while both sides (and Israel) are developing more accurate low-yield weapons that are more likely to be used than ever before.

Meanwhile Nato, Sweden and Switzerland (by geographical proximity) rely on the American nuclear umbrella for protection against Russia and a gradually nuclear capable Iran.

Australia also relies on the US nuclear umbrella.

Nuclear disarmers talk as if only Russia and the US have nuclear weapons. They appear ignorant of the countries (France, China, Israel, India and Pakistan) that see possession of nuclear weapons as grim instruments essential to their national survival.

Public statements always sound nice in the UN but that does not stop people in some countries (not ours) believing that they would have no country or future without nuclear weapons.

And remember that WWII generated 50-60 million dead just using conventional weapons but it was 2 nuclear weapons that actually stopped the war - quickly stopping the killing.

Pete
http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2008/08/influential-view-on-indian-nuclear.html

“I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.
“It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’....”
- General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander Europe during World War 2 and later US President.

Pete ("Meanwhile Nato, Sweden and Switzerland (by geographical proximity) rely on the American nuclear umbrella for protection against Russia and a gradually nuclear capable Iran. Australia also relies on the US nuclear umbrella.")

... you talk of "protection" that does not - cannot - exist in the event of nuclear conflict.

Nuclear weapons are WORTHLESS. They cannot be used in any real sense.

They have not prevented the many wars and deaths since WW2.

But to think they will prevent - and always prevent - a further world war is to be blind to a possible future and to human nature.

"You cannot simultaneously prevent & prepare for war. The very prevention of war requires more faith, courage and resolution than are needed to prepare for war."
- Albert Einstein

To be sure of no future nuclear conflict is to abolish nuclear weapons, and to boycott all who build, design, test, store, fuel or maintain such weapons and their delivery systems.

“We are at a critical moment in history… For many, there is a strong temptation to cling to the strategies of the past 40 years. But to do so would be a serious mistake leading to unacceptable risks for all nations.”
- Former US Secretary of Defence, Robert MacNamara, “Apocalypse Soon”, May/June2005

Humans can build hundreds of thousands of cars daily. Needlessly.
We can abolish nuclear weapons.

It is nice to see nuclear-backed leaders talking about disarmament, but to be perfectly honest I don't believe it will happen in my lifetime. Why would the USA ditch its nuclear arsenal despite the retention of nuclear weapons by hostile nations? Why would Pakistan junk its nukes while India retains its own arsenal? Israel? China? France?

I think that a 'groundswell of public opinion' would prompt leaders to talk more about disarmament - perhaps even to make some very public displays of disbanding their nuclear programs - but I doubt that it would lead to actual disarmament. The eventual result would be a whole heap of nuclear-capable nations going about their business silently, pretending to cooperate but really doing very little to disarm themselves. The USA would pretend to have no nukes, but nobody would believe them; Russia would do the same. Pakistan would make a big show of junking their missiles, while stockpiling them secretly, just in case India retained a handful of weapons. India would do the same.

I'm sorry to paint such a bleak picture, but I just don't see how actual disarmament could take place. Nuclear weapons may go the way of catapults and crossbows, but only when a more efficient method of killing is invented.

I would love to see the world free of nuclear weapons.

Do I see it happening, not likely.

My hopes are smaller in that I hope in 20 years to see less weapons and nuclear armed countries than today, but I am not optimistic.

With the prospect of Pakistan's 200 odd nukes falling into the hands of nut jobs, and the decidedly fruity Iran going full steam ahead, the chances are slim