It is unlikely these conferences will achieve much if the USA, China, France and UK are not attending.

The deterrence argument will continue to hold great sway in those countries with nuclear weapons. Unless they can be absolutely assured that all other countries have given up their nuclear weapons, and that no country will obtain them in future, it is unlikely that the USA or China will give them up. Indeed, it is precisely the horrific magnitude of the devastation that nuclear war could wreak that could make countries inclined to hold on to them. If holding nuclear weapons reduces even slightly the risk of being attacked, it is better to hold them. One could argue, of course, that holding such weapons makes a country more likely to be attacked, not less. But that’s a hard argument to win.

It is also why Sue’s slavery analogy doesn’t hold up. A country that abolishes slavery may suffer some economic disruption, but it does not face annihilation. Both holding nuclear weapons and tolerating slavery may be morally unacceptable, but the reason for doing them are very different.

I don’t know the answer to these dilemmas, but Sue’s optimism seems a bit naïve.

Hi Rhian

I agree that nuclear deterrence makes sense in our imperfect world where Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan have little regard for Western democracy - and doctors don't call the shots.

However the nuclear disarmament conferences that Sue refers to may well have an impact on the UK. The UK is currently weighing whether its four Trident submarines should be replaced. All of Britain's publically active nuclear weapons are deployed on the Tridents. There's a chance that the Tridents may not be replaced and perhaps lesser options chosen, eg. Britain's SSN's may carry nuclear warheads instead.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_replacement_of_the_Trident_system

Pete

The situation of having a world which can blow itself up many times over is truly bizarre. Only humans could be so stupid!

What is even more bizarre is that the nation which is seeking global domination of all others is the one that is pretending to be the enabler of human rights and freedoms.

It is so close to achieving its imperial objective yet, ironically, it's falling short of the finish line because, like Russia, it went bankrupt engaging in an arms race and too many wars which have weakened it.

Russia and China are the buffer which stops the U.S. from taking the final step: a nuclear war. The U.S. knows that both nations could damage it mortally, despite its great power which, on paper is immense. But in a nuclear war such things count for little.

And as Russia gets more powerful and China outstrips the U.S. in economic and military terms, the world sits in an uneasy balance of sorts with no one prepared to make the first move.

But wait! What about jumping the gun with pre-emptive first strike like what happened in Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Would the Yanks do such a thing?

You bet they would! They've already done it once and they're even more exceptional now!

You ask them! They'll tell you! They're born to rule!

David G your hatred is showing mate! Not rational at all US bad Communism good! Gee this nonsense takes me back.
Remember David what Teddy Rossevelt said "Speak softly and carry a big stick!"
Nukes are the big stick usually too big to use but good to show.

It never ceases to amaze me that people who are pretty bright can be very stupid.

You can't be too dumb, & get through a medical degree, so Sue can't be dumb. However how can anyone think that a major power can ever do away with it's nuclear weapons. It would only require some tin pot middle eastern or Asian country who held a few when the rest of the world had disarmed to control the globe. Hell even a well organized terrorist group could do it

How can anyone with a brain can believe major power could take that risk?

Sue, do try to find some area of effort where your obvious generosity of spirit can be more constructive. What you are doing now is just an exercise for kooks.

Bravo Sue and MAPW! Terrific progress. Nuclear weapons have no place in the 21st century and must be banned, in the same way biological and chemical weapons were. As for terrorists getting their hands on small nuclear weapons: the only way to avoid that is to move away from nuclear power as well. Any terrorist with a centrifuge and access to nuclear materials can make a bomb. But that's for later perhaps. What has to happen now is that there is sufficient follow-up to Mexico's conference that we will see an end to national nuclear weapons.

SUE,

You are sadly mistaken with the completely baseless belief that “vast majority of the world’s people” wish for a “nuclear weapons free world” as if they desire peace and no war or possibility of mass death.

Most non-western nations do not possess nuclear weapons and those that do only have some (except China and Russia) like North Korea, but many like Middle-Eastern countries and other Asian nations like Pakistan and India are themselves perpetually trying to make them. Such nations ONLY wish that the MOSTLY European/White nations (US, UK etc.) to be stripped of theirs so that the power field becomes more levelled out.

Think about why on earth did Pakistan and India turn up at the Mexico Conference? Love of peace, equality and humanity? Ha! Basic human rights are not even afforded their own people.

We need to first make a safe world, and educated world in culture - which to me is essentially about Morality and Ethics and human freedom, equality etc. and our universal understanding of this.

That means, while we have super-economies like China and India etc. who fail to adhere to most human rights for their own citizens, as well other hundreds of other smaller potential mini-Chinas & India (e.g. Iran, N. Korea), I think it is safer to leave the “BIG STICK” in the hands of the types of nations that (whilst they too have many flaws) stick to human rights at least a lot more than those other nations, in fact almost 100% more.

SUE,

At the end of the day I agree that nuclear weapons are horrible things and I would like nothing more than to see a world that could properly destroy all Nukes because they care for life and NO OTHER REASON.

HOWEVER . . . . . .

Think about what you said in the comparison with slavery and nuclear weapons:

“Two hundred years ago nations could have argued “We don’t like slavery but as long as the slave trade exists, we need to keep slaves.” With principles like these, we could rapidly be back in the dark ages.”

Yes indeed. But we ARE already doing just that by allowing the cultural environment in parts of Asia which easily produces massive slave or near-slave worker masses to become prosperous (e.g. CHINA, INDIA) because the world including all the west overlooks the “slave aspect” and rationalizes it to be “smart business”, “cheaper costs”.
Already in 50 years this immoral practice has led to 100% manufacturing base being shifted from being all over the globe, to now ONLY in these third-world areas. And this reliance puts the West in a difficult spot also.

I personally think that the west should have stopped this right at the beginning, with force if needed.

In any case, if the West did get rid of the “BIG STICK” of their Nukes, just say NO Nukes existed on Earth, WHAT deterrent could be possibly used to have nations like China and India and Iran etc. to not engage in human rights violations such as China and India with their Global worker force monopoly due to such “CHEAP” and “slavery-like” wages paid to their workers.

Imagine such a world

DAVID G.

ASK yourself this David G.:

Did the USA, UK, Australia, NZ, and myriad of free European and other nations, make the wrong choice when they decided to go to war when the Nazis and Japanese separately began their campaigns to take-over and dominate the world?

Was it REALLY the case that the Nazis and Imperialist Japanese were not undemocratic dictatorships without equality and freedom of speech or justice in any sense, but that they were really the “GOOG GUYS” who wanted to make the world free and equal and fair?

So then the US and allies were really the BAD GUYS then?

Further, after the war the US and allies engaged in 50 years of hostilities with Cold War with Soviets, who may have reacted very differently to the Western Allies’ requests after WWII. Perhaps the Soviets would have enslaved all of Europe under their mindless and supressed culture.

SERIOUSLY - How do you think the WWII and obviously the World as we know it today, would have turned out differently IF the US did not develop the Atomic bomb in time to end Japan’s war efforts? What effect do you think the events after when Japan was supposed to be bombed but if it wasn’t, from the points of view of the Soviets and the Germans, not to even yet mention the Chinese?

GEE, is it true that the world has a dominant culture today which has the most freedoms and equalities and economic opportunities of all time, MOSTLY because the US developed the “BIG STICK” and used it on Japan who rather than sacrifice 300,000 or more of their own young men to physically take Japan because even though the Japanese knew they were lost with no chance they refused to officially surrender out of stupidity and ignorance, preferring to have millions more of their own men and the enemy die.

The use of the "Bomb" would have had drastic effects on how the Soviets, Nazis and everyone else thereafter viewed the notion of war with the US?