Why do you feel everyone wants Nuclear bombs?

[rutherford]

Well, in the US declarations of war come from Congress. But, many individual people could get us into a nuclear war. It's not known what the current administration's policies are, but previous presidents have predelegated the use of nuclear weapons in emergency conditions.

General Curtis Lemay and the Cuban Missile Crisis is particularly interesting reading, and I even heard a bit of a radio program on that time period yesterday.

But, we live in a different time. Now, we have the threat of the so-called dirty bombs and the very real possibility of low-yield earth penetrating nukes being used.

 

[elder999]

Because once you let the genie out of the bottle it is hard to get it back in. With the world today, I would rather the US have nuclear weapons than get rid of them. If we got rid of them, and a country like Iran or North Korea got them, what could we do?

And for all we know, in ten years Russia could be a clone of the Soviet Union again, Stalin and all. It would take us a lot longer time to rebuild our missle fleet than it would to get rid of them. And we do not know what will happen or when.

It’s funny, Don, I kind of agree with you here-except that it doesn’t really answer the second part of my question, which I’ll get to in a minute. And, you’re mostly right-our weapons should act as a deterrent against countries like North Korea and Iran actually using their nuclear weapons, but they haven’t been much of a deterrent against their having them, have they?

And, while what you say about the lack of clarity to Russia’s future is true-there are many people there who would prefer a return to the old regime-the state of their nuclear infrastructure means that it would take them a lot longer to revitalize their weapons-warheads and delivery systems, aircraft and bombs, submarines and missiles-than it would for us to start up an all new nuclear program from scratch, and have enough weapons to wipe them out. Really. Additionally, I’m not exactly advocating that we get rid of all of them (though, I’ll admit, it’s what I’d prefer) but we really have way more of them deployed than we need-it would be good, both economically and diplomatically, to remove a great many of these weapons from service-especially since there is currently no credible nuclear military threat-North Korea’s successes in that direction notwithstanding.

 

[Kensai]

New Zealand is nuclear free! Hence our relationship with The United States has always been shaky.

And long may it stay that way! NZ must not allow itself to be bullied around by the US, the way the UK is.

 

[jetboatdeath]

I think it's simple. If you have a small nation it's cheaper to make 10 nukes than feed 10 thousand troops..

 

[rutherford]

Hmm. Feed, train and equip 10,000 troops? I wonder what the actual cost is compared to developing or buying nuclear weapons. I'd tend to think the nukes are more expensive. But, I got no data.

 

[elder999]

I think it's simple. If you have a small nation it's cheaper to make 10 nukes than feed 10 thousand troops..

Well, it depends on how long you plan on feeding (and arming and transporting,etc.) those troops, but on the face of it this is simply wrong.

I think-and we're talking "at war" here, not on some base here in the U.S., a year's worth of "10,000" troops is something over a billion dollars-say $1.1-which does not take into account their "development" or training costs.. The develoment cost for 10 nukes (and the means to deliver them, and the means to maintain the delivery system, and to train the personnel responsible for maintaining them, etc..) are condsiderably higher.

 

[Hand Sword]

A lot higher!

As to the original question: because everyone else has them.