Nuclear Weapons Are Bad

The instant a one megaton nuclear bomb is dropped everyone within a six mile radius of the drop site will be instantly vaporized. The people will literally not have known what hit them, because they will have vanished before the electrical signals from their sense organs can reach their brains. These are the people who are lucky, when it comes to a nuclear bombing. Those within a ten mile radius will have instantly become blind, and people even further away would become blind if they were looking in the same direction as the bomb. People thousands of miles away will die from gamma ray radiation, because the radiation will have destroyed their cellular structure, leading to painful bleeding from every orifice in their bodies (Hoffman). The use of nuclear weapons has been described by many as sheer madness, and something that if used is the equivalent of global suicide. The use of nuclear weapons violates international treaties, humanitarian laws, and is above all immoral. The only option to solve for this atrocity would be to ban all nuclear weapons now and forever.

In the early 1930's key discoveries regarding the fission of atoms are made by Enrico Fermi, Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann and Lise Meitner(Nuclear Age Peace Foundation ). These discoveries are key to the development of nuclear arms, because it is this fission action that creates the power generated by nuclear weapons (Freudenrich). These progressions in the field of science and physics, later allow for later scientist such as Einstein to further their research on the topic. Einstein, along with other scientists of his age, came together to come up with the world's first comprehensive nuclear bomb. It was their development of nuclear weapons that gave the United States the ability to launch nuclear weapons. In the 1940's the United States began testing their nuclear capabilities in the "Manhattan" project. On August 9, 1945 at 9:44 a.m. Bockscar, a B-29 carrying Fat Man, the world's third atomic bomb, arrives at its primary target, Kokura. The city of Kokura is already in ruins from recent U.S. air raids. Bockscar then travels over its secondary target, Nagasaki. At 11:02 a.m. the world's third atomic bomb explosion completely devastates Nagasaki (Nuclear Age Peace Foundation). The firestorm that followed afterwards covered about one hundred square miles and its intense heat and gamma ray radiation was most likely the reason for the death of most of the people at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. As horrible as the mass murder that occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki may seem, the bombs used then are considered small by today's standards, and the modern day twenty ton megaton nuclear bomb can generate a firestorm that covers two-thousand five hundred square miles (Hoffman).

"The development of atomic power will provide the nations with new means of

destruction. The atomic bombs at our disposal represent only the first step in this

direction, and there is almost no limit to the destructive power which will become

available in the course of their future development. Thus a nation which sets the

precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purposes of destruction may

have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an

unimaginable scale."(Nuclear Age Peace Foundation )

This was said on July 17, 1945 by scientists at the Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory, in reference to use of nuclear weapons. They later go on to say how the free use of nuclear weapons would put the United States, as well as other countries in a state in which we are at constant risk of sudden nuclear annihilation. What those sixty-nine scientists all said was all too true. The use of nuclear weapons is something that could all too swiftly lead to the total destruction of the U.S. and the world. What is worse is the fact that the chance of a nuclear accident is even greater. The possibility that one country's early warning system, EWS, can malfunction and misinterpret a plane for a nuclear weapon was high in the past and it remains high today. Due to such a tense global mindset the leaders of a country would rather strike first, than be attacked without having attacked first (A.G. Arbatove/ Belous, V.S./ Pikaev, A.A./ Baranovsky, V.G./) . So this creates a scenario, in which everyone is pointing their nukes at everyone else, and everyone is just waiting for the signal to launch and within mere minutes, a full scale nuclear attack can be launched and the world as we know it could end.

The Russian nuclear model, SS-18, and the U.S. MX models have the capabilities to cause more destruction than all the munitions used in World War II (A.G. Arbatove/ Belous, V.S./ Pikaev, A.A./ Baranovsky, V.G). As devastating as that may be to know, these models make up but a small portion of the Russian and United States' nuclear arsenals. These weapons as well as others are constantly maintained on a high alert status, creating more ground for an accidental exchange of "massive nuclear strikes". The dangers of nuclear escalation are real threats, threats that don't need a serious situation to occur. Today, several states have made progress in their attainment of nuclear arsenals. These activities are an inevitable result of the current nuclear position of several countries including the United States. The reasoning behind it all is the fact that possession of nuclear weapons by some states stimulates other nations to obtain them, so as to avoid becoming inferior or open to attack from any other country. The philosophy of the modern day country leader believes that unless they are as prepared or more prepared than the "other guy" they are in danger, however, because everyone is in this state of mind the world can never be safe. The cycle is repetitive: If one nation has nuclear capability that equals that of the U.S. or any other country, the U.S. will try to acquire more nuclear weapons or more capabilities than that nation, as will the nation that initially acquired more weapons than the U.S. and this cycle goes back and forth, between one country having, realizing that someone else has nearly as much as them, and then getting more. Should the size of the current nuclear power roster grow beyond the current roster of eight (United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Israel, and Pakistan), the risk of a new and destabilizing arms race will most likely become reality (Kimball). Many people also argue that we must keep these nuclear weapons for this very reason, to act as a deterrent effect to other countries, to be ready and prepared