The power of a nuclear warhead is terrifying. In November 1952, an H-bomb was dropped for testing on an island in the pacific. The resulting explosion vaporized the entire island, which was over 1km squared in size. And that is just one warhead out of over 100,000. In fact, it is estimated that if all the nuclear powers unleashed their bombs, they would destroy the planet 51 times over.
Although Nuclear weapons has the capability to destroy much of the planet. So far, they have probably saved more lives than they have taken. With out nuclear weapons, WW3 would have probably already taken place. The only thing that is preventing full scale conflict between Pakistan and India, North and South Korea, North and South Korea and so on is because of their fear of a nuclear warfare. Each of these conflicts would easily trigger a WW3. So, I believe that nuclear weapons should not be completely destroyed but instead greatly reduced to around a dozen or so scattered around the major powers of the world.
The reason nuclear testing are still being conducted all over the world, costing billions of dollars every year is because of the insecurity felt by many of the non-nuclear states. Because everyone else is developing nuclear weapons, they feel that it is necessary for their safety that they too must have nuclear warheads. This is happening all over the world, in Pakistan, India, North and South Vietnam, North and South Korea, Iran and Iraq.
The amount of resources poured into the development and production of nuclear weapons is unimaginable. Just in three years, between 1992 and 1995 the U.S invested 12 billion dollars on nuclear tests. The development of the first ever-atomic bomb took over 20 billion dollars. As all that money is poured into building deadly killers. Tens of thousands of people are dying in famine and poverty. The cost of building just one nuclear bomb is enough to provide food and water for Ethiopia for nearly 6 months. Instead we let all the people die and build a bomb. I think that money could have been better spent.
So to conclude, I would like to see all research and development in weapons of mass destruction stopped immediately. Tough new laws passed internationally to prevent the development and construction of weapons of mass destruction by unstable states. Greatly cut the stocks of nuclear warheads so that each major power will have 1 or 2 to be used to as a threat but not enough to totally wreck nations.
