The nuclear bomb is by far the most devastating weapon that humans have created so far. Not only do they create a very large blast radius, but release harmful radioactive material into the surrounding area. So far, there is an estimated eight or nine countries that are in possession of the “nuke”. Five of these countries have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is supposed to prevent nuclear capable countries from creating more nukes, stop the spread of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear countries, and lower the risk of any radical organizations of possessing them (Epstein). The countries working toward this goal include China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The other countries are not currently involved in any political agreements dealing with the reduction of their nuclear arsenal. These countries include India, Pakistan, Israel and of course North Korea. The reasons for avoiding the Non-Proliferation Treaty include having to diplomate with the enemy, like the US and North Korea, or being unwilling to give up power even if it’s for the greater good.

The problem here is that these weapons are spreading like the latest fashion trend. Every country that doesn’t possess any would like to, to be “cool” like the world superpowers, this is referred to as horizontal proliferation. But is it really a great idea for many countries, especially those with questionable leaders, to control such a powerful weapon? I think one nuclear capable supreme leader is one too many, also known as non-government proliferation. Not just countries that don’t currently have nuclear arms want more, some nuclear powers are in the hunt to obtain more or improve their current stash, this can be called vertical proliferation (Epstein). Since these weapons can cause so much damage, the amount of warheads should be decreased significantly or in an ideal world completely disarmed to prevent future catastrophe. 

The nuke came into existence during the second World War, thanks to the brilliance of American scientists, in 1945 and was known as the infamous “Manhattan Project”. Under the order of the president, Harry Truman, two bombs, named Little Boy and Fat Man, were dropped on the unsuspecting Japanese civilians. The bombs killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese and forced Japanese leaders to immediately surrender to the US therefore ending the war. After World War Two, two world superpowers emerged, the United States and the USSR(Russia). The USSR saw how effective the atomic bomb was and immediately started the development of nuclear weapons. This was the start of the Cold War. The famous 20th century author George Orwell described it as “the prospect of two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds, dividing the world between them” (Orwell, 1). The US and USSR then began the arms race to see who could make more warheads and the Cold War reached its peak in 1963 which came to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Steven Kull described it as “Each superpower remained vulnerable to attack from the other. Each retained adequate survivable nuclear forces to retaliate in the event of an attack” (Kull, 28).  Thankfully the nuclear fallout was avoided and the intense rivalry began to burn out after. Around that time was when other countries like the United Kingdom, France and China started their development of nukes. The spread began to accelerate as time passed. The Cold War supposedly ended in the 1990s after the fall of the USSR but the threat is still somewhat there. 

India and Pakistan have both gained access to nuclear capabilities not too long ago. Since these countries have always been critical of each other since Pakistan became a country, adding nukes to the equation has done nothing to help. The middle East became a place of interest during and thought of nuclear proliferation or rapid spread in an unstable area created fear in many people, including President Bush. Luckily no “weapons of mass destruction” were ever discovered but it proved that nukes are nothing to take lightly. As of recently, political rivalries between the nuclear states, like the United States and China, have surfaced as tension keeps building.

More nuclear weapons means more deaths. The detonation can immediately wipe out a sizeable area but what really does the most damage is the radioactive aftermath which creates many side effects for victims that survive. Though only two nuclear bombs have ever been detonated in populated areas, over one thousand tests have been conducted in remote areas like the American Southwest, Kazakhstan, and the Pacific Ocean (Hashimoto, “A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945”). The nuclear testing may not have directly harmed any people but in reality performing so many tests puts everyone at risk, since it is very harmful to the well-being of the Earth’s environment. No large amount of radiation in the atmosphere would be. With the passing time and tense, political, nuclear atmosphere, the original atomic bomb has been innovated many times more devastating than the ones that were dropped on Japan in 1945. The US has put in millions if not billions of dollars into its nuclear program. When making the bomb there is a lot of radioactive waste that comes out of the process. Since the waste can’t just be dumped in the ocean it has to be stored safely, which of course costs the taxpayers a lot of money. The annual maintenance alone costs the US millions a year, just to keep them functional. Is it really worth it to put so much money into something that most likely will not be used? Another thing is the moral factor. No sane person in the world would want to be responsible for pushing the big red button and killing thousands if not millions of people at once.

Even though many there are lots of drawbacks to having nuclear arms some people think otherwise. Nukes make it easy to end conflict if one nation possesses them and the other does not, in the case of the outmatched Japan in 1945. After the Japanese incident, the world leaders saw how effective these bombs were and now are more willing to discuss issues rather than wage war over the small things. When a new nation enters the ranks of the nuclear countries, it immediately shifts the balance of power, as in the case of Russia joining the US, preventing the US from using the atomic bomb without risk of retaliation. Also when a nation becomes nuclear capable it immediately gains power and becomes recognized or “put on the map” around the world. This brings with it intimidation of attacking a nuclear capable state and boosts the national defense as a “best defense is a great offense” manner. At least for many first world countries, the US included, nuclear energy helps to meet the energy quota so nuclear power can’t be all that bad.

During the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the explosions created were massive killing over 50,000 people at once but what came after was far grimmer. Massive amounts of radiation exposed a large population of Japanese people. These people were for the most part just ordinary citizens and had no part to do with World War Two which was going on at that time. The victims that were close enough to the site of impact but not close enough to be a killed by the explosion most likely developed severe radiation poison or radiation burns and died a painful death soon after. The survivors also are at a drastically increased risk of cell mutation which includes many types of cancer and birth defects. 

As shown here is a picture of Sumiteru Taniguchi, a Nagasaki survivor. He was just 5 years old on his normal letter delivery routine when the US bombed Japan. On that day, he was exposed to the radiation from the “Fat Man” bomb. The side effects included the melting of his skin and radiation poison which has rotted a few of his ribs leaving him somewhat disfigured. Miraculously, he recovered from his nearly fatal wounds and lives to tell his story to this day of the sinister effects of the atomic bomb.

Robert Jay Lifton conducted a study to find out how the bombings affected the people of Japan not physically but mentally in 1963, nearly 18 years after it happened. He interviewed thirty-three different survivors and what he found was that everyone he interviewed remembered exactly where they were and what they were doing when the bombs dropped, similar to how New Yorkers look back on the 9/11 attacks and recall everything about that day. A teacher that was hiking a nearby mountain told Lifton “I climbed Hijiyama Mountain and looked down. I saw that Hiroshima had disappeared. What I felt then and still feel now I just can’t explain with words” (Lifton, 467). Not only does the detonation of an atomic bomb cause irreversible physical damage to people but it leaves them scarred for life after experiencing a tragedy incomparable to any other catastrophe. 

We can agree that the detonation of nuclear weapons negatively affects tons of people, but how harmful are they to the well-being of the Earth? The answer is very harmful. An all-out nuclear war, like what almost happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis, could potentially mean the end of the world. According to Andrea Stenke, an expert on Atmospheric chemistry for the Department of Environmental Sciences, the ash from the enormous blasts would fill the stratosphere and mesosphere, blocking out solar radiation. This would bring upon an extreme global cooling of the Earth, also known as an Ice Age, and nearly five to ten years with little to no precipitation. While that is going on, the ozone layer would most likely shrink to fifty percent or less than it currently is and we need all the ozone we can get. And that’s just from the explosions not including the radiation that would still be lingering and contaminating our natural resources including water, air and even the food we eat.

Even the making of a nuclear weapon does damage to the environment. For roughly the 50 years that the US was producing nuclear arms, the Hanford Site, in Washington produced around 67 metric tons of weapons grade plutonium from 97,000 metric tons of irradiated uranium. The waste that came from this included 500 million gallons of extremely radioactive, toxic waste, 450 billion gallons of processed liquids that was emptied out into the water, and an additional 1.2 cubic meters of low-level waste that was buried on site. The hazardous waste is then held in tanks to eventually let the waste break down enough to where it is no longer radioactive which is not going to be anytime soon. The holding of this waste poses a somewhat likely possibility of future contamination if not managed and kept up properly (Crowley, Kevin D., and Ahearne, 516-518).

So let’s add the conservative aspect into the discussion and talk about the money. Producing and maintaining nuclear weapons is not cheap in the least. For example, Russia has stored 176 intercontinental missiles on Ukrainian soil. It is estimated that the costs of maintaining these missiles annually is “a sum in excess of $5,000 million per year” (Jehiel, Philippe, Moldovanu, and Stacchetti, 814) which to put the figure in simpler terms is $5,000,000,000 also known as five billion dollars. That costs roughly $28,409,090 per missile per year. With costs like that the impecunious Ukraine considered selling off to interested parties, particularly in the Middle East. This prompted the United States, Russia, and China to get involved and provide aid to Ukraine. Under President Clinton, Bill not Hillary, in 1994 the US donated to Ukraine $350 million in economic aid, $350 million towards dismantling efforts, and $200 million as an incentive to not sell (Jehiel, Philippe, Moldovanu, and Stacchetti, 814). Needless to say nuclear weapons and the politics that goes with it costs the US a lot of money. The money, that you and I, as taxpayers must pay for weapons that just take up space that most likely and hopefully will not be used ever. So disarming a countries’ excess nuclear arms, would greatly increase the countries’ annual funds which would make it seem like a no brainer.

Nuclear weapons create a shift in the balance of power and can create rivalries or political conflict between nations. The first case this being that of the United States and Russia. The United States and Russia started off in the 1940s as allies in World War Two but this soon changed when the United States gained access to nuclear weapons and these two allies became rivals, if not enemies during the 1960s at the climax of the Cold War. For the United States, “the principal role of nuclear weapons is to deter potential adversaries from an attack on the United States, our allies, or our vital interests” (Younger,1). This very reason has persuaded Russia and now North Korea against attacking. If the United States had not created the atomic bomb in 1945, we may have had to be at war longer with Japan but we would not have to worry about the constant threat of nuclear attack even almost eighty years later. Rivalries between countries can also increases proliferation rates: if a rival nation gains access to nuclear weapons, the nation will put more of its resource into either developing or purchasing a nuke. 

The quality of leadership of the entity that possesses nuclear arms can also mean a big deal. This can either mean how willing a state is to have peace talks or how probable it is to ever use a weapon of this caliber. Some leaders of nuclear countries around the world have been criticized around the world on their decision making skills. This list can include the impulsive Donald Trump, the plotting Vladmir Putin and of course the maniacal supreme leader of North Korea, Kim-Jong Un. Countries like the United States and China have contacted North Korea on a possibility of disarmament talks but to no avail. North Korea did not even respond to the request of the United States but did respond to the Chinese’s request with a “no thank you” of sorts (Jiang, 237-238). Along with the unsteady leadership, what is there to stop a country like North Korea from selling a nuke to an Islamic extremist group like Al Qaeda or the newly powerful Isis, who just to mention also hates the United States. Also with Iran very close to being part of the nuclear family, the unsteady Middle Eastern groups would be even closer to forcefully taking hold of nuclear weapons. Luckily, there are many safeguards in place to prevent this from happening making the probability very low. 

First, some people have the opinion that nuclear weapons are great for ending conflicts against less advanced nations. Yes, the two atomic bombs used made Japan drop its vendetta with the United States therefore ending the war but is really necessary if it means killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people that had nothing to do with the war? I believe Japan to this day has still not fully recovered. This should not only rest on the conscience of the soldier that pushed the big red button or President Truman who gave the order but on the conscience of the American citizens as a whole. 

Second, some think that nuclear weapons forces countries to have peace talks before waging war. With the nuclear threat always present, nations must be way more cautious to prevent a potential nuclear war. For the most part this is accurate, except when it comes to… you guessed it… North Korea who has never showed interest when it comes to “talking things out”. I believe that now that the human race has become more reasonable since the times of the World Wars, even without the lingering threat of nuclear war, conflict could be settled peacefully and diplomatically before a war could take place. 

Third, another common notion the world’s leaders have is that acquiring nuclear weapons immediately grants their nation power over a lot of countries. There is a drawback to this however. Most of the countries that do not possess these weapons are allied with countries that do. So if a nuclear attack were to occur on the soil of a country with no nuclear weapons, there is a great probability that a nuclear ally will reciprocate the attack. To add to this, Iran is on the verge of getting its very first nuke which would stop Israel’s nuclear monopoly over the Middle East (Waltz, 2-4). This would help balance the power initially but another nuclear power in the war-torn Middle East would most likely make the rest of the world uneasy. Also, Israel has the government stability to control nuclear arms while Iran could go either way.

Lastly, the use of nuclear power does have it benefits. The United States, and many other countries utilize nuclear power to help fulfill the country’s energy demands. I agree that this is a great use of nuclear power but some countries do not have the funds required to safely maintain this power, like the recent Fukushima incident which leaked nuclear material for a whole month before it could be contained after a 9.0 earthquake (Chino,1129). Additionally, if a nuclear superpower like the US or Russia were to give radioactive elements for a country there would always be a risk of using the radioactive elements being used for weapons making.

The spread of the nuclear bomb is increasing more and more rapidly but there are definitely solutions to stop this from happening. Creating a worldwide initiative for nuclear nations to disarm most of their nuclear arsenal would eliminate a lot of the maintenance costs. Next, “providing the highest possible standards of security for all stocks of weapons, weapons-usable plutonium, and highly enriched uranium everywhere in the world” (Shultz,3) would eliminate the risk of radical groups or anyone wanting to forcefully take nuclear arms.  Another solution is to prevent the creation of nascent or new nukes, especially when it pertains to North Korea and Iran (Allison, 70). This is accomplishable by stopping production of fissile material and eliminating the current supply. An alternative for the countries that would like to have a nuclear arsenal to be protected, would be to focus on the development of nuclear weapons detection and anti-missile defenses instead of developing nuclear arms. This option is way cheaper and a much safer solution for the environment.

It is necessary that the use of nuclear weapons be banned worldwide since these weapons create many long-lasting effects for humans and are terrible for the health of the environment. Possessing these weapons also comes with certain practical drawbacks like the excess amount of money that goes into them, the forming of political feuds or international power struggles, or the risk that they could be used for evil in the wrong person’s hands. I fully support the disarmament of all nuclear weapons but since that is not practical, I think greatly reducing the amount is in every human being’s best interests. After learning just about everything there is to know on the topic of nuclear weapons I have come to the conclusion that the nations that own nuclear weapons are just hurting themselves more by not doing anything to prevent the use of nuclear weapons. If nothing is done soon and the spread of nuclear weapons continues, then purchasing an underground fallout bunker does not seem to be that crazy of an idea.
