Nuclear Weaons- Destructors Or Saviors Essay, Research Paper
22 October 1996
English Composition 101
Nuclear Weapons: Destructors or Saviors?
When one thinks of complete and total annihilation, the plumage of an infamous mushroom cloud is undoubtedly an image which comes to mind. This ominous image is “. . . a tiger which must be looked in the eye,” (Looking the Tiger in the Eye, 1982). The reason for which we must examine the issue of nuclear weapons, is best stated in the words of J. Robert Oppenheimer, “. . . until we have looked this tiger in the eye, we shall ever be in the worst of all possible dangers, of which we may back into him.” In an attempt to prevent ourselves from backing into this proverbial tiger, we will discuss the following subheadings of nuclear arms: should countries dismantle their nuclear arms; and whether a nuclear war can occur, without resulting in a total nuclear holocaust of both conflicting parties.
Virtually all, who know of the rise in modern-day technology, oppose the first subheading, dismantling nuclear weapons; but, before stating their reasoning, we will change our viewpoint to that of the naive (no insult intended) or too optimistic. Assuming all nations dismantled their nuclear weapons tomorrow; the world would be peaceful: no more nuclear weapons, no more eminent destruction, no more bad guys. What? Exactly! How can we eliminate the evil side of humans, their inherent dark side? This leads to the reason supporting the maintenance of existing, and the development of future nuclear weapons. When a nation, terrorist group, or someone with ill intent secures sole-control of nuclear capabilities, the world will be at the mercy of this group’s sanity, since the world is currently nowhere near an acceptable defensive system. So from this scenario, one can infer that in the present, the only deterrent to nuclear war is the existence of nuclear arms in opposition to each other.
The second subheading, whether a nuclear war can occur without escalating into a victorless, nuclear holocaust, is an evolving argument due to its dependency on modern technology. The two stances on this topic are known by their acronyms of NUTS and MAD (Nuclear Utilization Target Selection, and Mutually Assured Destruction respectivel
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote that in war, “we are all embued with the feeling of participating in a world event . . . it’s during peacetime that we should have had that dedication and that seriousness-we’d perhaps have avoided the war.” Recently, true to the wishes of Sartre, an international panel of nuclear powers convened to adopt a policy of “No-First Strike.” This occurrence, while weighting popular opinion on the MAD stance, also exemplifies the words of an American Nobel Laureate, William Faulkner, “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance . . .”