Phil Mirzoev's blog

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Nuclear arms do huge indirect damage right now, but governments could care less.

When many people talk of or think about the existing nuclear weapons, they are often focus on the potential direct damage only - on the direct threat.
Yes, direct damage from the existing nuclear arsenal (proudly possessed by a number of 'civilized' countries like US, Russia, Britain, Israel, China, France etc), would be enough to make the most common mental conceptions of Apocalypse become a real-life experience. I think that anyone can go no further than Hiroshima experience to get a taste of it (for the Americans this could be a doubly understandable and clear illustration), but bearing in mind at that, that now the use of nuclear bombs most probably would not be confined only to one bomb and only to one nation.
But talking about nuclear weapons one tends to rather frequently forget about the HUGE indirect damage it makes even without any practical application thereof. Example: 200 (approx) nukes in possession of Israel 1) make all the 'high moral talks' about preventing Iran from having the same thing just a piece of comedian farce 2) establish huge barriers in the way of any Middle East piece efforts 3) push other nations strive to acquire this. Huge geopolitical and ethical (those two in this context inextricable) damage!
The USA has nukes hundreds times more than it really needs to provide a reasonable defensive potential: it too 1) undermines any efforts and reputation of the US in terms of peace-making 2) also justifies and provokes other governments to strive for nukes 3) consumes MONEY of the taxpayer
Any nuclear weapons abiding in the possession of all nations put together has consumed a HUGE amount of money and other resources (incalculable directly in monetary terms) and taken it away from the economic and technological development - money spent on a) development of those weapons and b) keeping, storing, replacement, cherishing and nourishing those weapons.
All of these are just part of the HUGE non-military damage that is done by nuclear weapons right now as I write these lines.
Added to that is a hardly calculable MORAL damage to everyone. I mean, our children from the very cradle get accustomed to the idea that nuclear weapons have just as normal a place in this world and in this life, as their school, their work, their mum and dad. This is a 'self-reproducing' sociopsychological culture of 'normality' of nuclear world.
The list is far from complete, but I hope it can give a general notion of 'how far nuclear weapons cause damage', including when 'peacefully stored' in their containers...

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