ZERO NUKES?!

Reflecting on the war truth I have learned in this unit, I found a very interesting article that delves a little into the opinion of our new president Obama as on nuclear weapons. This New York Times article explores how Obama is the first president to make nuclear disarmament the center of America's defense policy. Obama proposes that the world completely rid itself of nuclear weapons and detox each nuclear country of its dependence on nukes as a icon of fear. He admits " 'the goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime,' he declared last month before a huge crowd in Prague. 'It will take patience and persistence' ". Looking back in history it is interesting that the nation who dropped the first atomic bomb and has a huge range of nuclear intelligence weapons is one of the first nations to propose a Zero Nukes plan. 

  America has experimented and learned about the capabilities of science by learning from history, and now 60 years later our government has arrived at a new viewpoint of the power of nuclear weapons. They are no longer the coolest thing since slice bread, the are old school and have taken thousands of lives at the push of a button. Obama commented that “in a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up.” He explains this is because as nuclear arsenals expand the "security of nuclear weapons and technology diminishes. Terrorists would have no compunction about using a nuclear weapon, and their target could not easily retaliate against an elusive stateless group".

Because of these new dangers Obama is trying to convince Russian and Britain to agree with his zero nukes plan. With the experience I had with out nuclear simulation in class I am somewhat aware of the difficulty Obama will have discussing this issue with Russian and Britain. Each country will have its opinions and motives for the situation. To come to an agreement the personal needs of each country will need to be considered and each nation must give up something.

Examaning historical examples of trying to eliminate nuclear weapons will help Obama on his plan of action in negotiations. This same stradgedy helped me in our nuclear simulation in class. We read various articles and researched each countries history with nuclear weapons and interactions with the other countries. One historical example for Obama is the 1946 proposal to create a powerful international agency to control nuclear technology. It failed because it required the "five members of the United Nations Security Council to give up their veto power on some nuclear matters. This Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, now 41 years old, has proved ineffectual in moving the world toward nuclear disarmament." Another example for Obama to consider in his research is the 1986 summit in Iceland where Ronald Reagan would not agree to eliminate nuclear weapons because it required America to abandon its missle defense program. This is a great example of how countries can be utterly selfish. 

On American Studies day I listened to Mr. Maury, a world photographer, speak about his experiences documenting the social conflict in many countries. One group of photos he showed us what his documentation of the Rwandan Genocide. He said how America would not declare it a genocide in the United Nation because that would entail them to deploy army to stop the genocide. He said "America did not help because Rwanda had no oil, gold, or resources America could benefit from." Without a personal interest in the country America was indifferent of the fact that millions of innocent people were being killed in Rwanda. Countries are selfish. This is a major consideration in making coming to any world resolution. It is nearly impossible to come to such decisions because of this ultimate truth of selfishness. We will see how Obama faces this power.