Nuclear Weapons Pros And Cons

As research continues, newer and better technologies are invented. This new technology is being used in almost all aspects of life, from day-to-day life, research, military, medical and many other fields. One such technology is the development of nuclear power. Nuclear energy is “the energy held in the nucleus of an atom; it can be obtained through two types of reactions – fission and fusion”1. Recently nuclear energy has become more important because of its various uses and applications, its effects on the environment, and based on the church’s opinions and the opinions of the military and governments, nuclear energy is an important tool that humans should continue to research and develop, but only its non-violent applications.
Currently, …show more content…
The military also supports the disarmament of nuclear weapons, as nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction, as a small nuclear bomb can wipe out large tracts of land. These are very hard to defend against, as stated, “Bullets kill men, but atomic bombs kill cities. A tank is a defense against a bullet, but there is no defense against a weapon that can destroy civilization. . . Our defense is law and order”15. One of the problems of nuclear weapons is the slippery slope created by the threat of them. There is no absolutely safe defense against a nuclear bomb, so as shown through history, nuclear weapons are their own deterrents. To stop wars, nuclear weapons, such as atomic bombs, were used, but in order for the enemy to combat those weapons, they had to develop nuclear armaments themselves, which creates a cycle where the production of weapons instigates the production of more weapons16. This led to the situation in the 2000s when there were, “[…] 32,000 nuclear bombs possessed by eight nations containing 5,000 megatons of destructive energy. This is a global arsenal more than sufficient to destroy the world”17. It was only after the cold war, when the Soviet Union and the United States of America were competing to develop more and more deadly weapons in larger quantities, did countries realize that there was no need for all of the weapons they had created, and thus agreed to limit themselves to only enough weapons to eliminate the enemy. The extra bombs were disarmed and broken down. This still carried risk, due to the precedent where some of the weapons have accidentally fired. This decision, agreed upon by the superpowers at the time, led to the end of the arms