Nuclear Weapons Cons

Nuclear weapons have been prevalent in world society since WW2, however they also haven’t been used since the end of WW2 so it is questioned to what extent they are useful in society nowadays. Do they act as a good deterrence for to keep the peace between feuding nations, or do they cause more harm than good as at any point a ‘button’ could be pressed and world annihilation could happen? Supposedly the cold war was supposed to be the ending of the tension between the east and west however in times like today it can be argued that we are at less peace now then we were as countries are so unsure of what the other could do and there are so many other nations that have nuclear weapons so readily available. Keeping nuclear weapons may seem like …show more content…
Russian governments have long been at loggerheads with the United States of America since before the cold war and the fact that the cold war happened should have been enough to show that nuclear weapons do not help with international peace. It only takes one nation to suspect another nation to have nuclear weapons to start another cold war or an actual war. If you take the middle east as an example, the western countries suspected them to be making nuclear weapons and the mistrust that now exists between these states is hostile and violent. Furthermore, with the emergence of countries like North Korea having the use of nuclear weapons terrifies the western nations even more as they little control or power over what happens and these sorts of countries don’t tend to listen to the International governmental organizations like NATO or the UN. ‘North Korea 's nuclear programme remains a source of deep concern for the international community. Despite multiple efforts to curtail it, Pyongyang says it has conducted five nuclear tests, with the fifth supposedly its "most powerful" test to date.’ (BBC News, 2016) This piece of news clearly suggests that, even though many international countries have tried to stop North Korea from testing their nuclear weapons, there is nothing they can do to stop them. This implies …show more content…
Even so, there are some countires, like North Korea and Iran, that do not have influence over world issues. Then there are many countries like Australia, Canada and Spain that do not have a nuclear weapons programme and they do hold important influence in the contemporary world arena. Rarely do you hear of Canada having any issues with other countries and they are still influential in the contemporary world arena and therefore it does start to make people question why so many countries feel the need to keep nuclear weapons as Canada are a relatively peaceful country. Furthermore ‘Canada has ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), is a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group…is an active member in several ad hoc non-proliferation efforts…’ (Nti.org, 2016). This shows that not only do Canada not allow testing of nuclear weapons, they also are against the position of keeping these weapons for use. Therefore showing they believe that they do not promote peace in society. The view that keeping these nuclear weapons as a matter of holding importance in the world view could be seen as a realist view point as if elite states monopolise the weapons then they, in turn, technically hold the power over the smaller, weaker nations who do not have the weapons. This thought makes it hard to split the bad nations from the good and question the