Which Countries Can Be Trusted With Nuclear Weapons?

Those who had them first. If there is ever to be a rollback of nuclear weapons worldwide, it should start with those who got the weapons most recently. Why? Because only those countries who had the weapons in the absence of them being possessed by other countries can be trusted to not use the weapons irresponsibly. “But didn’t the US use nuclear weapons against Japan?” Yes, but not irresponsibly. It’s not difficult to argue that had the two bombs not been dropped on Japan that many more Japanese civilians would have died in a subsequent invasion of the country, not to mention estimates of 500,000 US American casualties. Those bombs quickly ended a war that otherwise could have resulted in the deaths of millions. The price that was paid for dropping those bombs was great in terms of human lives, but the price of not dropping them would have been much greater.

Since then, the US has never used a nuclear weapon against another country, nor has any other country used nuclear weapons. But can we trust Russia to not use them if we don’t have our own? Can we trust China to not use them if they don’t have the US nuclear arsenal as a deterrent? We don’t know. But the world should be able to trust the US, because we had them first. Yes, it’s true the Soviets had them shortly after we did, but seriously, who you gonna trust?

However, disarming the entire world of nuclear weapons is not, in my mind, a realistic goal. I don’t see it ever happening, nor am I sure it should happen, although I’m open minded on the matter. But the point is it’s useless to argue about how to do things that have no chance of happening. What’s more realistic is a partial drawback of nuclear weaponization. For example, could we convince Pakistan and India to simultaneously give up their nuclear weapons? This would not only provide additional stability for those two countries, but would greatly lower the risk of a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorists or extremists.