“A world free of nuclear weapons is a global public good of the highest order” (Ki-Moon). Ban Ki-Moon is the United Nations Secretary-General. Ki-Moon was born in South Korea, in the past, wars tore through South Korea and had received threats of nuclear destruction. Because of these tragic events, Ki-Moon feels very strongly that nuclear weapons are the world’s greatest threat (Ki-Moon). Ki-Moon was not the only to think this way. After World War I, the American people also started to see how destructive the weapons were. Senator William Borah proposed disarmament in 1920.
The proposition became popular very quickly throughout the United States (Brookhiser). Although the idea of disarmament had caught on, the United States’s nuclear stockpile has continued to grow. The building up of Nuclear Weapons is expensive, no longer a good deterrent and it causes more conflicts with foreign nations. Therefore, the United States needs to start disarming their Nuclear Weapons. The steady decline of working nuclear deterrence has allowed many different opinions to come to light. Some of these opinions are actually in favor of increasing the building of nuclear weapons.
A few members from the political parties have urged the need for investments in developing new nuclear weapons (Hennigan). As a matter of fact, many even support modernizing the nuclear arsenal and testing advanced nuclear weapons (Monroe). Although modernizing the arsenal may sound like a good idea, it hurts the situation much more than it may help. Having more advanced nuclear weapons is not a solution, especially when the purpose of creating the weapons is to obtain peace (Pincus). One of the main conflicts when dealing with nuclear weapons is the high cost it takes to make and keep up.
To illustrate the issue, next year the NNSA is seeking one point three billion dollars to work on six different types of nuclear weapons. Not to mention that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the United States will use around three hundred and fifty-five billion dollars on their nuclear arsenal (Feinstein). “Furthermore, our nuclear stockpile is competing for limited defense spending, money that could be used to address more pressing challenges such as the fight against the Islamic State and defending against cyber attacks” (Feinstein). As Feinstein says, nuclear weapons are an unnecessary burden on the nation’s wallet.
Therefore, they need to start the process of disarmament to make room for a better solution. Another key thing to remember is that the United States is already well over 18 trillion dollars in debt and counting. A numerous amount of people do not know the threat of fading nuclear deterrence. With less deterrence, more nations have begun to modernize their weapons and think of possible use on smaller scale conflicts. ““China is in the midst of an immense strategic modernization. India and Pakistan are expanding and improving their nuclear arsenals” (Monroe).
With the enormous populations of China and India, they are highly important global influences. Russia, another global power, has begun to strategize the use of nuclear weapons for lesser issues (Monroe). Because of these changes in deterrence, it may start the use of nuclear warfare in more common practice, and not as a last resort. Nuclear weapons also cause a huge problem by adding to the tension between the United States and foreign nations. Just recently, politicians in the United States praised the treaty with Iran, but the public found many issues with it.
Such as, the twenty-four-hour warning on when they are to make “surprise visits” to the Iranian nuclear facilities (Brookhiser). Furthering the American and Iranian tension, Iran’s greatest leaders are now struggling to approach how they are going to make a peace treaty with their great enemy. “We have announced that we will not negotiate with the Americans on any issue other than the nuclear case,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader said, “prepare for the continuation of the fight against America” (Erdbrink).
Iran announces that it will only ake deals with the United States on nuclear weapons in the hope of it leading to a friendlier relationship between Iran and other countries (Erdbrink). With all that in mind, The United States needs to disarm their nuclear weapons or else face the consequences of worsening their finance with illogical, unnecessary for deterrence and extremely deadly weapons that hurt global relations. Many important political heads are starting to support nuclear disarmament and are making movements towards an international “Global Zero” campaign.
Some of these people are William Perry, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn and George Shultz (Kroenig). There are many small ways that countries could make efforts to start disarming their arsenals. These include holding conferences with other nations and holding true to the promises of the previous treaties made (KiMoon). Another practical step would be canceling the building new missile and making a step towards a safer world without nuclear weapons.
