Nuclear disarmament was one of the earliest goals of the UN. Nuclear weapons are a huge stumbling block for all the goals of the UN in the largest sense, but we also need to look at the details. Two links concerning the W76-2 low yield nuke are worth a read. The W76-2 has recently been loaded into a number of U.S. submarines and is available for use. The W76-2 is an 8 kiloton bomb. About half the size of the Hiroshima bomb. Eight thousand tons of tnt. In other words it is a huge bomb, and yet it is being called “low yield”.
One of the two articles linked is from an American military professor - https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/why-we-need-the-w76-2-low-yield-nuke/ - arguing that Russia has developed low yield nukes, and if we don’t counter, then Russia will be tempted to use their low-yield weapon in Eastern Europe against Nato forces. Without a low yield response available, the U.S. would either have to back down or start WWIII. Thus having the W76-2 is seen as a sub-deterrent within the larger picture of nukes as deterrents to war. It gets more complicated as you look into it. Something that emerges which it is important to know is that the U.S. reserves the right to use nuclear weapons first in a conflict.
The other article is by an arms control expert who believes that the W76-2 will not work as a deterrent and just adds to the possibility that an out of control president might think it OK to bomb someone with a “low yield” weapon. See https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/low-yield-warhead-nuclear-weapons-navy-trident-submarines.html.
Frankly it is frightening. The whole deterrence logic would seem to have some validity, except that as the W76-2 shows, deterrence is a slippery slope and nuclear war is not that unlikely given the close calls we have already experienced. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has recently advanced the doomsday clock to 100 seconds to midnight. The W76-2 is one reason. Then, too, the U.S. has decided to renovate its nuclear stockpile, spending a trillion or more over the next decade. And Russia has developed a difficult to detect attack missile which the U.S. is racing to catch up on.
#UNgoals4cities #nuclear_disarm #together #peace
