statehate asked: What's your take on the NPT, especially with regard to countries like Iran and N Korea acquiring nuclear weapons and the alleged interest of the US government (and the UN -- LOL!) in preventing such a thing from happening?
I have somewhat mixed feelings on nuclear weapons, actually. On the one hand, it may be advisable for the US to retain some nuclear weapons as a defensive measure, but in 99.99% of situations, their use should be a non-option.
However, given the nature of nuclear weapons and the extreme unlikelihood that they could be used without mass civilian casualties, I’m also extremely doubtful that they could ever be used justly. Suffice it to say, I’m still working out my opinion on the matter.
As for the NPT and similar arms reduction treaties, I like the disarmament and certainly prefer that such legal/diplomatic frameworks to war if nation-states must be involved in determining if other sovereign nation-states are “allowed” to have nuclear weapons. I’d like even better a practice of noninterventionism in which we minded our own business until actually attacked.
As for North Korea and Iran, it seems doubtful to me that either country is close to getting a real nuclear weapon which they could deliver to American soil, or that they would ever actually instigate war with us.
On the contrary, I’d say these two despotic governments have simply looked around and realized that we probably won’t invade a country with nukes. So given our itchy trigger finger, it makes sense for them to try to get some (not that I’m justifying development of nuclear weapons, of course — I’m just saying it probably strikes the Iranian and North Korean governments as rational). Perhaps if we were to mind our own business, it would become a non-issue.
