Translation:

"The president is right - and the president is wrong. In his speech in Prague the president correctly pointed at the danger of a new nuclear arms race, and the growing risk of such weapons being used. But wrong is his demand from that, to reach a world free of nuclear weapons. The applaus he got from angela Merkel and Frank-Walter Steinmeier feeds an illusion that would not lead to a better but more dangerous world.

It may be - at least in theory - imaginable to scrap all nuclear warheads in the world. But the knoweldge of how to construct them cannot be scrapped.

And Obama's offer to spread participation in peaceful use of nuclear energy, underlines this aspect. Becasue the way from civilian to military use of nuclear technology is short.

Who wants to give a guarantee that not in some unserious, abandoned part of the world the decision to end participation in the ending of nuclear weapons would be made? the almost-nuclear power Syria and the highly armed North Korea have demonstrated that such programs can be organised with relative discretion.

The world would also become more dangerous, because passing on the option of the nuclear bomb, whose logic was basing on not to use it, would boost a conventional arms race. Where nuclear deterrance is no more, readiness for a war with tanks, bombers and infantry, even chemical and biological weapons is becoming stronger.

Nevertheless, Obama'S hint of the danger of increasing availability of nuclear weapons is important. Would the shia Iran get the bomb, Sunni Saudi-Arabia would do the same, possibly even neighbouring Turkey.

That's why non-proliferation and the substantial reduction of nuclear arsenals must be the goal of politicians, but not "global zero". "More safety" is much more important than "no nukes".

Eliminating nukes is the worst idea I've heard in a long long time.

Sure, it'd be great if they weren't around. Noone would, could or should deny that. But the genie is out of the bottle. Too many people (ie everybody) know how powerful they are. To think that people won't seek them once they're all gone is daft, the knowledge is there, its a matter of paying enough money to get what you want.

Yeah, that's the sad truth, at least for the moment. No glory there for our generation.

Stop wasting your time typing to me if you do not care anways and only american voters count when global destruction is threatend. Makes you look less exculpating in view of a lack of reasonable arguments.

So maybe the United States of America could do without a few dozen warheads. As far as I can understand, you'll have plenty left, and it'd take a nutcase bigger than that waterhead over in North Korea to dare an attack.

Having 1000 or less nuclear warheads is more than enough to annihilate any hostile country. So why the sudden need for a number over that?

It is a moot point. It is like a fellow who reloads ammunition and says, "I will only have 3 boxes of shells on the shelf..." But the fellow has the material to crank out as many as he want when he wants.

The idea has never been to "destroy the world 5 times over". The idea is that we'd have so many weapons that even the destruction of a significant portion of them would not see the end of our MAD deterrent.

What I don't get is why people (especially liberals) give a crap at how many nuclear weapons we have, since the PROVEN PRINCIPLE of it all is that we have so many so we don't have to use them.

Stop making this a liberal/conservative issue. The guy who's worshiped as the greatest conservative president of all didn't think we needed any nukes. Reagan's real goal in his disarmament talks was to eliminate all nuclear weapons. His advisers never wanted to let him talk to Gorbachev alone, since he would keep bringing up the global zero option, and the advisers (who believed in nuclear deterrence) would always have to go in afterwards and say "well, he didn't REALLY mean that..."

Imagine the outcry if Obama said he wanted to share our best defensive weapon system with the Russians. People would think he was the softest guy ever in the White House. But Reagan publicly proposed doing exactly that with SDI.

Here's some good documents on Reykjavik: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB203/index.htm

From the second meeting (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/...Document11.pdf ): "We are even prepared to share the benefits of strategic defense, the President said. We will agree now to a treaty committing to do so in conjunction with the elimination of ballistic missiles."

When Reagan said those sorts of things directly to the leader of our most feared enemy, why is it suddenly so horrible for Obama to say he doesn't want to have nukes around?

I'm not making this such an issue. I was pointing out a FACT that, while uncomfortable to some, is a fact.

Had you actually read my post rather than keying in on one factual comment (which I can prove, by the way) you'd know that the point of it was that having a large amount of weapons is specifically what stops their use.

As far as Reagan is concerned, yes he did indeed seek the elimination of nuclear weapons. But, as even your own post attempts to illustrate, he wanted to do so by REPLACING the deterrent of nuclear holocaust with the deterrent that the expensive damned weapons just won't work anyway.

And yes, Reagan did propose sharing SDI. Also, Bush proposed sharing ABM. If Obama wanted to share an effective SDI system with anyone, I'd support that.

What I do NOT support is the out-and-out reduction of ONLY nuclear deterrent without having a replacement deterrent, which is EXACTLY what many liberals (not all, so don't take it personally) want. Many elements on the far left believe that simply reducing the amount of nuclear weapons would prevent their use. I say that principle is WRONG. I believe that a significant reduction in the amount of nukes would make their use more likely. As has been stated, there are enough of these weapons to destroy the world many times over. So, a substantial reduction would not actually remove any real destructive power. What does it do then?

Simply, it reduces the deterrent.

The problem in this all is, that detterence worked for by now only 60 years. That is not a lot of time, really, but within this timeframe so far ppl kept their cool.

However, this concept only has to fail "once" and the sh*t hits the fan. It's like ppl actually "like" to raise their children under the threat of nuclear weapons, full of faith that their existence will prevent their use, which, by Murphys law, is highly unlikely. Literally the fate of the world....That's a whole lot trust in something as irrational an unpredictable as human nature, no matter what country from.

The problem is, you end up having to trust either way. When was the last time in history you recall technology (especially weapons tech) being passed over because of its potential destructive power? Never.

So, knowing that there's no way to prevent the pursuit of these weapons, the best defense is to make sure that you are also armed with them. It is unfortunate, but the FACT is that the only way to keep the peace is at gunpoint.

You said it - human nature is unstable. The best way to counter this is to give incentives for stability, i.e, "we'll let you live if you behave".

Heres a good opinion piece on the topic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...-weapons-obama

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. ;)

Getting rid of ALL nukes on the planet is a sound idea....but can anyone be sure of knowing with certainty that ALL countries would comply and that some of the crackpot dictators wouldn't hold a few back.

Just imagine, you get rid of all yours then the North Korean nutter rings you in the dead of night and informs you he kept one hidden.

What do you do? Invade and face a nuclear strike on your homeland.

I think the best anyone can hope for is a reduction in numbers. The deterrent factor/fear of a retaliatory strike seems to have worked fine thus far.

I would buy this logic. You push the button, I will push my button. The loss of trust to dismantle is long gone. All want to keep the balance of how may buttons they can push if the need arises. As Jim states, hiding these can be done. No U2 plane or space orbitor will find them.

The situation had been out of control at least once, during Cuba. Back then, the crisis was not defused by competent management. We simply were LUCKY.

However, most of the time it worked the way you outlined because actors in the nuclear arena were cool-blooded calculators with at least some sanity and reason left. This safety function you can forget in case of religious nutheads living by fantasies of world dominance and/or just devine (=manmade) revenge that was sought for and carried out by their sick minds.

Or as Kidman puts it so laconic and precise in this film called "Project Peacemaker": I'm not worried about those trying to get many nuclear weapons. I'm worried about the guy who only wants one.

Proliferation is the one great danger in a world with knowledge on nuclear weapons. It's the one uncalculatable risk we cannot afford, and the one bad thing that really does not let me find sleep. Preventing proliferation is what seems to justify all and every means necessary to acchieve that mission objective. Enforcing non-proliferation is not negotiable - it is an imperative must.