Well what’s a rogue country? The largest ones are NPT signatories who totally fail in their obligations. The worst offenders are Russia and the USA who still maintain massive stockpiles. Terrorists and criminals are not an argument for retaining nuclear weapons, they are an argument for getting rid of the things. Terrorists and criminals have to obtain the weapons from nuclear weapons states. Terrorists and criminals cannot be deterred by nuclear weapons. The NPT can’t stop everyone, but it’s rigoursous application is the best mechanism we have. If a nation has the natural resources and technical expertise, it can do it on it’s own. Isn’t that how India did it? Or it can get legal help on the way like the UK gave Pakistan (for the life of me I don’t see how that made the world a better place Britain). And of course there’s the illegal option like North Korea, courtesy of Pakistan. Well a so-called rogue scientist, same thing. So that’s thanks to a lack of British foresight really.
Save some of the bashing over the head of Britain for the USA though.
They let the genie out of the the bottle with a spectacularly arrogant lack of thought about the long term implications. The USA always thinks it’s above consequences, despite many demonstrations of the contrary. If you wish you can trace the thread a bit further back just for fun. The USA unwisely threatened China during the Korean War. So of course China felt it had to have them. Then India lost a border conflict to China, so India had to have them. Then Pakistan lost several wars to India, so they had to have them too as a matter of “national survival”. Root of the chain, irresponsible behaviour by the world’s original nuclear power.
Meanwhile modern Western foreign policy has provided states that we don’t like with the best possible motivations to acquire such weapons. Again, one nation in particular’s spectacular lack of foresight stands out. Regime change and execution by drone. Always acting as if actions have no blow-back. After all these are small, powerless, unimportant countries. Haven’t they learnt yet? No-one’s unimportant. And no-one’s powerless.
So what to do? Isn’t it obvious? You can’t use them, you can’t threaten to use them. And once you become a nuclear power, your business as usual behaviour always carries an implied nuclear threat. They cause your cause an incredible amount of harm. However, no-one who’s got them is going to unilaterally get rid of them whilst other guys still have them. Look how that worked out for the Ukraine. Guaranteed by the USA, UK and, cough, Russia. But there’s no excuse for not reducing stockpiles to very low levels and concentrating on their security. Quite simply the more of these there are, in the larger number of hands, for the longer amount of time; the greater the chance that something very bad will inevitably happen. And we have absolutely no control over where that historic event will occur.
As for good old Cold War style deterrence that so many of us subscribed to. I have now renounced it. Two nations bickering over political differences threatening to murder everyone in the house are criminally insane.
Last edited by Case One; 10th Dec 2020 at 06:21.