Either nuclear weapons kill us or we move beyond them, soon. Via mass death or the building of a new security system, the nuclear age is finished.
The nuclear deterrence system that the world presently relies upon for its security is rotten, evil, completely unworkable and obsolete. It is a nuclear war waiting to happen, a war no one can or would win. But we remain ostriches with heads deep in sand, waiting passively for an inevitable holocaust apparently too big to prevent.
The United States, based on core principles like the value of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, should make a precious gift to the world and sign the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It would be the first of the nine nuclear powers to sign, and the initiative would be welcomed with relief and jubilation by the vast majority of the world’s citizens.
It is an important fact that Putin, a leader as ruthless in his own way as Hitler, has more nuclear weapons at his disposal than any other nation, but so far, and may it continue, he has not used them. Why? Is it because he fears our nuclear weapons? Or is it because in spite of his gross deficit of compassion for Ukraine, he knows that turning swaths of that nation into radioactive desert does not fit any sane conception of military conquest?
Of course “conventional” war itself is equally insane. The October 7 Hamas attack and what has followed is a tragic case in point. The immense loss of life in the Israeli military’s “conventional” response can only concentrate our minds upon what the massive loss of life in a nuclear war would look like.
A world beyond war itself is possible. Viable alternative security systems have been elaborated in great detail. But we can take a sensible step in that ultimate direction quite safely, which is to unilaterally start backing off the nutty, silly, irrational hair-trigger nuclear system presently holding the whole world hostage.
Winslow Myers is the author of ‘Living Beyond War: A Citizen’s Guide.’
