Nuclear Proliferation

Reading a thread about China mobilizing its troops near Korea, someone mentioned what needs to happen is for South Korea to get nuclear weapons. While this would naturally act as a deterrent, it would probably speed up the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world. The way things are going, I can't see nuclear proliferation being stopped, so I'm wondering would the best way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world come about if there was a limited/regional nuclear war? It would let people see the true potential horrors of a nuclear war. Or would it be a case of once we went down that road we'd never turn back, and nations would see a war as another reason to have their own nuclear weapons as a potential deterrent?

Seeing a regional nuclear war somewhere would have no effect on nuclear proliferation in other parts of the world. Those who feel the need for it today would still want them for whatever reason. Nuclear weapons are extremely costly and many countries prefer to rely on others as their nuclear deterrent such as Taiwan relies on America and so forth so they will never begin a nuclear program.

Once Iran gets the bomb you can be fairly certain that Saudi Arabia and Egypt will be next, probably add Kuwait into that and its a scenario that's unlikely to change regardless of what happens in some other region such as a Pakistan/India nuclear exchange.

Probably the only way to reduce the threat of weapons is some sort of global treaty where countries are motivated to give up their weapons by either economic stimulus or some other means of persuasion. I doubt any country who has them will give them up easily but it may be possible to tempt places such as Iran by giving them something they want more.

Perhaps a promise to equip their country with renewable energy and let other countries pick up the cost. That may work but its unlikely to happen so that leaves you with the option of letting proliferation happen or try to take out their programs.

Saddam had a well known nuclear program up and running but between the no-fly zone bombing, the pounding during the first gulf war and the second, all of his facilities and materials were basically destroyed. That's probably why no weapons of mass destruction were found by the way but that's an entirely different matter.

I don't think you are going to stop nuclear proliferation so in my opinion what we should do is take a region like the Middle East, give each nation about 24 nuclear weapons, and quietly back up. After the firestorm we can peacefully move in and claim the oil for ourselves.

Originally posted by Hopechest

I don't think you are going to stop nuclear proliferation so in my opinion what we should do is take a region like the Middle East, give each nation about 24 nuclear weapons, and quietly back up. After the firestorm we can peacefully move in and claim the oil for ourselves.

Thats a bit simplistic, not sure who you mean by 'we', but if that scenario did happen, you'd still have around 5 powers competing for any resources left behind. US, China, India, Russia, Europe spring to mind, maybe some of the other emerging powers like Turkey too

South Korea right now does not need any nuclear weapons; the promise of an American nuclear retaliation against DPRK is enough. If South Korea had nuclear weapons the all that would do is cause a huge arms race on the Peninsula like what we have seen in the past with India and Pakistan.

As things stand if North Korea was to by some metrical get a nuke to detonate in Seoul then a American nuclear retaliation would be inevitable. That is enough of a deterrent, if the South had nuclear weapons it would only lead to an arms race and make things worse.

The best way to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons as unpopular as it may be is to launch air strikes against states that seek to develop them like Syria, Iran and North Korea. It’s not the best option but it’s the only option to stop the spread of nuclear weapons then global powers have to stop other states developing them by force.

This includes north Korea but the problem is that they already have a limited nuclear capability so the horse is out of the stable so to speak. It’s about damage limitation if things are allowed to continue then it is almost a inevitability that DPRK will develop a significant nuclear deterrent. The only option in my view is to launch air strikes against North Korean nuclear facilities.

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin


The problem also is that its not always feasible to strike a country before they get their facilities off the ground, as with North Korea. With the likes of Syria its fine because they can't do much, but if a more powerful country wants to develop, and they can retaliate strongly against any attempts to stop them, there'll be no appetite among the west for military intervention