Agree with what you said and I'll underscore the 'especially' clause of your point regarding rational actors. I encourage people to watch Errol Morris' Fog of War which examines the life of Robert McNamara. In the documentary he states that a principle lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis is that "rationality will not save us".
Rational actors believing they are proceeding in the best interests of their countries can allow a situation to escalate and cause the mutual annihilation of their civilizations. This was the case when John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev were heads of their respective states.
Who knows? They are just talking big - it's even more ludicrous for the only nation who ever used nuclear weapon on civilian population to still have them, am I rite?
Do you truly believe that Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Soviet Union, or Imperial Japan would have hesitated for a second to use nuclear weapons if they had developed them first?
I, for one, do not.
---
Sidenote:
The most remarkable aspect of the story of the atomic bomb occurred after the development of fusion weapons.
The President and his chief advisors called together a committee to determine whether to wipe out the Soviet Union. The discussion took place in the Roosevelt Room shortly following the development of the hydrogen bomb.
With its massive bomber fleet, unparalleled fusion technology, and large stockpile of fission weapons, the United States could have quite literally conquered the world.
Yet it chose not to do so. I know of no parallel in world history where such an event has occurred.
Prior to the conference, Hans Bethe of the Manhattan project wrote to the President:
"If we fight a war and win it with nuclear weapons, what history will remember is not the ideas we were fighting for, but the methods we used to accomplish them.
These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan, who brutally killed every last inhabitant of Persia."
The russians, which are not that different from URSS, if you ask me, have nuclear missiles. They haven't used them in Syria, or any other conflict that I'm aware of. They are stupid enough to have detonated the worlds largest nuclear weapon, I'll give them that (Tsar bomb).
But not on other humans. On a deserted island.
We like to vilify the russians, sure we do - but when you look at the facts as they are, a very different picture comes to your eyes. Don't let those manipulative news stories fool you.
"If we fight a war and win it with nuclear weapons, what history will remember is not the ideas we were fighting for, but the methods we used to accomplish them.
These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan, who brutally killed every last inhabitant of Persia."
I like this quote. What I like even more, is how just above it, you smudge the history as if they not detonated nuclear weapon on people, but they just refrained from conquering the world. Read what I said the same thread - in the end, what matter is what you actually do, not what you could have done, or what you claimed you would do.
I've read the comment. Unfortunately, I lack the motivation right now to read history books, but leaving that aside, a good start would be the USA themselves to lead the way, and get rid of those weapons. Like South Africa did. We cannot plead ignorance anymore, we know they are horrible weapons by now (though, the military might call that "effective").
I know there is a plan, by which they reduce the ammount of nuclear warheads, but to me it seems like they are dragging their feets, looking suspicious on one another. Have they wished it, they would be long gone, serving as fuel in some reactor.
Getting back to North Korea - I don't think something can be done without causing a major conflict. Leaving them be is not safe either, but there must be a peaceful way. If the problem is that Kim Jong-un is paranoid and crazy - he'll die eventually, and if not provoked, I hope things go smooth.
A lot of the world revolves around trust - even if blind, stupid trust. A crazy enough guy could poison the bread in the supermaket, and there's not much one can do about it. I think this is somewhat similar.
Also, I think much of the panick arise from the fact that they don't play along with "the great american plan", like many other countries do. They are torn in their side, but so far not such a big threat.
By the great american plan I mean sharing the same system of government, signing good' ol' threaties that favor american corporations (TPP, PIPA, SOPA, and whatnot). They did a great job spreading democracy in middle east, while mostly Europe ended up taking the heat. I hope they won't start spreading democracy there as well, because pushing it by force didn't seem very effective.
If my comment was meaningless platitudes, what can I make of yours?
My arguments was that it doesn't matter what one is claiming - in the end what matters is what you do. The americans are the only ones so far to have nuked other people, and they still get to keep their missiles. Don't you think we are way too forgiving with them?
And Americans have lots of bombs and don't use them. North Korea on the other hand tortures people routinely for fun (not for intelligence or other excuses, but literally for fun).
> The americans are the only ones so far to have nuked other people
They did that on the dawn of the Nuclear era when no one understood the impact or nuclear weapons. After the first two they understood things better - any not only never used them again, but worked to make sure no one else would either.
> Don't you think we are way too forgiving with them?
Conversely nuclear weapons are probably the most significant reason the US and USSR never had a direct military conflict in Europe.
Absent the risk of escalation, I find it unlikely that the various crises wouldn't have escalated too, at least, the take over of west Berlin (and thus probably a subsequent land war in west Germany).
Rational actors believing they are proceeding in the best interests of their countries can allow a situation to escalate and cause the mutual annihilation of their civilizations. This was the case when John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev were heads of their respective states.
No one should have these weapons.