Nuclear Free World

In Thomas Schelling’s article, “A World Without Nuclear Weapons,” he shares a concept that embodies just that: what would the world be like without nuclear weapons? Although this idea sounds ideal to work towards a safer world, it actually contains many flaws. Since nuclear weapons became a potential resolution to war in the middle of the 20^th century, we have attempted to find ways to stabilize the amount and the usage of these weapons of mass destruction. However, the idea of a nuclear free world goes directly against the world’s way of thinking for the past sixty years. The idea of “nuclear free” would is an interesting idea worth discussion; however, it is merely a hypothetical idea rather than an actual solution towards a safer world.

            The first flaw of this concept is that it relies too much on assumptions. If you are a state with nuclear weapons that agrees to disband the owning of nuclear weapons, how can you be sure that others will follow your lead? Also, once following the initiative to either declare or to sign a document to rid your state of all nuclear weapons, actually taking them down reveals a large vulnerability in your national security. Not only do not have these weapons as leverage between yourself and another country, but you would also leave the country open to nuclear attack. If your country does not have nuclear weapons to retaliate with, then what would stop another country from attacking you with one?

The main problem with this idea is that it focuses too much on having trust in other countries. How can it be determined that all nations truly do not have nuclear weapons? It cannot, because they can only rely on trust, which is very skeptical. Even if there were some sort of international nuclear inspection, who is to say a nation could not simply just hide their nuclear weapons in a remote location. Simply put, they could not enforce checking the entire world for nuclear weapons. Schelling makes a point on how easily nuclear weapons can be made, “…enough plutonium to make a bomb could be hidden in the freezing compartment of my refrigerator, or to evade a radiation detection could be hidden at the bottom of the water in a well” (Schelling, 126). Schelling’s argument is that the only way to stop nuclear weapons is through whistle blowers or the belief that all “responsible” governments will also take action in ridding their nations of all nuclear weapons. The problem with this thinking is that not all other nations are “responsible” and therefore will not follow this. Even if a nuclear power did rid themselves of all said weapons, how could we know that they will not simply recreate the same weapons in times of crisis or war. Since they already have all of the resources, it would be easy for them to rebuild them at a rapid pace. Therefore, no power would truly be nuclear free, for they could just as easily become a nuclear power once again.

            The concept of a nuclear free world is hypothetical and in the real world not a possible solution in dealing with the control of nuclear weapons. At this point in time, we must realize that dealing nuclear weapons in international relations is inevitable. However, we must also know that this is an issue that deals with control rather than destruction. In this concept, there will still need to be trust between nations that they will not use their weapons lightly and without reasonable grounds to even use them as a threat to other nations. However, there is much more room for trust in the nuclear deterrence, which allows the trust between nations to actually work.

Schelling, Thomas C. “A World Without Nuclear Weapons.” Foreign Affairs. p. 124-129. file:///Users/markyp923/Downloads/Schelling%20Daed%202006%20(1).pdf.