Issue: Foreign Policy: Nuclear weapons disarmament issue

[JasonM]

Given the fact that Ron Paul wants to decrease the US involvement abroad, wouldn't that mean that he would also want to find ways to drastically reduce the number of nukes the US has and get into talks with Russia to do the same?

Reason I'm asking is that I just got reading chapter 3 and a few other parts of other chapters from this site here:

http://nuclearwarfaretribunal.org/

and realized that even the purpose of having nukes for retaliatory reasons would be grossly stupid and immoral, and its use would violate every international law and war crimes law on the books.

The nukes we have are so powerful that its use anywhere in the world would ultimately have side effects at home. According to chapter 3 of this site, it takes 100 megatons of nuclear detonation to cause a nuclear winter, which would effectively end civilization as we know it (if not all human life period). Doesn't matter if its concentrated all on 1 city or spread out, it's still the same.

The US has enough nukes to do this 18 times over. :eek:

Wouldn't it make sense to drastically decrease our arsenal to less than 1/18th of what we have now, or limit our possession to 100 megatons or less? It won't make a difference whether we have 100 or 2000 megatons. Even if there was 0 retaliation, we'd all still die if that entire amount were used.

In fact, we wouldn't need more than 20 or 10 megatons worth of nukes for "deterrence".

I think Ron Paul should talk about decreasing the nukes we have regardless of whether Russia and others do so given the fact that it doesn't take more than 100-200 megatons of nukes used on any part of the earth to end all life on earth in under a couple years anyways.

We are contemplating a "nuclear first strike" on Iran, and the leaders have absolutely NO CONCEPTION how stupidly and grossly destructive these weapons are, and just how counterproductive to US interests it is to even consider their use on Iran regardless of whether they have nukes today or not.

I somehow don't think having enough weapons to destroy the entire planet even 1 time over is in this country's best interest. We're better off not retaliating at all, since at least maybe part of the planet would survive instead of none of it.

[beermotor]

I don't think we need to dismantle them - ya never know, they may come in handy. For example, look at Paul Muad'dib's use of them in Dune. I look at it like that.

As for the nuclear winter thing, have you read Cormac McCarthy's The Road? Heh.

[JasonM]

Hmm, never read Dune or "The Road".

I never said all of them, 90% of them. We're wasting like 27 billion a year just keeping them up to date. If there are a few clever scientists that can figure out what to do with em that's more useful, I'm up for hearing it.

But I think leading by example and dismantling the vast majority of our weapons would be a good move, and would prompt Russia to do the same since the costs for running their nukes is really high as well.

It just makes sense economically, and would be yet another cost we can save on (and well saved too).

[beermotor]

Well I agree, I don't think we need all of the massive amount we've got. But this is certainly not a high agenda item, at $27B/year. Bigger fish to fry first.

You should read The Road... he won the Pulitzer last year for it. Or maybe it was this year.

[Delaware]

Ron Paul isnt for getting into the affairs of foreign countries, but im sure he wouldnt want to disarm the US of one of its most powerful weapons.

[Delaware]

We should get rid of the however many thousands we have and keep a NEW updated technologically safer and better stock of somewhere between 500 and a 1000.