Is nuclear disarmament a good idea?

I’m about talk on an issue I know nothing about: nuclear disarmament. I have no idea what the pros and cons are. I have no idea what reasons there are for disarming or not disarming. I’m going to go with my gut.

If you’ve been watching the news, you know President Obama has just had a nuclear summit. At the summit, he called for all the nuclear powers to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons they have: including us. We’re supposed to reduce our nuclear arsenal by 2/3, or something like that. I suppose the reasoning is that we are to lead by example, which is just another way America manifests its hubris. Why doesn’t that show other countries that we look down our noses on them? Only this time, we have reduced our defense.

It’s scary to look at the slippery slope. Of course, we all want a world with no nukes. But there are countries who want nukes in order to detonate them. Some countries have as a logo on their flag an image of a mushroom cloud. If these countries get nukes, they plan to use them. Logically, we’d want to keep them from getting nukes; or, if they did get them, deter them from using them somehow.

This whole pipe-dream of complete nuclear disarmament will leave the cooperating countries in a scary place. It’s the issue of gun-control all over again. If you outlaw guns, only the outlaws have guns; if you outlaw nuclear weapons internationally, then only the international outlaws have nuclear weapons. And when we law abiding countries are stripped naked of any kind of nuclear defense, there’s no stopping the international outlaws from blowing us to smithereens.

Even if we’re going to lead by example (supposedly), do you really think other countries will find this admirable, fall head over heels, and have a life-changing experience to follow suit? Is this the real world we live in? I think of Iran or North Korea or Cuba or even Russia, China, or even minor terrorist groups. If they banded together, or even if one country got one nuclear weapon (especially Iran), we’d be in hot water. Sure, we still have a nuclear arsenal to tap into. But down the road, if Obama gets the countries of the West to completely denude themselves of any nuclear defense, there’s literally nothing - but our good faith and trust in otherwise untrustworthy nations - to prevent possible nuclear holocaust.

I was just randomly thinking about that and I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on it.