In the category of 'all the bloody things I don't have a clue about', while doing some reading on the history of nuclear arms policy, given Obama's recent decision to cancel European missile shield and my skepticism re his overtures in general thereof, I find that Paul Nitze, father of the American nuclear deterrence posture, near the end of his life called for the abolition of nuclear weapons. I only mark this since I've ridiculed Obama in the past for calling for the same. I understand an old man warming to death and making an appeal to fantasy - but that only entrenches my opinion - to wit, that such calls place emotion over facts; that abolition would require an infallible method of verification, of which no technology exists that can promise such a thing; the law of unintended consequences - ie, just as we really couldn't predict the dynamics of a world with nuclear weapons, how can we pretend to understand what a world suddenly without them would be like? In other words, would such a world prove more dangerous or less? I mean, any sane person understands the emotion of 'O god, please rid us of this plague' - but in reality? Not so clear.
I continue to maintain that it is not in the nature of humans to give up or abrogate successful weapons technologies, both offensive and defensive - instead they develop new ones that render old ones either irrelevant or less threatening. Ergo, missile defense - I would consider any focus placed on abolition that drew impetus and resources away from missile defense to be an extremely unwise move.
