What Nuclear Weapons Cost the World

Letters from The New York Times,

January 20, 2013

“The Myth of Nuclear Necessity,” by Ward Wilson (Op-Ed, Jan. 14), drives home the point that these weapons of mass destruction are dangerous and ultimately useless.

Nuclear weapons place society under the constant threat of nuclear terrorism or even accidental launching. If the world powers fail to ratify a nuclear test ban treaty, international tensions and even a new arms race would come about if test explosions resume.

If we are fortunate enough to avoid these tragedies, we still lose with nuclear weapons because of the extraordinary costs, which rob valuable resources.

The United States alone spends at least $52 billion a year on nuclear weapons. Imagine if even a small amount of that were donated to feed the hungry in this country and worldwide. We could give a lift to those struggling at home and stabilize a worldwide hunger crisis, our greatest threat to peace.

WILLIAM LAMBERS
Cincinnati, Jan. 14, 2013

The writer is the author of “Nuclear Weapons” and “Ending World Hunger.” 

To the Editor:

In debunking the myths against the abolition of nuclear weapons, Ward Wilson’s head and heart are in the right place, but he perpetuates two other myths.

Major reductions in the size of American and Soviet nuclear arsenals in the late 1980s were due not solely to “President Ronald Reagan’s leadership,” as Mr. Wilson suggests, but equally, if not more, to the initiatives of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader.

Second, for vulnerable countries, “the real value of nuclear bombs” today is not, as Mr. Wilson writes, “as status symbols” but as a potential deterrent against an American attack. Every time that Washington uses or threatens military action against such countries, as it has done so often in recent years, more states seek to obtain nuclear weapons.

It does not go unnoticed, for example, that while American officials speak readily of attacking Iran, there is little, if any, such talk in regard to North Korea. As a result, United States military policies have become a major factor in nuclear proliferation.

STEPHEN F. COHEN
New York, Jan. 15, 2013

The writer is professor emeritus of Russian studies at N.Y.U. and Princeton.

To the Editor:

Ward Wilson’s Op-Ed article makes a powerful argument that nuclear weapons are not needed. We also need to understand that their continued existence is profoundly dangerous.

Recent studies have shown that the use of even 100 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons, less than 0.5 percent of the world’s arsenal, could cause climate disruption and a decline in food production that would put more than a billion people at risk of starvation.

A large-scale war between the United States and Russia, either by design or by accident, would drop global temperatures to levels not seen since the coldest moment of the last ice age and would kill the vast majority of humans.

There have been five near misses with accidental war since 1979, the most recent in 1995, five years after the end of the cold war. It is past time to eliminate these weapons and the unacceptable risk they pose.

IRA HELFAND
Leeds, Mass., Jan. 14, 2013

The writer is co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which received the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

To the Editor:

Ward Wilson contends that “the real value of nuclear bombs is as status symbols, not as practical weapons”; this may be true, but surely these weapons are the best deterrent against any forcible regime change attempt by outsiders. Just look at Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who didn’t have nuclear bombs, Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, who forwent them, and Kim Jong-il of North Korea, who made them.

As the father of India’s nuclear technology, Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, said in 1965, “A way must be found so that a nation will gain as much by not going for nuclear weapons as it might by developing them.” Until then, as long as forceful regime change by external powers is a real possibility, threatened regimes will try to find a way to develop a nuclear deterrence capability.

NAJMEDIN MESHKATI
Los Angeles, Jan. 14, 2013

The writer is a professor of engineering at the University of Southern California.