As President Obama heads to Russia to meet with the new and not so new Russian leadership to discuss nuclear arms control treaties, The New York Times offers this glimpse of the President’s vision for a nuclear-free world. I wanted to highlight this report because I’m rather interested in why the idea of a nuclear-free world appeals to so many people. After all, we have already had a nuclear-free world, been there, done that. A nuclear-free world leads to Napoleon and Hitler and wars of global conquest. If we eliminated all nuclear weapons, how long would it take until we had another world war waged with conventional weapons? I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m fairly certain that the deterrent value of nuclear weapons can’t be overestimated. That’s not to say that there isn’t merit in reducing the numbers of nuclear weapons to more manageable levels. If you are interested in learning more about nuclear arms reduction treaties, I recommend the Federation of American Scientists’ website, they have great coverage of START I & START II.

Photo Credit: Federation of American Scientists