Dismantling an Atomic Arsenal

Daily writing prompt

If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

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If I could un-invent some particular thing, I think I would remove nuclear weapons from the world even at the expense of nuclear power.

Given the ability to destroy itself, the human race will do so — gleefully.

According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, we are 85 seconds away from midnight on the “Doomsday Clock.” We humans cannot possess a pointy stick without perverting its use from tool of survival, to weapon of war. How much more tempting must it be when the consequences scale from puncture wound, to global annihilation. Unstable despots playing at nuclear brinksmanship as a display of power are an existential threat to all life on earth. Possessing these weapons is actually a demonstration of weakness — the inability to compromise for the good of all people and resolve conflict through diplomacy. Nobody ‘wins’ a nuclear war.

Annie Jacobsen’s book Nuclear War: A Scenario (link to Barnes & Noble) details the devastating but less obvious consequences of even a ‘limited’ nuclear exchange. Billions will perish in the immediate aftermath of such a conflict, not from the initial detonation of these terror weapons, but from everything that comes after.

See Global Zero: Eliminating nuclear weapons in our lifetime.