doesn't it seem at all hypocritical to you that the US is thinking about developing their own nuclear weapons?
Not at all. The United States already
has weapons of mass destruction, so that's a somewhat odd question. But the concern is that such weapons will be developed by nations that are actually prepared to use them offensively; India and Pakistan come to mind.....
Ever since the end of the Kennedy Administration, the nuclear policy of the United States has been one of
deterrence; meaning the "mutually assured destruction" threat levelled against the Soviet Union. Under this policy, the Russians were kept in check, knowing fully well if they launched a first strike, in twenty minutes it wouldn't matter anyway, since they would cease to exist. As a result, nobody used their nuclear stockplies. A similar, but very much smaller, tactic was used against Saddam Hussein in 1991 when George Bush Sr. flatly told the Iraqi government that if chemical weapons were used against American forces in the Gulf, then tactical nuclear weapons would be launched against Iraq in response.
This won't make the slightest bit of differecne to those who hold the opinion that the United States is the big bully-boy on the block, but deterrance is only part of the reason the U.S. is opposed to nuclear weapons proliferation; another part of the reason is because we have tested these things enough to know what they'll actually do, and if such weapons were stockpiled and employed on a massive scale by countries where cool heads did not prevail (India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iraq), the consequenses would be decidedly ugly for everybody on the planet. In this circumstance, the U.S. is not only looking out for its own interests, but the interests of everyone else as well.
With this in mind, IMHO it would be more appropriate by far to prevent unstable nations from developing nuclear weapons, or else working to ensure they have stable governments with informed, cool-headed leaders in charge who pattern their nuclear policy after that of countries like the United States which hopes to never have to use them, rather than complaining about the United States possessing them already. We have them, and that's the sad fact; all the complaining in the world will not alter that. The best thing for it now is to do the utmost to make sure nobody else winds up with nukes who actually wants to use them.
And just as a parting shot, I wonder what the prevailing attitude would be if Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and the Palestinian Authority possesed the full, complete nuclear arsenal which the United States now has, and the United States had nothing? I wonder how many people would sleep easier at night, knowing that the mean old rogue U.S. didn't have those nasty old weapons that they threatened to use at every turn, and everybody knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were going to do it, too? After all, certainly Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and the Palestinian Authority would
never threaten to use a nuke, right? I'm sure the world would be a much safer place if all of
those countries had nuclear arsenals, and the United States had none.
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