"35 or 40" countries able to make nuclear weapons: IAEA chief

According to the IAEA, up to 40 different countries are capable of building a nuclear weapon.



Questions for debate:

What implication does this statement have for the US developing a strategic missile defense? Are treaties alone enough to keep nations from going nuclear?

As for me, I think this statement strongly indicates that we need a missile defense system. There are too many nations with the capacity for creating (if not deploying...yet) these weapons. We should do everything possible to protect ourselves from this threat. I just don't buy into the argument that creating an effective defense always initiates an arms race. We are technologically superior to most of these nations, and we need to leverage our know-how into a workable defense.

On the second question, treaties work only when both parties have shown that they will work within the guidelines. Nations like North Korea, who openly violate their agreements, demonstrate that sometimes a simple treaty is not enough.

I think you have two issues here: (1) nuclear bombs, and (2) missles that can travel several hundred or several thousand miles before detonating their payload.

I don't doubt that everyone can get a bomb (heck, even Saddam almost had one built! not); I do doubt that anyone can easily create a missle with long range potential. Without a long travel time before detonation, missle defense likely won't have time to assess the threat, rule out that it's an airline or private aircraft, react and destroy the threat. Not any time soon, anyway.

Given that, we have to focus on short-term solutions and instead figure out how to secure our borders from the "accidental" importation of nuclear-capable weapons. We do a terrible job of border patrol now; maybe we should finally spend some money on that.

None whatsoever, until someone proposes a strategic missile defense that has a snowball's chance in hell of actually working in any real-life scenario or situation. Last I heard, they were barely able to hit a missile on a known trajectory with a homing beacon on it. Note also that a strategic missile defense is irrelevant wrt nuclear weapons delivered by means other than missiles.

I wish I could remember where I found the article, but I read something a few days ago about the deployment of a missile defense system in northern Israel that used a powerful chemical laser to destroy missiles. Presumably, if you can track a missile with radar, you can hit it with a laser, since there is little difference between tracking radar and a laser. Who know though?

I agree, however, that the current missile shield plan is completely flawed.

This is not surprising. I don't think any treaty will keep nations from going nuclear. They can buy materials on the black market and secretly develop a bomb without anyone knowing they have broken the Non-Poliferation Treaty. Terrorist nations want these materials because they see the time is right because of the current world events that are going on and they are gonna be prepared. This is a prelude to World War III.

That point is obvious, but why not develop defenses against ALL possible means of attack, ballistic as well as other means?



Most other countries are located remotely from the US (as I am sure you know). If we planned on defending against missiles from the USSR, we can certainly do so against threats from other countries.

Don't we want to develop the best defense that we can? Doesn't the government owe that to us?

This seems like a strange sentiment from a conservative. The government owes you nothing; it has certain responsibilities which it must see through. One of these is security, but if a system that is likely to cost an astronomical amount of money for an almost significant reduction in security falls under the category obligation; I sorely misunderstand the U.S. Constitution.

Yes, they do, and that's why we can't have them spending billions of dollars on a system that doesn't work and wouldn't make us any safer if it did. Every dollar that's spent on such a boondoggle is a dollar that can't be spent on more practical kinds of defense, or on making us stronger economically. It's a dollar that contributes to the reasons people want to attack us in the first place, and it's a dollar that the government never had any right to take out of people's pockets and spend on something so totally useless. The only people whose lives are improved by Star Wars II are the academics and defense contractors who get the development dollars, and the "public servants" who get the kickbacks.

Maybe you support that kind of thing, but I'd rather have my dollar and my sense of belonging to a moral nation back.

My understanding is that they're still working on it. My point was that you shouldn't throw all the eggs into that basket, especially since the administration and Congress still aren't funding adequate border security, which is the most likely entry point for a nuclear device in the next 5 years.

Perhaps the solution is in a pre-pre-pre-emptive strike. Let's drop four huge nukes right now. One on Tehran, one on Pyongyang, one on Delhi, and one on Islamabad.

Seriously, complete disarmament is so vital. I fear, however, that without a serious change in Washington, and in all of us, America will never lead the way.

I don't know what to do about all these countries getting nukes. And what scares me even further, is them developing nukes while we have a president who is prone to moronic quotes like "bring em on."

Time to move to New Zealand.