ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the desirability, possibility and probability of a nuclear weapon-free world. Les Aspin was a professional analyst of nuclear weapon strategy and served for many years as chairman of the Armed Services Committee of the US House of Representatives. Nuclear weapons are now excluded from a fair portion of the Earth and its environment through treaties which are largely or fully in force: in Latin America, the South Pacific, and Antarctica, in space, on the sea bed and ocean floor, and on the moon and other celestial bodies. A graphic image of human folly is the obscene size attained by the nuclear weapon arsenals. The explosive power of nuclear weapons can be compared to that of all the bombs dropped during World War II, The firepower of World War II was three megatons. The threat of acquisition of nuclear weapons by a state, even a rogue state, is easier to cope with.
