A World Without Nuclear Weapons

The very concept of a world without nuclear weapons is an illusion. Assume for a moment that all nuclear weapons have been destroyed. A world free of nuclear weapons might also become dangerously safe for conventional war. The Russians have espoused the abolition of all nuclear weapons. The competitive sloganeering about nonnuclear Utopias that escalated so mindlessly at Reykjavik is likely to divert Western publics from seeking genuine strategic security. In a world with nuclear weapons, mutual strategic security is much to be preferred to escapist pipe dreams and deceptive slogans. Deploying limited strategic defenses, while setting careful limits on the numbers of American first strike offensive weapons such as the MX and the D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile, would help stabilize the nuclear relationship by reducing the Soviet threat to the United States without enhancing the potential American threat to the Soviet Union.