Would the World Really Be Better Off Without Nuclear Weapons?

Barack Obama on Friday paid tribute to the victims of the world’s first atomic bomb attack and sought to bring global attention to his unfulfilled vision of a world without nuclear weapons, as he became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima.

According to most news reports, Obama did not apologize for America having dropped nuclear bombs on Japan to end World War II. But he did say the following: “Among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.”

Why would getting rid of nuclear weapons be a good thing?

Obama’s premise is that if the United States gets rid of nuclear weapons, the world will be rid of them. But how realistic is it to think there will never be governments or terrorists groups who wish to own and use them?

It’s like gun control. If the government can only ensure that there are no weapons (or fewer weapons), then there will be no possibility of crime. If the government (always and only the United States government) can get rid of, or at least reduce, their nuclear weapons, then there will be less likelihood of another Hiroshima.

The clear implication is that it’s nuclear weapons which caused the awful events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the 1940s—not real people.

In reality, if you study even a little history, you will find that the war against the United States was initiated by Japan. It started with Pearl Harbor, the 9/11 of its day. Japan is a peaceful and mostly free country today, compared to the 1930s and 1940s. Japan at the time was controlled by a brutal dictatorship determined to dominate the world. Its soldiers actually went on suicide missions, in devotion to their regime and its beliefs. Sound familiar?

If the United States had not possessed nuclear weapons in the 1940s, many more thousands of American soldiers would have died in the attempt to defeat Japan at sea and on the ground. War could have dragged on for years, and the United States might not have won. Nuclear weapons, when used by peace-loving people only interested in self-defense and ending the war against a brutal, suicidal dictatorship are actually a good thing.

A good thing—not only for Americans, but for Japanese as well. Obama said, “The world was forever changed here but, today, the children of this city will go through their day in peace. What a precious thing that is.”

Would today’s Japanese children be at peace if the United States had not defeated their dictatorial government? Without such a decisive defeat on the part of America and its allies in the 1940s, we have no idea what the world would look like today. It might have continued in a state of prolonged war, or be run by a totalitarian world dictatorship. Today’s Japanese children would not enjoy peace and freedom if America’s generation of yesterday had not so valiantly and decisively fought to make peace and freedom the norm.

Obama is so profoundly wrong, and so incredibly evasive, about so many things that it numbs the mind at times. He might not have apologized for America using nuclear force against Japan, but he provided all the means necessary for others to do so by reinforcing the false idea that nuclear weapons kill people, not evil people.

Evil people will always exist. They will always find the means to impose force, cruelty or torture on others. Good people can either put their heads in the sand and allow themselves to be destroyed, or build weapons of their own. The best way to prevent war is not to dismantle your weapons; the best way to prevent war is to build so many weapons that nobody will ever go near you – particularly if they know you are prepared to use them.

Obama has done just the opposite. He has weakened our military force, cut our weaponry, ensured that our biggest enemies (e.g. Iran) will have the means to build nuclear weapons and apologized for America every year of his presidency. He has also made sure that America’s word means nothing, except when it comes to weakening America. He runs our military and government almost exactly as someone would if they wanted America to be attacked, destroyed or simply to go away.

If peace is your goal, you should not be applauding Obama for his easy, naïve and pitifully meaningless prattle in Japan. If peace is your goal, you’d support a strong country militarily, the precise opposite of what Obama has given us.