The other morning I awoke to surprising news as most Americans did: Our new president, whom I greatly admire, had just won the Nobel Peace Prize. I can't say that I agree or disagree that he should have won the award, but I can definitely say that I disagree in terms of one of the main reasons put forth by the Nobel committee...that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for his vision and work toward ridding the world of nuclear weapons.
Folks, I just don't see getting rid of nuclear weapons as a good idea. There is no evidence that ridding the world of nuclear weapons will promote any peace that I know of, but there sure is evidence that there was no peace when the world did not have nuclear weapons. The 2oth Century prior to the invention and use of nuclear weapons was the most destructive four and a half decades in the history of humanity. There has been no time in history prior to the invention of nukes that human beings lived together in a massive or minute utopia where they did not have the inclination to reach across the isle and slice each others heads off. I am sorry to say that human beings have not proved worthy of not living under the constant threat of complete annihilation.
It is this threat of complete annihilation by the use of nuclear weapons that has actually created the relative peace of the last 64 years. It is the fear each human holds within us that we might be responsible for ending the human race altogether, or worse yet that we might be the unlucky few to survive once the bombs stop dropping.
No country that possesses nuclear weapons has ever attacked or been attacked by another country that also possesses the weapon. The danger of such a confrontation between two powers at this level is too profound to consider it, thus the powers are forced to use dialogue and negotiation to settle their differences.
A lot of people may argue that getting rid of nuclear weapons is worth the risk of ever having another Nagasaki or Hiroshima......really? Is it really worth the risk of having another confrontation equal to or greater than World War 2? I think not and I'll tell you why. World War 2 saw close to 55 million people die in about 6 years - that is 55,000,000 people in six years. That is equivalent to about 1/6 the population of the whole United States being dead and gone by 2015. Out of that 55 million only about 200 to 300 thousand died in the two atomic bomb attacks by the US. As horrific as those attacks were, the amount of dead was miniscule in comparison to the amount of deaths that occurred in the prior years of the war that those attacks helped end. And may God help us if we ever have to use them again.
The creation of the nuclear weapon was inevitable. Human beings toiled for thousands of years to create weapons that would give them an advantage over their immediate enemies. Even Leonardo Da Vinci spent a good deal of his time designing weaponry. Given our creative abilities it is no wonder that we were able to imagine something so destructive as the atomic bomb and yet we will continue to create weapons of even more destructive capability in the future.
My point here is that you can't put the nuclear genie back in the bottle once you've rubbed it. Nuclear technology will continue to become more efficient and there is not one country in the world naive enough to be the first to give up their most powerful weapon. Instead of worrying about nuclear weapons we should just be grateful that we have them, and that we used them first because I'll give you one guess who was closest to beating us to the punch - Nazi Germany. And guess what one thing all permanent members of the UN Security Council have in common? It's not their birthdays or favorite color, it is that they all possess the most advanced and terrifying nuclear arsenals in the world. Who wants to be the first to give up their seat at the big boy's table? It had better not be us.
I can think of reasons to give president Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. For one, his ability to engage our enemies and allies in a manner that gives them no choice but to show their true colors. He offers them peace and respect in advance, and it is up to them on how they choose to react. Obama may actually be a man who walks softly and carries a big stick, but let's make sure he keeps the stick. This may be a true departure from president George W. Bush, and maybe this is the way the leader of the free world is supposed to act.
I have another idea for the Nobel Committee...why don't they give the Nobel Peace Prize to The American People for having but not using the most powerful weapon in the world on all our enemies throughout the last 60 plus years?
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