First America had nuclear weapons. It has used nuclear bombs in combat, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After World War Two, the cold war heated up and the USSR believed it required Nuclear weapons to keep the balance of power even.

After Russia gained nuclear arms, a lot of countries in Europe got very scared of nuclear arms; this led to England and France reaching for the bomb.

China developed nuclear weapons after President Truman in 1951 approved a request to "use atomic weapons in Manchuria if large numbers of Chinese troops are to join the Korean War or if bombers are launched against United Nations forces from Manchurian bases".

By 1960 four countries were nuclear-capable, USA, the USSR, the UK and France. Their respective allies and enemies were afraid of nuclear weapons. The 1961 Sino-India war was followed by China's first nuclear test in 1964, which left India concluding it required nuclear weapons to defend against the potential threat from China. In 1974 India tested its first nuclear device close to the Pakistan border, a so-called "peaceful" nuclear bomb, the 'Smiling Buddha'. _

Buddha's smile is bittersweet and full of pain, it is that of one who has attained enlightenment though extreme violence and yet wishes to use it only to safeguard those he loves.

Buddha does not smile when innocents die.

The conflict between India and Pakistan, and India's 1974 nuclear test started a secret arms race between India and Pakistan lasting 24 years, which had side effects of increasing nuclear proliferation world wide; Pakistan has since spread the nuclear disease further, with nuclear weapons technology transfer to Libya, Iran, and North Korea.

Raj Ramanna, Director of India's Nuclear Program at the time of the 'Smiling Buddha' test, stated in 1997, "The Pokhran test was a bomb, I can tell you now... An explosion is an explosion, a gun is a gun, whether you shoot at someone or shoot at the ground... I just want to make clear that the test was not all that peaceful."

By the late 1950's Israel, under the leadership of David Ben Gurion, concluded it required nuclear weapons in order to protect itself from the threat of its Arab neighbors as it's conventional forces were not sufficient to maintain a first strike capability. This led to greater fear and instability in the region and both Iraq and Iran's nuclear ambitions. Israel wishes to remain the only nuclear armed state in the Middle East and has previously preemptively struck to keep its sole nuclear armed status, with Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor being disabled by Israeli F-16's in 1981. Iraq and Iran were at war at the time however there was an unspoken agreement between them that Iraq's nuclear program would be used to safeguard the Arab world against Israel's nuclear arsenal. Since then Israel has engaged in a world wide propaganda campaign against Iran and Iraq, indirectly contributing to America's invasion of Iraq and America's current stance against Iran.

Nuclear weapons are spread by fear.

Iran's fear of Israel led to its nuclear ambitions.

With North Korea having previously felt threatened by American nuclear weapons during the Korean War and more recently, it covertly aimed to build nuclear weapons and has tested its first nuclear device on October 9th 2006, raising tension in the area. Now Japan is more likely to reach for nuclear arms, as is Taiwan and other countries in South East Asia.

The Nuclear non-proliferation treaty, as signed and put into place in 1968 has been signed and ratified by many countries however the motives for this document were not completely selfless, America viewed itself as a stronger country if it's opponents were not nuclear armed, as did all of the countries with nuclear arms.

The majority of countries with nuclear arms also deal conventional arms and proliferate weapons technologies willy-nilly. The combination of ballistic missiles, tactical fighter aircraft and nuclear warheads is potentially lethal. Globally, the real threat lies with nuclear weapons delivered by fighter aircraft flying at low level, generally missile launches are detectable by radar and early warning satellites. However, comparatively, aircraft flying underneath the radar ceiling are almost invisible.

The main arms dealing and nuclear technology proliferating countries make money by selling the world armaments, including strike aircraft, America, Russia and the United Kingdom are constantly willing to supply allies and neutral countries with weaponry at a price, Russia's trade deals involving Sukhoi 27's to India and China, and the United Kingdom's recent arms deal with India to supply it with Hawk trainer aircraft.

I believe there is a direct relation between the ability to profit from something and the politicians turning a blind eye to it. America does not profit from its enemies having nuclear weapons.

No one profits from nuclear weapons.

The logic that makes a man reach for a gun when he knows another man is armed and dangerous is the same logic that leads to nuclear proliferation. Arms control laws can be and are broken on a regular basis, the 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty as enforced by countries with nuclear weapons is similar to a man with a gun saying "No I want to be the only man with a gun, you can't have one, if you have one I'll shoot you."

Noam Chomsky states regarding the 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, "US efforts to limit nuclear proliferation are continued evidence of the hypocrisy of the US government. Nuclear weapons are certainly a threat to all life on this planet, and the proliferation of such weapons is undoubtedly a threat to global security. Nevertheless, how can we expect other nations to take our concerns about proliferation seriously when the US has the world's largest nuclear stockpile?"

If you believe the man with the gun is going to shoot you regardless, suddenly it seems important to have a gun. However, fighting fire with fire leads to a bigger fire until everything is burned. This is what the politicians fail to understand. They have the best interests of themselves and their people at heart and they believe they must keep those interests safe at all costs, ultimately through their actions they have shown that Earth is expendable in order for their people to live. And if that means nuclear arms then so be it, in their eyes. I disagree, I am expendable in order for the Earth to live.

They do not see that having nuclear weaponry leads to further nuclear proliferation due to other countries feeling fear of them.

Fear breeds fear and it can only be defeated by love and trust for the world.

On the other side of the spectrum multiple countries including New Zealand, Belgium and South Africa have declared themselves nuclear free. I am a citizen of New Zealand, we went nuclear free despite a great deal of pressure from America, we didn't want to play that game any more; we want to live.

I live in our capital, so maybe one or two will be sent down here, to a nuclear-free country that said no to nukes all the way down and yes to life and love and the planet all the way up. Our choice was to say no to nuclear arms and I'd rather they drop the next one on me; I am sick of the immaturity and stupidity of the so called developed world. What has it done with its development? It has spread the nuclear cancer, a cancer that if left unchecked will kill us all. The leaders who launch them will die in the retaliatory strike, instantly, or worse, trapped in bunkers with the way out blown apart, a slow and horrible death with nothing left but the knowledge that they contributed to the death of the world and everyone they ever loved. And yet I would still forgive because they were only human.

The ecological effects of nuclear testing are massive, with the vast majority of nuclear armed states (USA, Russia, England, France, China, Israel) possessing more than enough nuclear weapons to send the world into a fatal nuclear winter, the only countries in the world with out sufficient nuclear weapons to do so at this point in time are North Korea (1-15), Pakistan (40-50) and India (40-50).

If only two hundred nuclear weapons are used (a successful first strike scenario against a first world nation), that is sufficient to release enough dust and radioactive fallout into the atmosphere to reduce the worlds temperature by five to twenty degrees centigrade. Two hundred nukes is unrealistically low, a lot more would be used. If this happens, humanity and the majority of vegetable animal and sea life will probably die out.

In the 1984 Oxford Union debate, David Lange stated "We know that if the nuclear winter comes, we freeze, we join the rest of you."

In 1961 the Soviet Union conducted an atmospheric nuclear weapons test, the "Tsar Bomba" with a yield of over fifty megatons, this led to lethal amounts of radiation being distributed over a lot of the arctic in the short term and in the long term the Atmospheric Test Ban treaty, they realised it was madness to continue to test nuclear weapons above the surface of the Earth.

Andrei Sakharov, one of the nuclear physicists involved in the Tsar Bomba project later became an anti-nuclear dissident and received the Nobel peace prize in 1975.

An article in USA Today on the effects of Cold War nuclear weapons tests claims that "Radioactive fallout from Cold War nuclear weapons tests across the globe probably caused at least 15,000 cancer deaths in U.S. residents born after 1951, according to data from an unreleased federal study."

If a full-scale nuclear exchange occurs between members of the UN Security council humanity will not survive. If this occurs this proves beyond all doubt that humanity did not deserve to exist in the first place, we have evolved and gained complexity over billions of years, to the point where we can now destroy ourselves utterly and completely, we must now evolve to the point where we can let our world live and this requires compassion and empathy and an end to fear-tactics and scaremongering.

Nuclear proliferation is dangerous. I feel sympathy for all the people in the world that have to live in fear of the bomb and pray for the safety of the planet and all the people in it.

Please don't blow up any planets with sentient life on them ever.

Pretty please? Pandora's box still has hope.

References:

India's 1974 Smiling Buddha Test: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/India/IndiaSmiling.html

Israel's Nuclear weapons amount estimates: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/

France's nuclear weapons development: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

China's test program: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/China/ChinaTesting.html

Known Nuclear Tests Worldwide from 1945-1995: http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=mj96norris

Operation Opera (Israel's strike on the Osiraq Reactor in Baghdad, 1981): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera

USSR's 100 megaton nuclear test in 1961: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html

Andrei Sakharov: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Sakharov

The Effect of Nuclear Winter on the Global Climate:

Nuclear Winter and Other Scenarios, Jon Roland, © 1984 Vanguard Institute

American casualties due to Cold War nuclear testing http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/02/28/usat-nuke.htm

President Truman approves conditional nuclear weapons usage on Manchuria http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/timeline/1950/1951.htm

The man who transferred Pakistani nuclear technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan

Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible, Oxford Union Debate, David Lange, 1985 http://publicaddress.net/default,1578.sm#post

ENDS