**Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament does not mean giving another country “the wholesale right to annihilate” the USA. In the first place, no country would be granted that right simply because the USA stood down its nuclear weapons. In the second place, if you are referring to “ability,” the Russians already have the necessary means to reduce the USA to ash. I think what you really mean is that, without a (so-called) deterrent, the Russians would automatically attack the USA with nuclear weapons. I see this response a lot to my idea of unilateral nuclear disarmament, and I do not feel that it is correct.
The Russians are just afraid of the USA as we are of them, and that is why they maintain and improve a strategic nuclear weapon delivery system. The only reason the Russians would have to launch a strategic nuclear strike against the USA would be if they believed that the USA was planning to do the same against them. It will come to that. The USA has no law on its books that prohibit its military from launching a nuclear first strike, and the Russians know that. Without a nuclear weapons capability, the USA would no longer be a threat to Russia, and they would have no reason to attack us.
CCC 2265 states: “Legitimate defense can not only be a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others.” However, in this special case, the “defence” itself is what presents the grave danger to both ourselves and the rest of humanity as well. WW III, a global nuclear war, is delineated in scripture. It is virtually carved in stone. The only way open to us to mitigate this unprecedented disaster is Unilaterally Nuclear Disarmament. We can live under the protection of a Russian nuclear umbrella. The alternative is simply to not be living at all.**
The US and former USSR deployed ICBMs in 1959. I lived through the bulk of the Cold War. Even before the end of World War II, plans were drawn up for the defense of Western Europe since Soviet tanks, troops and other equipment, could have easily swept Westward. In March 1946, Winston Churchill delivered a speech that told the world an “Iron Curtain” had descended over the Soviet Union. In other words, Western Intelligence was unable to get reliable information about Russian plans, intentions, troop deployments, aircraft deployment and so on. Secret overflights using British and American (sometimes repainted) aircraft would begin in 1946 to get photo reconnaissance intelligence as far as they could get to find out what was going on. Some were shot down, but not acknowledged until decades later.
The entire history of the Cold War was dominated by a series of scenarios where the Russians were confirmed to be preparing an attack on the United States, and Western Europe, using atomic and later, Nuclear weapons. The Russians detonated their first atomic bomb in 1949, some several years before the CIA (formerly, the OSS) predicted they would be able to produce a working device. In 1950, a paperback book was published in the US. From the cover:
Title: How to Survive an Atomic Bomb, by Richard Gerstel, CONSULTANT, Civil Defense Office. Just above the title: If there’s ATOMIC WARFARE this book may save your life! On the Acknowledgments page, the author writes that he was encouraged to write the first draft of this book in 1948.
Unfortunately, since the US had dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, the world knew such weapons could be built. In 1962, US spy planes had spotted Russian missiles on the island of Cuba. Troops were immediately mobilized on the east coast and sent to Florida under total secrecy until they arrived. President Kennedy, in a televised address to the country, made it clear that an attack against the United States would result in an attack on the Soviet Union and an attack against Western Europe would be regarded as an attack against the United States and would draw the same response. Fortunately, President Kennedy, working with his brother, then US Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, worked out a solution to a crisis that could have resulted in World War III at that time.
Unilateral disarmament is not an option.
Ed
