Sure, terrorists can cause trouble, Mideast dictators could threaten their neighbors with nukes, if they had ’em. Matt Bivens, writing in the Moscow Times reminds us, though, about the threat that could destroy civilization:
“Look, if we’re such great friends, why do we still have around 30,000 nuclear weapons — including thousands on hair-trigger launch alert? (China, in distant third place, has about 400.)
“Under the Nonproliferation Treaty — the one we keep rolling up to whack North Korea and Iran with on the nose — Russia and the United States also have solemn obligations to work toward complete nuclear disarmament. (Pie-in-the-sky? Perhaps, but then so is expecting other nations never to try to produce a single nuke.)
“Consider again the threat lurking in Putin’s story.
“So, what happens if some day, when it matters, Putin’s not around anymore and his gorilla-partners take over? As long as we’re all pals now, wouldn’t this be the moment to junk about 29,000 nukes?”
WMD are a real problem, & a nuke-armed state’s policy of invading non-nuclear powers is a good way to guarantee proliferation.