US, UK, France, China, Russia, Japan, Australia skip nuclear weapons ban treaty summit - Polidicks

[quote]Australia, the United States, and Britain are among almost 40 countries that will not join today's talks on a nuclear weapons ban treaty at the United Nations, officials said. US ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters the countries skipping the negotiations are instead committed to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970 and is aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology. "There is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons. But we have to be realistic," Ms Haley said. The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in December — 113 in favour to 35 against, with 13 abstentions — that decided to "negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination" and encouraged all member states to participate. "You are going to see almost 40 countries that are not in the General Assembly today," Ms Haley said. "In this day and time we can't honestly that say we can protect our people by allowing the bad actors to have them and those of us that are good, trying to keep peace and safety, not to have them."[/quote] [url]http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-28/australia-others-skip-nuclear-weapons-ban-treaty-talks/8392198[/url] [quote]The United States, Britain and France are among almost 40 countries that will not join talks on a nuclear weapons ban treaty starting at the United Nations on Monday, said U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Haley told reporters the countries skipping the negotiations are instead committed to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970 and is aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology. "There is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons. But we have to be realistic. Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons?" Haley told reporters. The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in December - 113 in favor to 35 against, with 13 abstentions - that decided to "negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination" and encouraged all member states to participate. [/quote] [url]http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-un-idUSKBN16Y1QI[/url] [quote]NEW YORK – Negotiations on a treaty outlawing nuclear weapons began Monday at the U.N. headquarters without Japan, as the world’s only atomic-bombed country said it would abstain from the talks alongside the five major nuclear powers. The decision triggered criticism and disappointment from survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who saw the first-ever U.N. talks on the treaty as a step toward pursuing a world free of nuclear weapons.[/quote] [url]http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/28/national/japan-abstains-talks-start-u-n-nuclear-arms-ban-treaty/[/url] [quote]U.N. talks aimed at banning nuclear weapons began Monday, but the United States, Russia, China and other nuclear-armed nations are sitting out a discussion they see as impractical. Supporters of the potential pact say it's time to push harder toward eliminating atomic weapons than nations have been doing through the nearly 50-year-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. With international tensions rising while public awareness of the nuclear threat has waned, "the need for progress on nuclear disarmament has rarely been as urgent as it is today,'' U.N. Under Secretary-General for disarmament Kim Won Soo said as the talks opened. (Pictured, US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, left, and Alexis Lamek, the French deputy ambassador to the U.N, at U.N. headquarters). More than 100 countries voted for a U.N. General Assembly resolution last year to start discussions, with nations including Austria, Brazil and Ireland leading the effort. [/quote] [url]http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news.php?id=86709[/url] I'm inclined to agree. The idea of abolishing nuclear weapons is nice, but unlike chemical or biological weapon, nuclear weapons are essentially impossible to counter without nuclear weapons of your own. How are you supposed to keep rouge nations like North Korea in check? It's naive and leaves us open to nuclear blackmail from people like North Korea or any other nation that decided to follow them. We opened Pandora's Box in 1945 and you can't just close it.

The only way we will ever get rid of nuclear weapons is if we all join a council and give them control, and have it so that all members must authorize before a nuclear weapon is deployed, or a rogue nuclear weapon is used first. Extremely wishful thinking and will never happen.

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;52026668]The only way we will ever get rid of nuclear weapons is if we all join a council and give them control, and have it so that all members must authorize before a nuclear weapon is deployed, or a rogue nuclear weapon is used first. Extremely wishful thinking and will never happen.[/QUOTE] Just you wait until I can have my thermonuclear warheads drone delivered to me on amazon prime.

While i understand the need for it, I know that the ban will never happen. Who's going to effectively disarm their country?

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;52026668]The only way we will ever get rid of nuclear weapons is if we all join a council and give them control, and have it so that all members must authorize before a nuclear weapon is deployed, or a rogue nuclear weapon is used first. Extremely wishful thinking and will never happen.[/QUOTE] or if tracking systems get so advanced that systems are able to not only disarm missiles out of the sky, but also discover them if they somehow get near the border, or something of the sort.

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;52026683]While i understand the need for it, I know that the ban will never happen. Who's going to effectively disarm their country?[/QUOTE] Nobody is, especially when the countries calling for said ban are actively allied to the countries that represent an important reason why said non-compliant country has nukes in the first place.

[QUOTE=Naught;52026701]or if tracking systems get so advanced that systems are able to not only disarm missiles out of the sky, but also discover them if they somehow get near the border, or something of the sort.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/sbirs.html[/url] We're close. A while ago when I worked in retail at RS, we had a lockheed engineer drop by who was picking up supplies for a class he was teaching and went over it in real basic overview for me. According to him, the system can detect a launch within fractions of a second and coordinate a firing solution in an average of 11 seconds. Most real nuclear threats these days are dirty bombs and people like NK where detonating a nuclear ICBM over their airspace would still ruin other nearby nations.

Unfortunately, treaties are only as good as the country's willingness to abide by it. The [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Weapons_Convention]Chemical Weapons Convention[/url] was suppose to ban chemical and biological weapons. As we've seen in recent times, these weapons are still used (Syria, Iraq, North Korea). Ultimately, the strongest measure is deterrence. To know that if one uses nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons that it would then cause war to be declared against that country by all the other countries. That would effectively make such weapons useless, since usage would result in immediate annihilation.

[QUOTE=Naught;52026701]or if tracking systems get so advanced that systems are able to not only disarm missiles out of the sky, but also discover them if they somehow get near the border, or something of the sort.[/QUOTE] That's against the nuclear treaties your country has signed.

You can't unilaterally disarm, the entire premise is ridiculous. The cat is out of the box and there's no getting it back in, never mind that nuclear weapons have virtually ended large scale conventional warfare, getting rid of nuclear weapons would just invite WW3, in which people would just start making them again.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;52027536]You can't unilaterally disarm, the entire premise is ridiculous. The cat is out of the box and there's no getting it back in, never mind that nuclear weapons have virtually ended large scale conventional warfare, getting rid of nuclear weapons would just invite WW3, in which people would just start making them again.[/QUOTE] nuclear weapons didn't end large scale warfare, it's more due to the fact that economic and political conditions have changed if they had nukes in the first world war they'd have used them en masse until they bleached the earth clean the fact that nuclear weapons are claimed to be responsible for peace is just an example of survivors fallacy - it's a low risk event sure, but the potential damage is extremely high (i.e if it does happen then we destroy civilization)

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;52027536]You can't unilaterally disarm, the entire premise is ridiculous. The cat is out of the box and there's no getting it back in, never mind that nuclear weapons have virtually ended large scale conventional warfare, getting rid of nuclear weapons would just invite WW3, in which people would just start making them again.[/QUOTE] This. As terrifying as the prospect of a nuclear war is, I would hate to live in a world without M.A.D. keeping everyone in line.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;52027566]nuclear weapons didn't end large scale warfare, it's more due to the fact that economic and political conditions have changed if they had nukes in the first world war they'd have used them en masse until they bleached the earth clean the fact that nuclear weapons are claimed to be responsible for peace is just an example of survivors fallacy - it's a low risk event sure, but the potential damage is extremely high (i.e if it does happen then we destroy civilization)[/QUOTE] The Soviets and the West had no economic ties and the political situation gave both sides carte-blanc ability to fight a war however they saw fit (at least in the early parts of the Cold War for the West), but they didn't and it was because of nuclear weapons. I'm not going to go into claims that nuclear was would destroy civilisation as I've discussed it many times before.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;52027566]it's more due to the fact that economic and political conditions have changed[/QUOTE] Such as the existence of nuclear weapons, which makes conflict between industrial nations extremely undesirable. Total war is no longer economically or politically viable, because it is impossible to win without severe cost. We had far more reason to go to war with the Soviets than with the North Koreans or North Vietnamese, but only the Soviets had the capability to strike back on our homeland with no chance of retaliation. Conventional war still exists all over the world so you can't even try to claim that global conditions have changed irrespective of nuclear weapons- it just doesn't occur between two nuclear-armed states. Those conflicts are accomplished by proxy or through alternative means specifically because nuclear war is unwinnable. [QUOTE=Sobotnik;52027566](i.e if it does happen then we destroy civilization)[/QUOTE] Meaning there are very clear, strong motivators for it [I]not[/I] to happen, and brinkmanship during the Cold War went well beyond what would have triggered a conventional conflict in an earlier era. The 'madman theory' that Nixon used as a cornerstone of his foreign policy implicitly [I]required[/I] that his adversaries have a vested interest in avoiding the destruction of civilization to the point where they would [i]rather acquiesce to their enemy[/i] than risk nuclear war. I don't see how you can say 'nuclear weapons don't discourage war' with a straight face unless you have read nothing of Cold War politics.

We sort of need them to keep insane countries like North Korea from attacking.

[QUOTE=Kigen;52026758]Unfortunately, treaties are only as good as the country's willingness to abide by it. The [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Weapons_Convention]Chemical Weapons Convention[/url] was suppose to ban chemical and biological weapons. As we've seen in recent times, these weapons are still used (Syria, Iraq, North Korea). Ultimately, the strongest measure is deterrence. To know that if one uses nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons that it would then cause war to be declared against that country by all the other countries. That would effectively make such weapons useless, since usage would result in immediate annihilation.[/QUOTE] deterance only works when you have equal players. NK or iran are already outgunned so they will resort to nculear much more readily than anyone else especially since they cant destroy the US mutually

[QUOTE=download;52027576]The Soviets and the West had no economic ties and the political situation gave both sides carte-blanc ability to fight a war however they saw fit (at least in the early parts of the Cold War for the West), but they didn't and it was because of nuclear weapons.[/QUOTE] more due to luck then anything else "it works until it doesn't work" is pretty much the operating logic here - there have been quite a few flash points during the cold war where it could have worked out extremely badly and we avoided those more through luck than competent politicians making decisions [QUOTE=catbarf;52027626]Such as the existence of nuclear weapons, which makes conflict between industrial nations extremely undesirable. Total war is no longer economically or politically viable, because it is impossible to win without severe cost. We had far more reason to go to war with the Soviets than with the North Koreans or North Vietnamese, but only the Soviets had the capability to strike back on our homeland with no chance of retaliation.[/quote] people kept predicting in the early 20th century that large-scale total war was no longer desirable nor possible due to the fact that large-scale war would destroy the participant nations - even when the first world war was declared most people weren't expecting a war (nor the war to turn out like it did) the result was the destruction of several empires - and then it happened again in the second world war despite the enormous costs and the utter destruction of several of the participants one of the reasons we're pretty lucky is the fact that 1: only a handful of nations developed nuclear bombs, and 2: most of the recent wars (like the war on terror) are trivial sideshows now. it would have taken a slightly wrong turn for us to be talking about a major nuclear war because some petty dictator got his grubby hands on one and set off a nasty chain of events that escalated out of control [quote]I don't see how you can say 'nuclear weapons don't discourage war' with a straight face unless you have read nothing of Cold War politics.[/QUOTE] it's my view anybody saying this is focusing on that nuclear weapons somehow saved us from a war when the reality is more that we're around in spite of them the risk is low but fat-tailed (i.e if a nuclear war breaks out the amount of destruction it will cause is potentially high enough to destroy civilization, therefore we should avoid it even though the risk is low)