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The Man Who Literally Saved the World
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Tue Sep 26, 2006 06:48 PM
from the close-calls dept.
from the close-calls dept.
99luftballon writes "Today is an important anniversary for Russian hero Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet missile commander who saved the world from nuclear destruction in 1983. Sadly there are plenty of other examples of this kind of thing. How long will we keep getting lucky?"
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WarGames and the Great Hacking Scare of 1983 331 comments
James W writes "Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the release of WarGames and Christopher Knight has written a retrospective about the film and its impact on popular culture. In addition to discussing how the movie has held up over time, WarGames was responsible for what Knight calls the Great Hacking Scare of 1983. Some examples mentioned are 'one CBS Evening News report at the time that seriously questioned whether parents should allow their children to access the outside world via their personal computers at home. A magazine article suggested that computer modems be 'locked up' just like firearms, to keep them out of the reach of teenagers. I even heard one pundit proclaim that there was no need for regular people to be able to log in to a remote system: that if you need to access your bank account, a friendly teller was just a short drive away. And Bill Gates once declared that the average person would never have a need for more than 640 kilobytes of memory in a personal computer, too.'" 2008 is also 25 years after the real-life prevention of a WarGames-style nuclear incident.
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That list is clearly missing one (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That list is clearly missing one (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:That list is clearly missing one (Score:5, Funny)
To put it in terms you would understand, launching a unilateral all-out nuclear strike would be like shooting your sister in the head with a M20A1B1 while she fellated you, and hoping to walk away unscarred.
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Re:That list is clearly missing one (Score:5, Funny)
And your sister.
On the other hand, Google guns+sister+erotic+asphyxiation+cliff+diving if you would like a better picture of what kind of shooting-your-sister-in-the-head scenario a nuclear war would really be like.
I'm not sure how many hits that will turn up, but I'm guessing it will be enough to give you an idea of what launching nuclear missiles at foreign countries will do for you.
Really, I'm not sure.
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Re:That list is clearly missing one (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:That list is clearly missing one (Score:5, Informative)
I must have missed when someone on this thread supported the idea of nuclear winter with a peer-reviewed scientific article.
Probably because there is some general acceptance of the idea. But that wasn't my point anyway, my point was citing disreputable sources does nothing to bolster one's arguments.
In any case that deficiency is easily addressed:
Turco RP, Toon OB, Ackerman TP, Pollack JB, Sagan C (1983) 'Nuclear winter: global consequences of multiple nuclear explosions', Science 222:1283-1292
Covey C (1987) 'Protracted climatic effects of massive smoke injections into the atmosphere', Nature 325:701-703
Warner F, and collaborators (1987) 'Severe global-scale effects of nuclear war reaffirmed', Environment 29:4-5 & 45
A B Pittock, K Walsh and J S Frederiksen (1989) 'General circulation model simulation of mild nuclear winter effects', Climate Dynamics Vol 3 No 4 pp 191-206
If on the other hand you want something that doesn't necessarily support the idea (at least not to the extent proposed by Turco et al, here a review of the literature that forms the chapter of a book:
William A. Kerr (1999), 'Nuclear winter, possible environmental effects', in Environmental Geology, Springer Verlag, p448-449
From the abstract to that chapter:
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Re:That list is clearly missing one (Score:5, Funny)
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Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure there are other countries with nuclear weapons. The current count on nuclear weapons from Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] comes to: Frankly, the India/Pakistan development of a nuclear arsenol worries me more than what happened historically between the U.S. & Russia. And don't even get me started on chemical and biological weapons.
Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh... because those were the only two countries that had more than enough ICBMs to actually result in a global world-ending nuclear war.
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Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because both the United States and Russia blew up hundreds, if not thousands of atomic and hydrogen bombs during testing?
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Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, 200+ nukes launched at the same time between India and Pakistan would cause some immediate localized damage. The greater issue would be the resulting health crisis as fall out spread away from the region of conflict. You could see huge issues with poisoned water supplies and food sources leading to famine and ultimately conflict with other nations in the region.
Globe ending? Perhaps not. Damaging enough to wreck the global economy and cause significant impact to millions if not billions of people, I would certainly say it's possible.
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Thinking the unthinkable/places/individual cost (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing to remember is that from a human point of view, not all places are equal. A temperate site near a river with regular and moderate rainfalls is greatly more useful than a ice-scorched plain of arctic permafrost or a sun blasted desert. Humans, who are adaptable and clever can live in those places, so there is no danger of species extinction. But clearly, we have colonized the most useful places on the planet, and have mixed our labor with them to create vast pools of civilization capital.
What I'm trying to say is this: place matters.
Those bombs, used in a nuclear war, wouldn't be targetted at places deliberately chosen to have the minimum impact. Leaving aside "counter-force" strikes, they are targetted to achieve the greatest damage possible to that part of human society occupying the "enemy" country. I put "enemy" in quotes because looked at from the post-war side, residents of the countries engaged in nuclear war will feelgreater kinship with each other than there former leaders.
Another thing to remember is that the Earth is full of dynamic processes, many of which release energy into the environment, and a few of which even release radiation (radon spurs). A typical thunderstorm is equal to a Hiroshima sized bomb in its energy output. However, it releases that energy over thousands of square miles and several days, not in milliseconds in the space of a cubic yard or so. Even so, if you had the knack of being at just the point where individual bolts of lightning strike, you probably wouldn't survive long. It's the fact that we mostly deal with those strikes averaged over a huge area and long time, not in the split second at the poitn of contact, that makes human life adaptable to the fact of thunderstorms. We adapt to energy and radiation that is released at moderate rates when averaged over the places that are significant to us.
So, what I'm saying is not only place, but rates, and the geographic concentration of events that fall in those places, that matter.
Putting this together, it's quite probable that a thousand nuclear bombs detonated in the course of war that lasts a few hours could destroy civilization, even if those same warheads detonated in remote places over the course of decades did not.
Yet even so, there is no danger of human extinction. Between pardise and an environment so poisoned by nuclear fallout that human life is simply not possible, there are infinite gradations, although many of them can fairly be described as "living hells". But living they would remain. It is possible that a future chronicler of our species would have seen the war averted by Col Petrov as a signficant, but not cataclysmic event in the history of our species. Perhaps our population and technology levels would be set back one or two thousand years, put in the context of a civilization that is about 5000-6000 years old, and a species that is 200,000 years old. In other words, losing about 40% of the temporal gains of our civilization, and about 1% of the gains of our species.
This kind of thinking used to be known as "thinking the unthinkable". It is possible to construct scenarios under which we recoup much of the losses in a relatively short time, given adequate preparation. Some of these scenarios are even plausible, if not likely, given adequate preparation. From the point of view of our species, we would suffer a misfortune, but not a cataclysm.
The problem with the "thinking the unthinkable" mode of thought is that it ignores the fact none of us as individuals experience the fate of our species. We only experience our own fates. A nuclear war that is a bearable setback for the species is comprised of billions of individual cataclysms.
We must not forget that when remember what the Colonel has done for us, if not our species.
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Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Interesting)
What worries me is that, at some point, the Russian government wasn't able to pay all it's employees' wages. What does that say about a rich and determined party being able to acquire some of the stored weapons? Even if such a scenario is highly unlikely, I'm still more worried about that than about what a state with citizens and territory might do with nuclear weapons.
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Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's number 21 - Pakistan and India were both considering using nuclear weapons during the Kargil conflict of 1999. Fortunately, the United States persuaded Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan to order a withdrawal.
Here's the Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Interesting)
Between you, she, and a host of the current MTV generation, you guys have no concept of:
The significance of the Berlin Wall [wikipedia.org] - you used to be able to buy pieces of it when you were in grade school.
Life before the internet.
Life without cell phones.
A time when you couldn't buy telephones in the store - they had to be leased from the Bells and from their stores.
61 cents a minute to a town 90 miles away was the normal fee for intrastate long distance.
Life before VCRs; and yeah, the Wizard of OZ was on every Easter and that was your only chance to see it.
There was a smoking section in airplanes and the ashtrays in the arm rests used to open.
A time before the Space Shuttle.
A time when rocket trips to the moon were current events. My 6th birthday had the Apollo capsule on the cake.
A time before Star Wars.
A time when your local TV weatherman hosted a kids show on their station. It's kind of against regulations now.
And as far as I matter, Cuba has always been shut off to the US. I eagerly await the day when travel from the US will be allowed.
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Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're misrepresenting this a little bit. That article [nuclearfiles.org] is specifically discussing incidents between the US & the Soviet Union/Russia.
The US and Soviet Union are the only two countries which had enough nuclear power to destroy the world, following the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction.
Frankly, the India/Pakistan development of a nuclear arsenol worries me more than what happened historically between the U.S. & Russia.
Combined, the US and the Soviet Union had 60,000 [wikipedia.org] nuclear weapons-- enough to destroy the entire world a dozen times over.
India & Pakistan will never be allowed to develop an arsenal of that magnitude. Compare the size of the arsenals [nuclearfiles.org] today.
I think you are correct to fear nuclear proliferation in India & Pakistan, as I think they are more likely to use the weapons. However, the world will not end if India & Pakistan use their weapons. We will suffer, but the world would not end.
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Re:Why Only U.S. & USSR, Not Russia (Score:4, Funny)
At the time, of course, Hawaii was simply an American territory, like Puerto Rico and the UK are now.
KFG
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Gratitude (Score:5, Insightful)
That's gratitude for you.
Thank you Petrov.
Re:Gratitude (Score:5, Insightful)
Solzhenytsin [wikipedia.org] was sent to the gulag after the war. As he was going in (I may be mangling this anecdote somewhat; I'm doing it from memory), a guard asked what he had done to get twenty years.
"I didn't do anything," said Solzhenytsin.
"You must be mistaken," said the guard. "The sentence for nothing is only ten years, comrade!" And he burst out laughing.
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Re:Gratitude (Score:5, Funny)
<ring>
USA: Hi?
USSR: Hey, USSR here. Sorry to bother you, but are you guys sneakily launching a bunch of Nukes at us?
USA: Err.. No, not at all.
USSR: Great, thanks.
<click>
<ring>
USA: Hello?
USSR: USSR again. Are you sure you aren't launching a strike, or are you just saying it.
USA: You got me! Yeah, we did launch a strike. I fooled you at first though didn't I?
USSR: Heh. yeah. That was pretty sneaky.
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Sting said it best (Score:4, Interesting)
I couldn't say it better than Sting:
What might save us, me, and you
Is that the Russians love their children too
Re:Sting said it best (Score:5, Insightful)
And Hitler loved his mistress and Mussolini his. Stalin doted on his daughter.
The lesson of history? That dictators can have tender feelings and still be homicidal maniacs.
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Re:Sting said it best (Score:5, Insightful)
The point Sting was making was not just that the Russians had tender feelings, but rather that they didn't want to cause a global thermonuclear war because it would result in the annihilation of millions of their countrymen, including their own families, for whom they had these tender feelings. In other words, he was saying that mutually assured destruction was, after all, a good deterrent.
The comparison with dictators is therefore not really apt. Hitler and Stalin had no such assurance of destruction hanging over their heads, and it's probable that they discounted any future possibility of punishment for their actions.
In other words, Hitler and Stalin were "homicidal maniacs" because they thought they could get away with it, while Russians like Petrov didn't push the button because they knew they wouldn't get away with it.
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One thing's for sure (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One thing's for sure (Score:5, Funny)
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How to trick the Ivan (Score:5, Funny)
"How long will we keep getting lucky?" (Score:4, Interesting)
How long? (Score:4, Insightful)
Until about ten minutes before we don't get lucky any more. The answer isn't less nuclear weapons, per se -- we'll always find a new way to kill each other. The answer is in getting people who want to kill others indescriminantly out of power.
Here's a question. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is the traditional answer: "There would be a retaliatory strike. Allies of both parties would get in on the act. The two sides would lob nukes at one another until everyone involved were destroyed, with serious, possibly apocalyptic damage to the world at large."
That made perfect sense in the Cold War, when the two largest powers were the US and Russia and nearly every other nuclear power took one side or the other. Nearly the entire world would be bombed outright, and the sheer area of the US and Russia alone would create a shitload of radiation. Nowadays, however, it seems more likely that at least one side of the war will be a small nation or alliance of small nations. It's unlikely that more than a few countries will be drawn in. How much radiation would there actually be at the end?
Also, how willing would other nations be to go into this? There's not a clear-cut capitalist/communist distinction anymore. It doesn't seem unlikely that only two nations would fight the war, especially if one of them were the US. To enter into a nuclear war would be certain death for every man, woman, and child in your country. Treaties be damned, I can't imagine many countries jumping at the chance.
Finally, what guarantee is there that it would become a nuclear war at all? The last thing a sane leader would want after a nuclear strike would be for the situation to escalate. Obviously, they couldn't just sit there, but I'd imagine that the retaliation would be primarily conventional, or one or two surgical blasts.
I just want to say that a nuclear war doesn't need to turn into Dr. Strangelove. It is quite possible for it to end with a whimper.
Re:In Soviet Russia Petrov saves you? (Score:5, Informative)
It's kind of lame to say to someone who literally saved the world, but thanks guys.
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MAD (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:MAD (Score:5, Insightful)
(Note: Of course, they'd lose the resulting war, no question about it. But in the first hour of the war, they could litterally kill millions of civilians.)
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Re:MAD (Score:4, Interesting)
It's much more that the North Korea/South Korea border is the most heavily militarized location in the world. The US estimated that if we were to invade North Korea, there would be more than 50,000 casualties in the first three months of fighting.
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Re:How much to people trust America now? (Score:5, Insightful)
All propaganda to the contrary, the dislike and distrust of the US is not markedly different now than it was 23 years ago.
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Re:How much to people trust America now? (Score:5, Insightful)
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wouldn't work (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:How much to people trust America now? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83 [wikipedia.org].
When someone tells you, "Don't worry, they can't intercept these messages", he's wrong.
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Re:How much to people trust America now? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is modded insightful? What nonsense.
23 years ago the Soviet Bloc was extremely distrustful of the US - the possibility of imminent nuclear annihilation has a way of doing that, especially when you're already living in a ruthless totalitarian machine - but much of the rest of the world regarded the United States as a democratic bastion protecting them from the Soviet empire. Western Europe, in particular, was totally reliant on the US for protection from the massive Russian ground army. Furthermore, the US was genuinely viewed as a (relative) beacon of democracy and human rights in comparison to the ruthless and inhumane Soviet countries.
Today Western Europe views the United States as the biggest threat to world peace, as does much of the rest of the world. There are stats about this, I can find them if I have to. The US has also lost its role as the leader of the democratic and human rights-aware world, and continues to decline on those fronts at an alarming rate (especially the latter).
I think I speak for a lot of non-US citizens when I say that it is a tragedy that America cannot be relied upon to do the right thing, even on paper. In my opinion a hell of a lot of anti-American sentiment stems from people who depserately want the US to truly lead, and are appalled at the way it is actually behaving.
Put it another way - 23 years ago citizens of Britan, Australia, and Western Europe would never have seriously felt that they might be 'disappeared' by US intelligence agencies from a third-party country, tortured, detained for years without any recourse to the law, and eventually tried in an extra-judicial process with the possibility of the death penalty. Today that has in fact happened, and continues to happen if President Bush is to be believed.
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Re:How much to people trust America now? (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, for those of you who were not in high school and college during Reagan's years, he was treated and referred to much like Bush Jr. today. However Reagan was a far better public speaker and came off a little better. Hated and reviled by the left much as the right hates and reviles Clinton.
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Re:How much to people trust America now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gee, given that about 95% of the world's population lives outside the US, I'd say that's a remarkably stupid statement. I'm a Canadian, and I like Americans (my grandfather was American, and I lived in and worked in the USA for a few years). I know most Americans are decent people.
But America no longer has a claim to superior process and innovation, which, unless you're sitting on enormous pools of oil, is the only basis by which a country can prosper long term. Europe and Japan caught up to you years ago, and the Asian tigers are making that trip faster than David Banh's degree. Get used to a world where there are more smart and empowered people outside America than in it.
Here's a cultural indicator. This year, the US didn't win the World Baseball Classic. Japan, which only learned the game after WWII, won by beating economic powerhouse Cuba. Baseball was invented in the US. This year, the US didn't win the World Basketball Championship. Spain and Greece battled for the crown, with the Spaniards winning. Basketball was invented in the US. And New Zealand - the land of 4 million people, 12 million sheep, and 2 million strangely satisfied men - defeated the US in the last America's Cup, which uses some pretty esoteric technology. I'm far too polite to mention the Ryder Cup. So, if you can't beat us on the playgrounds, how are you going to beat us in the war?
As a Canadian, I would like to offer some friendly advice. As a nation we have always been a junior partner, first in the Commonwealth, and now in NAFTA. We've learned to negotiate, and have made some very astute agreements, such as the Auto Pact. The days when the US had 40% of world GDP are over; your relative share is falling, and is going to keep falling for years. So learning how to get good agreements is going to be increasingly valuable for you.
And, ya, you could blow us off the face of the earth, not that I think is at all likely. But, really, where's the long term fun in that?
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Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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the "saved lives" myth (Score:5, Insightful)
Case in point. Japan started the fight and they would not surrender. Very conservative estimates of an invasion of Japan's homeland put American deaths at a million and Japanese deaths as a multiple of that. As horrific the destruction caused by the 2 atomic bombs, those bombs saved American and Japanese lives.
This is the common lie/myth, as is the western belief that the Japanese would "fight to the death to protect the emperor." It's all a bunch of crap. [wikipedia.org] YES, the emperor was advised that his 'house' was in danger if he continued the war...but the Japanese leadership was worried about a coup or revolt, NOT setting up plans for farmers with pitchforks to fight off GI Joe to the death.
The Japanese were on the verge of surrendering already. Go study WW2 history- it's patently obvious Japan was already losing AND that they knew it. The atomic bombs were almost completely unnecessary, except to establish US dominance in the world theater by demonstrating god-like firepower.
Try this google search [google.com] on for size.
Incidentally, does the political division and the emperor's "stay the course" position sound familiar to you? Those who do not study history, blah blah.
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Re:the "saved lives" myth (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you read anything else from the article? The population was ready to revolt, and half of the military and civilian government were dead-set against continuing the war. They tried to establish diplomatic ties with Russia to save their country and avoid invasion; the US demanded unconditional surrender, the Japanese not surprisingly said "pass", but KEPT WORKING ON HOW TO END THE WAR. Christ, man! Read the article.
US history books make it out like they were rabid, crazed defenders of their almighty emperor that would have fought to the last man, and that our atomic bombs "shocked" them back to "reason" and "saved lives". It's all a blatant lie.
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Re:Well, as long as IRAN doesn't get nukes... (Score:5, Interesting)
Adding to the reasons you have given, consider that the US had very valid concerns that Japan may be nearing completion of its own nuclear weapon [wikipedia.org] . Immediately before Germany's fall, in May of 1945, U-234 [wikipedia.org] (almost an ironic name) was captured by US forces. Its mission had been to transfer to Japan enough Uranium for two nuclear weapons, two fully disassembled ME-262's, full documentation of Nazi Germany's nuclear efforts to date, centrifuge technology, a V-2 rocket expert, etc.. While unknown at the time, the Japanese Navy may have even had a sneak attack capability against the mainland US in the form of the I-400 [wikipedia.org] submarine aircraft carriers.
U-234 surrendered to US forces after the Germany's fall - but the US had to face the very real possibility that there had been other submarines that may not have surrendered. I guess my point is that you can't divorce the reality of the situation from the perception of the decision makers at the time. With some risk of attracting flames, some believe the same applies to the run-up to the Iraq war.
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Re:Well, as long as IRAN doesn't get nukes... (Score:4, Insightful)
-Iraq never attacked the U.S.
-It never declared war on the U.S.
-It was no threat to the U.S.
There is no absolutely comparison.
And you go on the say that it's BAD that they at least have faith that they won't get nuked?! It's one of the few things that's so terrible and crazy that they won't even accuse the U.S. of planning. I sincerely hope that nothing happens that changes their minds on that subject.
Oh, and if the president was tripping on LSD on day and did decide to nuke them, that would, without a doubt, unite the world against the U.S. There is not a single county that would support them.
More generally from what I've seen in this discussion, I have to say that it's disheartening how so many people can think that exterminating millions to save their own ass is justified.
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Re:A no-brainer -- why aren't we getting rid of nu (Score:4, Informative)
See this graph. [nrdc.org]
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Re:A no-brainer -- why aren't we getting rid of nu (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider the case of Richard Gatling [wikipedia.org], the inventor of the famous Gatling gun [wikipedia.org]. You may have seen the gun in old Western movies. Once the design was tweaked, the Gatling gun became the most devastating weapon on the planet in the latter part of the 19th century. Its inventor believed it to be a peacetime weapon, too, just as nuclear weapons are today. He reasoned that the weapon was so powerful, and the loss of life resulting from its use so great, that anyone would submit rather than see it used them. Of course, the irony was that the gun was indeed put into action shortly after its inception--by Americans against other Americans in the Civil War.
And there you have it in a nutshell. We essentially used a weapon of mass destructions against our own people--the only thing that has changed is the technology--and you have this unrealistic expectation that we will now get rid of weapons intended for use against people in other nations? It's not happening. At least not in our lifetimes.
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False information and misinformation (Score:5, Informative)
This never happened. I don't even have to cite a source on this one. I would like to point out that at least as current as Yeltsin, Russia still had a first strike nuclear doctrine. Russia's nuclear arsenal has dwindled rapidly, however due to economic issues and the hard work of Senator Lugar and his Nunn-Lugar Cooperative which has been using US tax dollars to PAY the Russians to disarm (on fo the few use of my tax dollars I approve of). Russia's current nuclear arsenal is used as deterrant towards China, North Korea, and Iran (cited from Jane's and CDI)
" The nuclear non-proliferation treaty requires that nuclear powers work towards nuclear disarmament. The US rejects all proposals calling for nuclear disarmament."
The NNP Treaty actually has three parts: non-proliferation, disarmament, and the right to peacefully use nuclear tech. Part one allows for all of the then current nuclear powers to remain so. Those nations just happen to be the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council. The rule states that those nations will not give the technology to any other nation and will not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear nation (although France, the US, and Britain have recently said "rogue states" are fair game.). Part two deals with disarmament. The US has decreased it's stockpile considerably and continues to do so. The Bush administration was the first to try and reverse this although they seem to have had that idea squashed in Congress. The NNP specifically states that disarmament is voluntary and any nation may opt out for a time if they have a perceived threat that necessitates it. I, and a hell of a lot of my fellow citizens, think we do. The idea of the treaty was to reduce pressure on other nations to develop their own weapons in response to perceived "pressure" from nuclear powers to do so. It has worked so far but more needs to be done. To say the US has not reduced it's stockpile is bull, however.
" Presently, 4 of the Central Asian *stan countries are organizing to declare themselves a "nuclear free zone" forbidding all nuclear weapons from their territory. What country is working diplomatically and is pressuring them to scuttle the nuclear free zone idea? The US."
The Central Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (CANNWFZ) is being opposed by the US, France, and the UK on grounds that four of the nations are part of the 1992 Tashkent Collective Security Treaty with Russia which requires Russian nuclear weapons to be used in the event of ANY hostilities as aid to those nations. The CANWFZ specifically allows that treay to stay put. So even though those nations agree to not develop or deploy nuclear on their soil, they are, by proxy, armed with nuclear weapons. It's a have "your cake and eat it, too" situation. The nations involved with the treay are in the lousy position of possibly pissing off both Russia and the US which are both working partners in the region. I do believe this will be resolved as some concessions where made just this year with the treaty and that the US will sign on, but only after tensions with Iran, a neighboring nation, subside a little. The US has signed three other NWFZ treaties and is, at least in spirit, for the idea.
"Considering the US has the most nuclear weapons, engages in the most wars, threatens non-nuclear countries with nuclear weapons, other countries have an incentive to develop nukes. The ironic thing is that only the US has hundreds of thousands of Marines that can be deployed and a strong worldwide military deployment capability -- eliminating nukes will not weaken that capability."
You are mostly correct in the beginning of that statement. By most estimates, Russia still has the most nuclear weapons. The US has more ICBM's. Russia lacks delivery methods for most of it's arsenal, though. There is a real effort and pressure to reduce our stockpile not only of nuclear but of chemical weapons as well. I
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