Should the U.S. intervene with nuclear programs in other countries?

Set as news: False

Set as news: True

Set as news: True

Yep, looks good to me.

This has come a long way, and other than fixing the radio buttons, my opinion is that this is good to go.

issue revision:

---

Adopting Jacki's suggestion, which I think is a good point.

---

i do not like that this issue is limited to nuclear weapons.  iran argues its nuclear program is for energy, not weapons.  i think the issue should be opened up to nuclear programs, in general and not specific to weapons. 

issue revision:

---

Adopting Clark's suggestion. Ommitted term "sovereign states" - I think it's implied by the context, and actually loads things a touch.

---

issue revision:

---

old version

---

Clark made it workable..how about

Should the U.S. intervene with other soveirgn nations concerning the possession of nuclear weapons?

yes/no/only in cases deemed threatening by the Security Council

I know that last option won't fly, but i tried.

 

Also, I wanted to raise the issue like Alex did below, of accounting/protecting/destroying scattered Russian nuclear material.  I haven't heard or read anything regarding progress made on that issue.  It was talked about a lot in 2000 and 2004, but not lately.  Anyone have a clue?

 

Agree with Clark.  A simple, elegant solution - and a preliminary question before discussing "how should we intervene" is whether we ought to do so at all.

Maybe something like: "Should the US intervene with nuclear weapons programs in other sovereign states? yes, no"

Agreed. Too complex for a single question.

I see a number of different questions here:

What should the US do with its existing stockpiles of nuclear weapons?

What should US policy be towards sovereign nations actively seeking to develop nuclear warheads?

What should US policy be regarding former Soviet nuclear stockpiles?

Should the US military seek to develop additional nuclear capabilities?

Just a few ideas...

Proliferation v. Nonproliferation is a strange dichotomy that doesn't fit the current state.  Seems to me that we have four classes of nuclear powers:

(1) Recognized nuclear weapons- possessing states.
(2) Unrecognized nuclear weapons-possessing states..
(3) States conducting research to acquire nuclear weapons.
(4) States uninterested in acquiring nuclear weapons.

The policy options seem to reflect these categories:
(1) Actively maintain the status quo.  (Prevent states conducting research from acquiring weapons).
(2) Passively hope for the status quo. (let states conduct research on their own, apply weak/no measures to stop them)
(3) Actively roll-back the spread of nuclear weapons. (Use pressure/force to cause Category Two states - India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea--to eliminate their nuclear arsenals).
(4) Promote responsible nuclear investment in technologies that cannot readily be used to produce nuclear weapons (the European approach).
(5) Passively act to cause the gradual abandonment of nuclear stockpiles. (The Nuclear Test Ban treaty was calculated to cause nuclear arsenals to gradually fall into disuse)
(6) Actively reduce nuclear stockpiles. (The Nixon/Reagan/Bush I approach)
(7) Eliminate all nuclear stockpiles among category I countries (lead by example - the utopian approach).


There's a lot of different approaches here that focus on the different categories of nuclear weapons states.  Maybe we should recalibrate the question to take those different categories into account?

This question should go under "Nuclear Weapons," but we didn't have that Topic when I wrote this question.

Also, aren't the two topics, Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Power, the same?