This is the reality of nuclear weapons: they may trigger a world war; a war which, unlike previous ones, destroys all of civilization.
Joseph RotblatRead
If the militarily most powerful and least threatened states need nuclear weapons for their security, how can one deny such security to countries that are truly insecure? The present nuclear policy is a recipe for proliferation. It is a policy for disaster.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the hypocrisy in nuclear weapons policy, suggesting that if powerful nations need them for security, so should insecure nations.
Joseph Rotblat's quote critiques the prevailing nuclear weapons policy, arguing that it is inconsistent and dangerous. He points out that if the world's most powerful and least threatened countries justify possessing nuclear weapons for their own security, then it is unjustifiable to deny the same security to countries that are genuinely vulnerable. This stance promotes a cycle of proliferation that could lead to catastrophic consequences, emphasizing the need for reevaluating current policies to prioritize global security rather than an arms race.
Themes
Nuclear WeaponsSecurityProliferationPolicyGlobal Safety
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about international security and arms control.
More from Joseph Rotblat
All quotes →But the first the general public learned about the discovery was the news of the destruction of Hiroshima by the atom bomb. A splendid achievement of science and technology had turned malign. Science became identified with death and destruction.
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The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose: survival. But if in the process we learn how to achieve it by love rather than by fear, by kindness rather than by compulsion; if in the process we learn to combine the essential with the enjoyable, the expedient with the benevolent, the practical with the beautiful, this will be an extra incentive to embark on this great task.
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Indeed, the whole human species is endangered, by nuclear weapons or by other means of wholesale destruction which further advances in science are likely to produce.
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Technology is driving us together. In many ways we are becoming like one family. With the global threats resulting from science and technology, the whole of humankind now needs protection. We have to extend our loyalty to the whole of the human race.
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