No country should have the right to possess nuclear weapons

Well, Con quit the website, but since I forfeited the last round, I'll try to "successfully refute" his "successful refutations." 1. "Nuclear Weapons Prevent Wars" How does the fact that there was only no direct conflict between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. prove Con's point whatsoever? There were indirect conflicts stemming from the Cold War where many lives were lost. Did these somehow not count? -In the Vietnam war, the total casualties were between 1,481,047 - 4,008,047 deaths. This includes both sides, civilian and military. So, optimistically, at least one and a half million people were killed as a result of the Cold War in this conflict alone. -In the Korean war, 776,360 soldiers on the U.S./South Korea/U.N. side were killed, along with another 1,545,822–1,648,582 soldiers killed on the North Korean/USSR/China side. Also, a total of 2.5 million civilians were killed during this conflict. -In the Chinese civil war, there were between 1 and 3 million military deaths between fighting Communist and Nationalist Chinese forces. -In the Soviet-Afghan war, there were 14,453 Soviets killed, between 75-90,000 Mujahideen fighters killed (who were backed by the U.S.), between 600,000–2,000,000 Afghan civilians killed, another 3,000,000 civilians wounded, and another 5,000,000 civilians displaced into refugee camps. So, I fail to see how these issues can be simply written off. These conflicts all happened after the development and use of the first nuclear weapons, which in no way prevented any of this bloodshed, and in reality most of the conflict was due to tensions between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. The bloodshed that actually occurred during the Cold War could probably be compared with the type of bloodshed that might have been expected from extending the war with the Japanese, without the stigma of nuking 150,000 people (Hiroshima & Nagasaki). Without the nuclear weapons, the tensions between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would have been significantly less, though obviously not nonexistent. Furthermore, there wouldn't have been the unacceptably close call of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which came, by most accounts, impossibly close to mutual destruction of at least the two superpowers, and the avoidance of which has been described as something of a miracle. Castro said we were "this close" while holding his pointer and thumb closely together. [1] Kennedy aid Arthur Schlesinger said that "This was not only the most dangerous moment of the Cold War. It was the most dangerous moment in human history." [2] Risks like that are unacceptable, and in no way balance out the alleged "deterrent" effects that have been claimed by Con here. Con still failed to provide any evidence for his "true event," and thus there is no evidence of nuclear weapons ever preventing conflict. "Nuclear wars would be very effective at preventing genocide." Really? I'll assume that Con meant nuclear "weapons" and still maintain my point that this is simply incorrect. It does not matter if countries don't stop genocides because they aren't well armed enough or because they simply don't feel like it. Either way, the genocide remains. Mao Zedong is estimated to be responsible for between 40-70,000,000 civilian deaths in China, all during the nuclear era. In the Rwandan genocide, 800,000 people were killed. This happened in 1994, and no nuclear state stopped it. Even now, there is a similar conflict in Sudan (Darfur), and still no nuclear state intervenes. Most of the countries Con describes as possessing nuclear weapons are exactly the types I described previously, with similar economic strength and political alliances (especially the nations that the U.S. has shared its weapons with). The exception being North Korea, who, being much different politically than the rest, was vigorously opposed by the other countries listed when it tried to develop them for themselves. Similarly, Iran has been repeatedly condemned for trying to develop nuclear technology, mostly by countries that already possess nuclear weapons. Iraq was invaded by the U.S. on the basis that it was, among other things, "seeking nuclear weapons." The U.S. has the largest number of nuclear warheads of any nation, so that is the main example of the aggressive, paranoid behavior I described. In conclusion, nuclear weapons in no way prevent wars or genocide, nor have they ever done so. It's really a bit like saying that gun-ownership prevents murders. It's only true if the person about to be murdered, or one their friends nearby, has a gun. In the case of nuclear weapons though, the Cold War was the two people with the biggest guns pointing them at each other's heads while ignoring all their friends murdering each other all around them. And it came very close to the two blowing each other's heads off. 2. "Dismantling nuclear weapons allows rogue states to gain the upper hand." Con says that "nuclear weapons play a major factor in maintaing world peace." First of all, there is no such state of world peace and thus it cannot be "maintained." Secondly, this depends on what is meant by a "rogue" state. Such a definition only gets its meaning from the dominant, and usually nuclear-capable, countries that label such a state. The messiness of labeling countries "rogues" or even worse, "evil" is a point that I think goes towards nuclear disarmament. Because countries that are labeled as such generally feel threatened and isolated by the countries that assign them such titles, and then may desire nuclear weapons even more strongly in response. e.g. North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. If the dominant military powers disarmed their nuclear arsenals, these "rogue" states would feel less threatened, and the real powers would still have an enormous military and technological advantage over them. 3. "Dismantling Nuclear Weapons Is More Dangerous Than The Weapons Themselves." Con here seems to claim that if you disarm all the nuclear weapons, then the threat of radiation is worse than that of detonation. The materials described may be radioactively unstable, but they only have a chance of detonating inside a weapon. Saying that the "safest place for the warhead is on the weapon" is a bit like saying the safest place for a bullet is in a gun. It really depends on who owns the gun, and where they store the bullets. Granted, these bullets are radioactive, but the threat of nuclear radiation, while significant, is not nearly as deadly as that of nuclear detonation. Keeping stores of armed nuclear weapons all around the world, pointed all around the world, is the surest way to risk the most detonations. Con's description of the low safety standards is not really evidence for his claim, as this only contributes to the risk of some extremist initiating a nuclear war (think James Bond movies), as opposed to just trying to steal radioactive materials. 4. The current policies of world governments regarding nuclear weapons are, at best, risky. At worst, insane. [3] There is no justifiable reason for the sheer numbers of such weapons, and especially any use of such weapons, except for responding to the use of such a weapon. Which means that the world is putting itself at unnecessary and enormous risk based on circular reasoning. There have been several instances where the world has come close to nuclear war, besides the Cuban Missile Crisis, and each time such a tremendous risk is allowed, the more likely the next one will result in full scale nuclear devastation. [3] Therefore, no state should have the right to possess nuclear weapons, because no state should have the right to put the entire world at such great risk. [1] http://www.watsoninstitute.org... [2] http://news.bbc.co.uk... [3] http://www.pbs.org...