States are justified in possessing nuclear weapons

I apologize to my opponent for forfeiting the previous round. I was in the process of writing my argument and then went to bed and hadn't realized that the clock had run out. I urge the voters to give the Conduct point to BlackVoid.I have three contentions to make after which I will refute Pro's arguments.ArgumentsC1) Nukes cause Proxy WarsPro provides evidence of how two nuclear states never went to war with each other. That is not entirely true. They never went to war directly with each other. There have been numerous proxy wars fought such as in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. The Vietnam war was a proxy war with the United States supporting South Vietnam and the Soviet Union supporting North Vietnam [5]. The Korean war was a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union as well [4]. Nuclear weapons may deter states from fighting each other directly but that does not stop them from fighting indirectly and Nuclear power states will use any excuse to fight each other under the guise of supporting other states like Vietnam or Korea. This is even more damaging than direct conventional war as it tends to damage states that are being sponsored by the Nuclear weapons states.C2) The Non-proliferation Treaty in unfair The current Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty is unfair as it allows certain states to keep nuclear weapons while prohibiting other states from owning them. This happens because the states that already have the nuclear weapons use their political power to pressure other states into not acquiring them. These five "Nuclear Weapons" states made an arbitrary rule that only states which tested nuclear weapons before 1967 would be allowed to keep them and all other states would need to either disarm or never test Nuclear weapons in the future [6]. This is not justified as it allows some states to use use their political power to push other states into complying with the treaty. C3) Accidents involving Nukes can be extremely dangerousThe disaster at Chernobyl cost over 30,000 to 60,000 lives as a result of cancer and crippled the Soviet economy [7]. Over 135,000 people had to be evacuated [8]. Other dangers include radiation from nuclear power plants and radioactive waste [9].RebuttalsR1) Deterrence"In other words, its highly unlikely that a nuclear state will ever attacked by another nation because of the strength of the weapons they possess. Thus, the possession of nuclear weapons serves as an effective deterrent to both nuclear and conventional warfare by making the ramifications too costly."This is answered through my C1 that nukes don't really deter conventional warfare but increase tensions between countries therefore encouraging proxy wars."Zero nuclear wars between two possessing states. Zero conventional wars between nuclear states.Zero conventional wars initiated by a non-nuclear state against a nuclear state. Zero nuclear wars between two non-nuclear states. (who would have thought?)"Again, there have been proxy wars. Pro forgot about those.Pro's example about US and USSR has been negated by Proxy wars as well. As for the India and Pakistan example, Pro's source [9] and the original link [10] clearly say that the problematic nature of relationships between South Asian countries changed considerably because they developed regional organizations such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation as well as because of the emergence of the US, Europe, and Southeast Asia as economin powers, and South Asia felt the need to compete. The corelation could just as easily be explained by this as opposed to nukes. My point on proxy wars stands as well. Nukes don't deter war. R2) Chemical and Biological weaponsPro does a great job arguing about the harmful effects of Chemical and Biological weapons but doesn't really show HOW Nuclear Weapons deter Chemical and Biological weapons. I am arguing that states are not justified in possessing nuclear weapons. My position in this debate would be that they shouldn't possess chemical or biological weapons either so this argument is irrelevant. R3) AsteroidsNuking an asteroid won't work as intended. There are various sizes of Asteroids. Nuclear explosives would be needed only for deflecting the largest of asteroids such as those over 10 km in diameter. However, all such asteroids have been found and none of them threaten Earth in any way [12].As for the smaller asteroids, nuclear explosives do more harm than good. Scientific American points out "it is important not only to deflect a asteroid from a collision course with Earth (primary deflection) but also to avoid knocking the object into a potential return orbit that would cause it to come back a few years later (secondary deflection). Nuclear explosions are not controllable in this way. But a nonnuclear kinetic impact—that is, simply smashing a spacecraft into an NEO—can provide the primary deflection for the vast majority of objects, and a precise secondary deflection, if necessary, could be performed by an accompanying gravity-tractor spacecraft."To conclude this point, nuking a small asteroid is worse than using conventional means to deflect it and no large asteroids threaten Earth. So, protection from asteroid strikes isn't adequate justification to possess nuclear weapons.R4) Military spendingPro says that Nukes reduce military spending. His source shows five states which spent a smaller share of their GDP on defense in 2000 than in the year they first acquired nuclear weapons. However, Pro's source 12 clearly states on page 167 that the analysis cannot demonstrate that the decline was caused entirely due to nuclear weapons. Pro also very carefully states that it only declines conventional military spending. What is important is total military spending, not just conventional. The total military expenditure of the US as a percentage of GDP has fluctuated with no definite corelation as can be seen in [3]. Sources [1] http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] http://carnegieendowment.org...[3] http://bit.ly...[4] http://en.wikipedia.org...[5] http://en.wikipedia.org...[6] http://en.wikipedia.org...[7] http://en.wikipedia.org...[8] http://en.wikipedia.org...[9] http://www.physics.isu.edu...[10] http://en.wikipedia.org...[11] http://books.google.com...[12] http://www.scientificamerican.com...