But the question of America's moral right is a red herring. Today it is not America that will suffer the consequences of a nuclear war or arms race in this region. The cold war is over. Nations that had pointed nuclear weapons at each other find themselves without good reason for further posturing. Today the greater danger of nuclear war comes from countries like India, Pakistan, Israel and Iran and from the possible use of nuclear weapons by international terrorists who can quite conceivably lay their hands on a technology that has begun to proliferate and has become portable.
Every child knows that in a nuclear war there can be no winners.
Deterrence is cited as a reason for deployment but history has repeatedly shown the opposite to be true. We would have been forced by hook or crook, to reply in kind. So Pakistan acquired it's A Bomb. Now we have upped the ante with a Hydrogen bomb. Pakistan and China are bound to reply to Indian tests, overtly or covertly, and a huge escalation of a regional nuclear arms race is inevitable.