Cartoon 671: The Race

In 2002 the Administration announced to the international community it was going to enhance its nuclear armaments. It was thought by many this was a very bad signal to the effort to curtail nuclear proliferation.

The only serious deterrent to American aggression with its highly technological military establishment is nuclear weapons. The electric motive force given off by a nuclear explosion incapacitates much of the electronic military technology in proximity. There is also the leverage that can be achieved by threatening to attack an ally. A case in point is North Korea. It has no real capability of attacking America. But the threat is to Japan. Japan is the second largest economy in the world. A bomb going off there would precipitate a world wide financial crisis. We know what that would look like through the current financial crisis.

As nations have become increasingly concerned with American “adventurism”, they have sought an edge. That edge is nuclear. But America has announced it is raising the nuclear bar with a new class of nuclear weapons. It means that other nations must also update their arsenal. It also means that nations that have been “on the bench” in terms of nuclear capabilities must get actively involved. Some of those nations are Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan, and South Africa.

America vocally advocates nuclear non-proliferation. Its policies are the catalyst for just the opposite.