Ted Turner's Good Deed

May 19, 2004 3:21 PM

NTI Working for a Safer World Concerned that the threat from nuclear weapons had fallen off most people's radar screens after the end of the Cold War, CNN founder Ted Turner asked former Senator Sam Nunn in the spring of 2000 to help assess whether a private organization could make a difference. After months of discussions and consultations with some of the world's most respected security experts, Mr. Turner and Senator Nunn founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) in January 2001. NTI is supported by a pledge from Mr. Turner and other private contributions. Although originally focused on nuclear threats, the NTI site has areas covering chemical, biological, and other WMDs. They have a well balanced Question the Candidates area. I like the site because it appears to be politically neutral with no agenda past eliminating these global risks.
posted by Red58 (3 comments total)

I grew up convinced that we would see civilization end in nuclear war - can it be that people have forgotten so easily?

Why? The bombs are STILL here.
posted by pyramid termite at 6:44 PM on May 19, 2004

Peace will not come through trying to pretend that bombs do not exist, or that the people of the world have any goodwill at all. They don't. And they don't respect the few who do.
However, the solution lies not in the future, but in the past.

H.G. Wells wrote of the great contest between armorers and weaponeers. For each new weapon, a new type of armor is eventually devised; then a new weapon comes along that can penetrate it. The cycle has lasted a millenia or more.

So, since nuclear weapons are nothing more than glorified bullets, how does one stop them with armor, militarily, since diplomacy is less than effective?

You can shoot them out of the air with lasers, or other such high energy weapons. Eventually, even massed ICBM attacks become obsolete.

So will there be peace when nuclear arms are no longer a threat? Ah, well *that* is where diplomacy comes in. Because, as the saying goes: "War is simply diplomacy by other means."

And there will still be weapons, and there will still be armor; but if the diplomats are skillful enough, there won't be war.
posted by kablam at 8:37 PM on May 19, 2004

"since nuclear weapons are nothing more than glorified bullets, how does one stop them with armor, militarily, since diplomacy is less than effective?

You can shoot them out of the air with lasers, or other such high energy weapons. Eventually, even massed ICBM attacks become obsolete." - Kablam, who says they must be delivered via ICBM ?

This is the nightmare scenario, and one worth worrying about, yes : a wave of ICBM's bearing down on the mainland US.

But far more likely is the scenario of a small smuggled nuclear device smuggled in - probably in separate pieces - assembled within the US, and then concealed in a rented truck.

Boom.

Unfortunately, the odds of such a scenario have risen substantially during the current Bush Administration.
posted by troutfishing at 7:50 AM on May 20, 2004