are nuclear weapons REALLY wmd's?

Question

Why do people consider Nuclear Weapons to be weapons of mass destruction? All they do is sit in their hangars getting rusty. All the while, guns and knives take down hundreds of people across the globe every single day.
For me, the smaller everyday weapons are the real WMD's because their death toll far outnumbers that of nuclear weapons and i dont personlly think a nuclear weapon will ever be fired again.
what are your opinions?

its funny, so many people slating my question.
come back in 10, or 100, or 1000 years.
then compare the death toll of Nuclear arms to the death toll of small arms.
I bet they're still not even close

in my opinon, if one nuke goes off it will lead to the end of the world. And obviously, i understand the meaning of the term WMD... my question is more philosophical than literal

Answer 1

I see your point... more people are dying daily at the hands of knives, guns and fists than they are from nuclear bombs!!!

But nuclear weapons are entitled weapons of mass descruction because they have the power to kill thousands upon thousands of people in one go. All it takes is one crazy guy to push that button....... and whole countries can be wiped out in a second. Scary stuff.

Answer 2

Hey Ministe,

I think the point that most are missing is this:

You can't protect yourself from a WMD!

If you have a gun, and you decide to use it in a malicious way, I have ways to protect me and my family. If we are unprotected, the damage you inflict is finite!

The damage you inflict may disrupt my family for many years, but the rest of humanity will grow beyond that.

The 9/11 disaster, while horrific, was not caused by WMD's.

When one uses a WMD, it is meant to annihilate, not just destruct. Many WMD's alleged today, are not meant to cause collateral damage, just to end life forms. An A-bomb may level a square mile, but it will travel through villages and end all life, human and otherwise. An attack with Saran gas will have a very similar effect.

When you state that the "smaller everyday weapons" are the real WMD's then you must add into that logic, deaths caused by cars, obesity (and Diabetes) , smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, AIDS and Lack of Health care. The death toll for any of the above, singularly outnumbers those deaths caused by small arms. While the aforementioned causes of death are all non-intentional they by far, cause a greater harm (and cost) to society than does a nuclear weapon.

The major reason, I think, that the populace has such a great concern for WMD's is that it would not take a greatly organized effort to utilize them. For a few million dollars, one could take possession of a rogue country's nuclear weapon, for less than that, several people could extract the toxic components from 200 pounds of Castor beans and poison a city the size of Los Angeles.

Lastly, and the saddest of all, is that we are a nation of headline readers. We will believe the wackiest things before we research them. We don't want to know if something we like will hurt us -- we want to know What do YOU HAVE that will hurt us! I will fill ballot boxes and spew lies from my mouth regarding the evils of ________, while at the same time, stuffing a burger and fries down my throat and washing everything away with a super sized coke and then drive home in my SUV the 3 blocks to my house.

Miraculously, the saving grace in all of this... There are people who ask the right questions, the Profiles in Courage that Kennedy wrote about. The people, not afraid of their own careers or what others think that ask the questions that matter. These are the antidote to any WMD's. And these are the people that will save my, and most everyone else on this planets, collective arses!

And for them, I thank god.

Thank you for your time,

James in San Diego

Answer 3

Let us talk philosophy and communication then.

What is sometimes called "risk" actually has two components: the statistical probability of harm and the outrage associated with that particular item.

I will grant you that more people die in a few years in the US from automobile accidents than ever died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For that matter, many more die each year from skiing accidents than die from gunshot wounds in a major city.

What causes outrage? Items seen as outrageous are 1) Involuntary, 2) Unknowable, 3) Difficult to Understand, 4) In someone else's hands, 5) Effect many people at once.

Nuclear weapons are seen as WMDs, outrageous and risky, because of those factors. You have not volunteered to be exposed to them. The effects (including whether or not a nuclear winter would be brought on by their use) of using them is unknowable. Radiation biophysics is seen as hard to understand - although I do not think so. Very few of us have nuclear weapons. I try not to have any myself. So anyone using them is certainly NOT me or even someone I know and trust. And a nuclear weapon has the capability of immediately killing a few million people all at once, not to mention screwing up an economy possibly forever.

I hope no one uses any more nuclear weapons. I like low background areas. I like that we have to take only a few samples to assure ourselves that our food and water is safe to consume. And it may well be if we have more than a limited exchange, the world will become uninhabitable for much of the higher life forms.

Answer 4

A loaded gun is a loaded gun, be it in the closet or in someone's hands at the time. It goes the same way for nuclear weapons ("getting rusty" in a storage facility, it's still a deadly weapon if used). The "mass destruction" part is self-explanatory... one pull of a trigger with a gun and one person dies, one push of a button with nukes and millions will die (because no one launches just one nuke).

great movie quote: im not terrified of the man who has ten nuclear weapons, i'm terrified of the man who only wants one.

on a personal note, someone said they wouldn't want to be standing next to a madman with a canister of VX nerve gas, but then again, they wouldn't want to be standing next to a madman with a loaded Colt-45 either.

You can argue which affects people more, a maniac with a gun/knife, or a maniac with a nuclear weapon. obviously day to day its the guy with a gun/knife, but don't forget the cuban missile crisis when school children ran drills to duck and cover under their desks... if some countries get nukes or other WMD's, we will be living in a reality where a day to day threat again exists from WMD's...

Answer 5

Many people on here have stated that because nuclear weapons kill a lot of people they are, by definition, WMDs. In fact, a few even mentioned Hiroshima and Nagasaki as specific examples of nuclear weapons as WMDs as opposed to, say, conventional bombs. However, what these people fail to recognize is that any weapon, used with the proper tactics, can be a weapon capable of killing many people. Indeed, the firebombing of Japan towards the end of WWII was incredibly more lethal than were the two atomic bombs dropped. In one evening over Tokyo, Air Force B-29s killed over 100,000 Japanese and obliterated 16 square miles of the city. All in all, attacks such as these occured in 64 cities in Japan, with some cities being as much as 99% destroyed. You can't tell me that these bombs, used in this manner, are not as destructive as a nuclear weapon.

The distinction that needs to be drawn is that WMD is an archaic term for a specific category of weapons. It has been all but replaced by the much more appropriate "CBRN" or "CBRN-E" in the military community. WMD, however, remains colloquial because of its use during OIF. The two newer terms are more appropriate because they don't distinquish the weapons categorized by their destructive capabilities, but by their non-conventional nature. CBRN stands for "Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear", and CBRN-E adds "High-explosives", like fuel-air bombs, to the mixture.

So, to answer your question, you're right! Smaller, conventional weapons are capable of killing many people, but outside of the media and politics, the term WMD is rarely used. It would seem that those in the know have already accepted your point and adapted because of it.

Answer 6

By definition, a WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) kills a very large group of people all at one time. Whereas guns and smaller weapons have to be used repeatedly.

Yes, guns kill more people than unused nuclear weapons, but it is the definition, and not the interpretation that counts.

Answer 7

They should be renamed, the Weapons of POTENTIAL Mass Destruction (WPMD's). The only problem with that line of thinking is that the rogue states and martyr leaders are moving in the direction of actual use rather than deterrence...at least that's how it seems.

Most likely, the use of these weapons will be an accidental launch by one of the superpowers.

Answer 8

Nukes are just tools . A very big bang in a very small package . I will be stunned if a few are not used in the next 15 years . If the USA gets hit then somewhere else will get hit back harder and it might be the wrong place or just a best guess at who was responsible .

Answer 9

I would consider the question, philosophical or not to be rediculous. of course a nuclear bomb is a weapon of mass destruction.
Why else do you think the countries that have them don't want others having them?

Answer 10

A wmd would be a Weapon of Mass Destruction.And a nuclear bomb qualifies(Really overqualifies)as such.So yes they are.