What's Wrong
with Arms Races?
Why should we care about arms races at all? Are they really so bad? After all, nation-states are faced with a security dilemma in this anarchic world of each state against all. Perhaps the continuing, competitive drive for weapons may be the only way to find any security. Arms purchases might therefore provide a necessary and otherwise unobtainable deterrent.The case against large-scale arms acquisitions rests on three assertions:And let me speak to th' yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on th' inventors' heads....Horatio, speaking at the conclusion of Hamlet
| 1. | It is wasteful, imposing an enormous financial burden and squandering resources. |
| 2. | It ensures that, if war ever does occur, it will be much more destructive than if such great accumulations of killing power had not been built up. Conceivably, such a war would mean the end of humanity. |
-47-
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: The Prisoners of Insecurity:Nuclear Deterrence, the Arms Race, and Arms Control.
Contributors: Bruce M. Russett - Author.
Publisher: W.H. Freeman.
Place of publication: San Francisco.
Publication year: 1983.
Page number: 47.
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