The Nuclear Threat That is Ignored
On January 10th, 2022, North Korea tested a second ballistic missile within a week. In response, the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) ordered a ground stop potentially national but also potentially only on the West Coast of all air traffic and monitoring groups immediately began to discuss the specifics of the test. Shortly after the missile impacted the sea of Japan, the ground stop was lifted and specifics started coming out including the fact that this missile flew at Mach 10, twice the threshold needed to be considered hypersonic. As expected, these monitoring groups along with OSINT (Open-source intelligence) groups began discussing the realities of this advanced weapon existing in the NK arsonal. Before going any further, it should be stated that the United States, Russia, China, and a few other nations have been working on hypersonic technologies for a while. It should also be stated that at the time of writing this article, the United States has not had much success if any at testing a hypersonic missile platform.
Of course, the United States military has concerns over Russia, China, North Korea, or any other “adversary” having these weapons because, to be frank, there isn't an existing missile defense system that can target and eliminate a hypersonic weapon. But the discussion at this point shouldn't be the funding of defense contractors in the MIC (military-industrial-complex) to research and build a defense system, nor should the discussion be further sanctions on North Korea as a result of their weapons programs progress. The discussion must be one of nuclear disarmament.
The common mentality in the United States, which is a result of an educational system stuck in the cold war mentality is that there is a great specter looming over us. A specter is a nuclear strike from an “enemy” nation against the United States, resulting in untold amounts of casualties. This specter though is created by propaganda and the myth of American greatness and might.
In reality, the specter of a nuclear strike from the United States against a nation like North Korea looms over their heads, leading them to develop advanced weapons such as the one tested on 1-10. This specter is not driven by propaganda but rather by the reality that the United States remains the only nation to ever use a nuclear device against another nation. The specter is made darker in knowing that the United States did this not once, but twice against civilian population centers.
The United States and its 3,750 nuclear warheads, commonly called nuclear deterrent, remains one of the greatest threats to not only peace but life as we know it on this planet. While the United States and other nations join together to condemn tests by North Korea, the hundreds of tests and resulting pollution from those tests by the U.S. are ignored. When condemning these tests, the death, destruction, and resulting illnesses associated with the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are ignored.
It is unbelievably hypocritical for the U.S. to demand that any nation abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons while we hold a stockpile that could eliminate life on earth multiple times over. For anyone not on the MIC payroll and with a functioning brain, the solution must be the U.S. leading the charge on nuclear disarmament.
The United States must take the following steps to lead to a nuclear-free future where the threat of nuclear war doesn't exist.
First, the United States must destroy all nuclear warheads currently in its stockpile. This includes those in silos, on submarines, and any other weapons platform. Second, the United States must allow international observers to witness the destruction of these warheads and verify that none are remaining in the U.S. stockpile. And lastly, the United States needs to finally recognize the war crime that is committed against the Japanese people and finally admit that the use of those bombs wasn't necessary. Only then can the United States be in a position where it can ask other nations to step forward and agree to nuclear disarmament.
Until these steps are taken, the U.S. needs to keep its nose out of the business of other nations and stop trying to police their development of weapon systems. The nuclear arms race that exists today, exists because of the actions of the U.S. in WWII and the subsequent cold war arms race. To ignore these facts or deny them is to continue the mindset of American superiority which has led to this moment in time.