Paradox of Military Strength

Weapons of mass destruction are bad. Most are so bad our minds won't even let us imagine the kinds of horrific, agonizing consequenses they would have on humanity. We not only believe that we must rid the world of WMD, but we also believe we can and should. WMD is generally used to refer to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.



The United States has some 10,000 functional nuclear bombs and missiles, 15,000 tons of chemical weapons ( nerve gas mostly ) and has refused to end biological weapons research and development as recently as 2001 despite signing the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972 and the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993 outlawing these weapons. (Israel was among the few that refused to sign.)

We need to ask ourselves seriously why is it wrong to posess weapons of mass destruction and apply the same answer and reasoning to ourselves as we do to others. It is not enough to say that it is okay because "we would never use them". The United States remains the only country on the planet to have used nuclear weapons against another country, and the very real threat of using them again is considered the key to ensuring their continued effectiveness.

If we must stop countries from posessing weapons of mass destruction – does it make sense that we should have these same weapons; using them as a threat to secure the outcome we desire? It is this threat of war that breeds hate and fear and with it totalitarianism that ends democratic and religious freedom.

There is no possible way to reduce the tension that comes from posessing weapons of mass destruction other than from disarmament. We can't expect to reduce tensions and THEN disarm. We must disarm first.

We can be true to our logic of military strength and warfare in only 1 of 2 ways. 1) abandon our conscience completely because it hinders military decisions and could lead to defeat. 2) fidelity to moral law and Christian love.


Ideas taken heavily from Thomas Merton's "Peace in a Post-Christian Era"