Oppenheimer: The Man Behind the Bomb

I can­not fath­om the argu­ment for “world­wide nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment”. Can any­one make the case — with a straight face — that the world would be bet­ter off if the US were not the over­whelm­ing super­pow­er on the Earth? The fact is, when sta­ble democ­ra­cies pos­sess vast­ly supe­ri­or weapon­ry, the world is made safer from the thugs who would oth­er­wise seek to wreak more death and destruc­tion than they already do. Let’s remem­ber that Hitler’s rise occurred when “dis­ar­ma­ment” was the theme through­out the rest of Europe. It is also the case that the atom bombs dropped on Japan end­ed the war, sav­ing count­less lives that inevitably would have been lost in an inva­sion of Japan. Why is it that, giv­en the many mass mur­der­ers who have blight­ed this plan­et through­out his­to­ry, some peo­ple still have dif­fi­cul­ty under­stand­ing that there are, and will be, tru­ly evil peo­ple in the world, and that weak­ness only invites their aggres­sion and bru­tal­i­ty?