Are nuclear weapons necessary for protection?

Answer 1

Some countries don't need nuclear weapons, but some do. If the US had no nuclear weapons, the U.S.S.R. would have crushed all of Europe, and perhaps the US as well. When you are a world power and do not have nuclear weapons, you lack a small but vital "chip" to use as leverage in the "big game" of world "control" or "domination" or just "directing" the course of world policy.

Answer 2

During the Cold War, the purpose of the United States nuclear arsenal was to deter nuclear threats

to the United States, primarily from the Soviet Union. Today, in the post-9/11 world, the most urgent

nuclear weapon threats to the United States are not from another major power's deliberate use

of them, but instead are from non-state terrorist actors or from the regional proliferation of such

weapons into unreliable hands.

Nuclear weapons will be a common element of many national security challenges for the next

administration. Two of these nuclear-centric challenges - the denuclearization of North Korea

and stopping Iran's apparent effort to join the ranks of nuclear-armed powers - will test the new

president immediately. Other nuclear-related challenges are no less urgent but are longer-term in

nature: reducing existing stockpiles and securing nuclear materials from diversion to non-state

actors, preventing the likely growth in nuclear power from stimulating a "cascade of proliferation,"

and reversing Russia's apparent increasing reliance on nuclear weapons in its security policy. The

need to address these urgent "external" nuclear challenges is recognized broadly in the policy

community.

--Group of AAAS, the American Physical Society,and the Center for Strategic and International Studies--

Answer 3

If Russia, Afghanistan or any country tries to attack us we can use a nuclear weapon and send them back home. The countries with nuclear weapons won't attack us with those weapons because they know that if they attack with them, we will attack them back ans nobody wants to be attacked.