Circles and Squares

United States President Barack Obama plans to visit Hiroshima next week, the first United States President to do so in the formal capacity of his office.

The New York Times published an editorial on April 12, 2016 entitled

“From Hiroshima to a Nuke-Free World”

Which seemed to imply that this symbolic act suggests the United States is moving towards the elimination of nuclear weapons.

The facts suggest the complete opposite and therefore the visit seems extremely dubious in its intention.

President Obama has overseen the beginning of a one trillion dollar program to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons in blatant violation of the Non Proliferation Treaty, a policy decision which can only encourage other nations to develop nuclear weapons as the United States is not adhering to the very rules under which it claims it can stop others from developing weapons.

These new nuclear weapons include compact nuclear devices that are tempting to use (intentionally) at the tactical level. Therefore they not only violate the Non Proliferation Treaty, they introduce the potential for the first time in history that the move from a gun to a howitzer to a conventional missile to a compact nuclear weapon to a multi-megaton warhead will be but a natural progression. There will no longer be a clear   “line in the sand” between conventional and nuclear war. That makes nuclear war much easier. And in light of the the planned post-election squeeze on Russia, we are looking at the potential of nuclear war reaching the probability we saw in the 1950s and 1960s, and most likely the highest risk that mankind has ever seen.