text: The US has a large arsonal of nuclear weapons. The nastiest is the one most tempting to use, that is Neutron bombs which only poison the land it's dropped on for hundreds not thousands of years. \n\nNuclear weapons are scary in that whole cities go poof. Then a cloud of radiation spreads poison accross the world. Huge clouds of dust are kicked up which if enough nukes are discharged can bring on what's called nuclear winter. That is a literal ice age. So in short we never want to see nukes used on Earth every again if we can help it. At one point the US and USSR created enough nuclear weapons that we could split the crust of the earth completely ending life on Earth. The radiation released if most of those weapons were discharged would keep the Earth glowing in the dark for thousands of years. Both the US and USSR have destroyed many of those nukes but not all. \n\nIf nukes are that bad why does anybody keep them? \n\nThere are several reasons. The first being to prevent others who are more likely to use them from getting and using nuclear weapons.  Isreal for example if it were nuked would deffinitely respond. It's retaliation would obliterate the Arab world to the point that Arab culture would cease to exist and the rest of the world would be poisoned by the nuclear exchange between the Arabs and Isrealis. \n\nWhich leads me exactly to why we don't want Arab nations gaining nuclear power. The Isrealis are not going to nuke Iran just because they don't like the way the Iranians part thier teeth in the morning. Isreal has a stable goverment and it's people would not accept a leader who'd use a first strike tactic. England, Germany, France and most other members of the nuclear club are the same way.  Instead of desert storm we could have nuked Iraq. We in the US wouldn't even seriously consider it. Iran would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons. Saddam used chemical weapons. This is typical of most Arab nations. \n\nIn general every nation that has nuclear weapons is a nation that can start a war that will erase mankind from the face of the earth. So the fewer the better. Despotic governments CAN NOT be tolerated to own nuclear weapons. They are far too likely to use them. In the case of both North Korea and Iran the nations are led by sanity challenged people who have have little santicty for life.  These are exactly the kind of people who will use nuclear weapons. At the least millions will die, possibly every person on the planet if nukes are used. A non-nuclear nation will find it very difficult to prompt a nuclear response. \n\nOther reasons we keep nukes include the fact we may need to use them to split an astroid on a collision course with the earth, they are the strongest weapon we have, so it might be the only thing we can attack  a hostile alien force with. We keep them as a guarentee to our existance.  China for example has nukes. Were the US to not have them China could nuke key US cities and invade us. Our possession of nukes is a deterrent to such actions.  So nukes are here to stay until an even more destructive weapon is harnessed. \n\nAs for places like North Korea and Iran, they are not interested in protecting themselves. Were we to invade one of those nations we'd take out the nukes before they could use them. Iran and North Korea have only one reason to want nukes. That is as a first strike weapon. Niether have the air force to defend thier nukes. Niether nation has the affluence to afford the budget to develop them without harming thier own people. North Korea for example has literally allowed it's own people to starve in the streets so they could fund thier nuclear weapons program. So for North Korea and Iran having nukes is like bringing a knife to a machine gun fight. They might get lucky but really it's very slim chance they could use thier weapons defensively against a current nuclear power. It is possible they could use thier weapons against a non-nuclear p