Are nukes the greatest and worst thing to ever happen in global affairs?

I just recently finished a fictional series on netlfix about post apocalyptic earth after a global nuclear missile strike and the radiation from it is still soaking Earth 150 years later and making it damn near inhabitable. And it got me thinking about nukes. It's show on CW called the 100. You can have your opinions about the quality of the plot and characters and present storylines but the central premise is clear.

I understand that nukes hold a shite ton of value as deterrents as a means of keeping the peace on the global scale and is also a very good tool of bringing bloody wars to a very swift and decisive end like we did with Japan.

But the fact is that as long as nuclear weapons exist, they still hold the ability to completely destroy humanity as we know it or at least completely destroy the modern industrialized human race and send us back to the stone ages to a point where it would take us thousands of years to get back to where we are today.

it doesn't take much for that to happen whether it be rogue criminal actors stealing nukes, an out of control government on the war path, or some glitchy computer program that we can't stop in time.

I hope to god North Korea isn't that out of control government.

When we invented nuclear weapons, we literally stole power that was exclusively reserved for God himself.

If ever used to their full potential, nuclear weapons represent the death of modern, advanced, and industrialized humanity and a one way ticket back to the stone ages for several thousand years if enough humans are lucky enough to survive.

and while nuclear weapons are necessary in todays world and have obviously been the center role in all of the major powers in the world from avoiding conflict over the past 70 years, they do ultimately pose the single largest threat for the destruction of civilization in my opinion and I ultimately wish we lived in a world without them

quote:

---

t seems like there will never be another all-out global war, rather a bunch of shadow strikes and small skirmishes to "keep the peace".

---

I sort of think this will happen. Technology will continue to consume warfare to the point where actual fighting ceases to exist. Wars will be fought by hackers and engineers much in the same way the Cold War was. It will never end as long as both sides remain on relatively the same technological level.

bump

Greatest

Have saved a lot of American lives (as well as others) as a deterrent

How cost efficient are they to produce?

These are good points however with nukes and trade there have still been some massive amounts of death in the world since Hiroshima.
Just no world wars. Africa and the Middle East

quote:

---

But the fact is that as long as nuclear weapons exist, they still hold the ability to completely destroy humanity as we know it or at least completely destroy the modern industrialized human race and send us back to the stone ages to a point where it would take us thousands of years to get back to where we are today.

---

Everyone always says this like it would be so. Only it wouldn't. Knowledge would still exist. There would still be libraries. It would devastate the norther hemisphere but most of the southern would remain completely intact.
There would even likely be whole countries who would suffer little to no ill effects.

Australia and New Zealand would likely be basically untouched by an all out nuclear war. Most of Southern Africa would remain out of the fray.
South America would fair well too.

Sure they would all get some fallout but nothing like the countries in the northern hemisphere.

Doomsday scenarios are usually grossly exaggerated as far as all of mankind being wiped out or sent back to the Stone Age. It just wouldn't happen.