As weapons of peace, they have made war a strongly negative sum game between advanced nations. The only way to win is not to play.
The drawback of nuclear weapons isn't the actual threat or consequences of war, but using the nature of the game by a government to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt amongst its own people to consolidate power. That, in itself, is not a problem with the weapon, but with the lack of enlightenment amongst the people and their government.
'nuclear storm' and 'religious nut job' are meaningless phrases designed to illicit fear and agreement with your viewpoint, not legitimate arguments.
In practice, people and government are irrational and make mistakes (most notably in 1983 when we almost destroyed the world due to a false alarm) -- and the cost of policing this theoretical balance of power costs a hell of a lot of resources that could be better spent doing more productive things.
I don't think there's more productive use of resources than maintaining peace between big nations.
Your post reflects an incredible naivety about what true death and destruction means. A weapon doesn't have to be able to break the planet apart in order for it to be terrifying.
Sure, maybe media depictions of nuclear weapons are sensational, but that is hardly a reason to doubt their destructive power.
This was done specifically because they realized they would collectively make the planet uninhabitable if they continued.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gasbuggy
Where they performed the test is a very beautiful area.
Part of a larger project to actually perform nuclear terra-forming:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899941,...
> Someone shouted: "We did it! We did it!" Hand shakes were exchanged all around. The U.S. had successfully set off the first nuclear explosion sponsored jointly by the Government and industry.
Nuclear Explosions since 1942 (map) (datavis.tumblr.com) 3 points by transburgh 4 years ago | 1 comments | cached
Animated History of Nuclear Explosions (ctbto.org) 2 points by brianmckenzie 3 years ago | 0 comments | cached
Animated map of nuclear explosions, 1945-1998 (pinktentacle.com) 58 points by gnosis 3 years ago | 26 comments | cached
> Animated map of nuclear explosions, 1945-1998 (pinktentacle.com) 58 points by gnosis 3 years ago | 26 comments | cached
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nt4zfUy...
Eric Schlosser's book Command and Control, which just came out this year is a pretty comprehensive treatment of every accident the US has ever had, from decades of filing Freedom of Information reports. I'm halfway through it right now, it's pretty chilling.
Book: http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illu...
NYT review: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/books/review/command-and-c...
