Nuclear Proliferation On The Rise

The recent actions of the US have caused a change in the way many nations view nuclear proliferation, that is, the construction and storage of more and more nuclear weapons. Nations such as North Korea have seen the way that the United States treats nations that are not nuclear powers. They have concluded that the only way to prevent the US or any other country from treating them the way Iraq was treated is by developing more nuclear weapons.

Also, countries such as North Korea realize that to get what they want from the US or from the international community, they do not have to get rid of their weapons and please the international community. Instead, any country would have more power to throw around if it decided to increase the amount of nuclear weapon power it has. In addition, it seems that the United States president George W. Bush is using various agreements about nuclear disarmament only as a tool to weaken other nations and their sovereignty. The US appears to still be fighting its age old battle for a world under its own political idealism, Democracy, a battle considered by some to be as dead as the cold war it sparked.

It is left to be seen whether or not the US's recent violent actions will help to speed up an already widespread situation of nuclear proliferation. Perhaps the "age of terror" is only a new name and new face for the nuclear age of cold war times and a manifestation of the US's desperation to maintain great power in a world that is increasingly more and more politically unstable.