Nuclear safety - An awesome responsibility

The possibility of a nuclear holocaust has been with us since the end of World War II, when the only nuclear bombs were used in warfare. Those bombs were dropped on Japanese cities at the order of President Harry Truman. Those attacks forced the surrender of the Japanese and the end of the war.

In the more than half a century since those nuclear bombs were used, the world has existed in a precarious balance of power among nations capable of unleashing nuclear weapons. At first, this was primarily a nose-to-nose standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union. As missile technology advanced, giving both nations the ability to deliver nuclear warheads over long distances, the threat of all-out nuclear destruction increased.

Along the way, other nations developed their own nuclear capabilities. For the most part, these advances in nuclear arms were made by nations that could be trusted to use such weapons only as a last resort and as a playing card in the ever escalating poker game known as the Cold War.

But other, less reliable governments successfully entered the age of nuclear weapons, and others still seek to do so. The United States has assumed a leading role in monitoring these advances -- and in efforts to keep nuclear devices out of the hands of those who might be the least responsible in their use of such powerful and destructive weapons.

Critics of this U.S. effort to maintain stability have questioned why this nation is entitled to play the part of the world's nuclear cop. Some go so far as to suggest that the United States only seeks a nuclear-arms advantage. This is hardly the case.

The United States is the world's most powerful nation. As such, it has the ability to unleash the worst kind of military destruction imaginable. With its might, the United States could, if it wanted, grab and occupy vast areas of the world that would ensure its access to virtually any resource available on the planet, including the huge quantities of oil being pumped from wells in the Mideast and South America.

But the United States has, since the end of World War II, shown unprecedented restraint -- a kind of powerful self-check unknown in the annals of history among nations that have achieved the might to seize other nations.

It is, then, in keeping with the U.S. role of powerful restraint that this nation strives to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of those who can be least trusted with them.

We know, for example, that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has sought help in developing nuclear devices known as "dirty bombs," which would scatter radioactive material.

We know that North Korea is rattling its nuclear saber in an effort to get U.S. concessions and to create a split between the United States and South Korea.

We know that Iraq has sought to develop nuclear arms and, if capable might use them for no practical reason, much as it set fire to oil wells as it retreated from its defeat in Kuwait more than a decade ago.

Knowing this, the United States has used every means possible at its disposal to guarantee the world's safety in the face of madmen whose consciences are guided by forces the rest of us can't begin to comprehend.

This is an awesome responsibility, but it is one only the United States can shoulder.