The United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan all have nuclear weapons. Many assume that Israel has nuclear weapons, but this remains unconfirmed. North Korea may also have them, and Iran’s bid is of great concern to many world governments.

Why is this a concern? Because there is the fear that they may use them. Or, more specifically, that it is considerably harder to exert force on a nuclear power. If Iran becomes a nuclear power they must be treated with the same respect as other nuclear powers, a respect born of fear.

The source of this fear is so obvious that it usually does not earn consideration. It is the fear that a foreign power could destroy a city. Indeed, due to the explosive force of a nuclear weapon the only reasonable target for a nuclear weapon would be a city. It is certainly overkill to use a nuclear weapon on an army or base. And so, a nuclear weapon can only be sensibly applied against a civilian population. Nuclear weapons have only been used twice in war, and they were both used against a civilian population, targeted at cities. Compared to modern nuclear arms, these two weapons were low-yield.

This fear is inherent to most countries policy regarding their nuclear weapons. We use the euphemism “nuclear deterrent” to describe this situation. These weapons are used to instill fear in other nations, so that they will not dare risk attacking or upsetting them. Brinkmanship of the most dangerous variety.

Nuclear weapons only have one purpose: killing cities. Any nation that possesses these weapons can only be considered a threat to their neighbors, because either they intend mass-murder or they intend to threaten mass murder and to use that fear to motivate the changes they desire. Any such a nation is either terrorist*, or genocidal.

*Terrorist is used as an adjective that describes a nation or other group of people who attempt to motivate change by instigating a fear response, no morality or ethics are implied and there is no intention to gain a political advantage.