Nuclear deterrent important in 'dangerous world', says Hollande

I found the timing of this interesting considering he has just been to Moscow and Putin has been known to make threats in private.

Nuclear deterrent important in 'dangerous world', says Hollande

Istres (France) (AFP) - President Francois Hollande on Thursday stressed the importance of maintaining the country's nuclear deterrent in "a dangerous world", as he detailed France's atomic arsenal for the first time. His comments were quickly shot down by the French branch of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which said that far from making the world a safer place, they made it more dangerous. "The international context does not allow for any weakness... the era of nuclear deterrence is therefore not over," Hollande said on a trip to an air base in the southern city of Istres. "In a dangerous world -- and it is dangerous -- France does not want to let down its guard," he said. "The possibility of future state conflicts concerning us directly or indirectly cannot be excluded." Hollande's speech will be seen as a further setback to stalled global moves to reduce the number of atomic bombs, after US President Barack Obama promised in 2009 "concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons." Their numbers have fallen sharply from their Cold War highs of some 70,000-80,000 thanks to several arms control treaties. But there remain around 16,300. Some 4,000 of these are "operationally available", and some 1,800 are on "high alert" and ready for use on short notice, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. ICAN France on Thursday condemned "the hardening of the French nuclear deterrent doctrine." "This speech, instead of going in the direction of easing international tensions, contributes to creating the conditions for a less secure world," it said in a statement. Hollande also unveiled the make-up of France's nuclear arsenal in a "transparency" drive and urged other countries to do the same. Altogether, nine states are confirmed or believed to possess nuclear weapons -- France, Britain, China, Pakistan, India, the United States, Russia, North Korea and Israel. Hollande said France had "less than 300" nuclear warheads, three sets of 16 submarine-launched ballistic missiles and 54 medium-range air-to-surface missiles.

a reply to: joho99

The lives of the many in the hands of so few.

Scary thought. Leaders can't agree with their own parties half the time. I'd take the nukes off of them and give them, instead, a toy button to play with; see how many times it's pressed in petty disputes. I'd wager over 100.

a reply to: joho99

As long as the world has nuclear weapons,
there has to be enough countries with them to make using them pointless.

The MAD idea is certainly alive and well and better stay that way.

I am anti-nuke, but also I realize that nukes have so far kept the world from completely falling apart.

They are one of those things that I wish never existed,
but now that they do,
there is no turning back.

Eventually, someone will use them.

France just needs to remind the world that they are a nuclear power,
because the world is forgetting about nukes and that is the one ace in the hole all nuclear powered nations have.
And he is right, the world is a very dangerous place right now, so to bring up the nuke card is to make sure people remember that France is a nuclear power.Sometimes you have to flex what you got, especially if you =see danger on the horizon.

IMO

a reply to: Darkblade71

But where's that going to get you in the long run?

The only reason it's come to this "they're going to be used eventually" is because we keep making out that they're necessary. What kind of a backward thinking people are we that we have something to wipe out the world to...... Stop someone else from wiping out our country.

a reply to: Joneselius

Well, it is going to get us where it is going to get us.

It is to late to turn back. That genie is out of the bottle.
It is backwards thinking, but there is no other option.

You can't get rid of them, because someone else will always have them.
No matter what treaties are signed, no matter what laws are put into place, nukes are here to stay until greed creates something worse.
It sucks,
but it is the reality we are in.

Whats needed in a dangerous world is less unilateralism, plays for dominance, weaponry & violence, and more compromise & treating neighbors as one should treat family.

The reason we are always on the edge of world destruction is that the ruling elite rely on force and not cooperation and compromise. All they know how to do is take by force and dominate others. Our leaders are some of the worst, but its a common trait amongst the elite ruling class of most nations.

Im not saying we should totally disarm. The genie is put of the bottle. But the approach needs to be drastically different.

a reply to: pirhanna

But the approach needs to be drastically different.

Totally agree.

And that is the problem. No one can come up with a solution that everyone can agree on besides MAD so far.

a reply to: joho99

Without nukes

USA would already bomb North Korea

USA would already attack Russia

USA would already attack Iran but they fear Iran already has few secret nukes

USA USA

How many people have you killed today

a reply to: PizzaAnyday505

First off i do not believe in fairy stories of good and bad sides.

What i do know is 99% of humans lie cheat and scheme and more so the ones that get to the top of the pile.
So as far as i am concerned they are all bad and it is individuals believing crap and following sides that causes a lot of wars.

But to play devils advocate the USA had a window of opportunity from 1945 to 1949 to bomb the world into submission and yet they did not.

And the interesting thing is they got told to do it before other nations got nukes but they decided not to.
The world could have been very different now.

maybe he said it because putin just said this....

Russian President Putin: No one should have the illusion they can gain military superiority over Russia - Interfax reports.

the rhetoric is really cranking up

Q

Yep nuclear deterrence works indeed! Look at the Brits going berserk ... all their hopes of defeating Assad are about to go bust due to Nuclear Deterrence.

a reply to: joho99

But to play devils advocate the USA had a window of opportunity from 1945 to 1949 to bomb the world into submission and yet they did not

The U.S. could not use the bomb without the consent of the two other countries that built it. So that was never going to happen.

www.atomicarchive.com...

There was a time in the 90s, before the bombing of Yugoslavia, in which the EU had a chance for an agreement with Russia on a 'nuclear umbrella' provided by Russia, for the sake of dismantling NATO and returning the continent to a normal life, thereby also preventing the kind of catastrophes that took place later on with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The thing is that nowadays, it is hard to believe this possibility is still present, especially considering all kinds of manufactured tensions between the EU and Russia for all kinds of imaginable provocative nonsensical clown shows.
The old idea that the EU might be able to obtain help in the form of a nuclear umbrella is not applicable anymore for what appears to me.

That's why in many occasions I said that the EU is completely #ed. It wasn't the case before 1999 bombing of Serbia, but it is now!