Ever since the first hominid shunned our primate predecessor’s plant-eating lifestyle and sank his teeth into the flesh of another animal, our hairy fore-bearers have been scratching their heads, and armpits, trying to devise deadlier weapons than their neighbors. From the atlatl and arrow to the atomic bomb, the one thing weapons all have in common is that they were made for killing other living beings. Rare is the modern archery aficionado or target-plunker that doesn’t harbor secret fantasies about hitting a wild animal or some bad guy with a praiseworthy shot.

Vast expanses of human history are characterized by the weapon of the day; the cruder the weapon, the longer its period of use. A simple, sharpened stick, later recognizable as the spear, reigned for over a hundred centuries before the atlatl propelled the human predator to a higher level of planetary destruction. With this new technology, localized over-hunting, then early mass extinctions, followed the spread of Homo sapiens to every corner of the earth. Later, gunpowder unleashed a firestorm the likes of which the world had never known.

No weapon ever sat idle for very long, unless it was outdated or obsolete…until today. For the past half-century we’ve been stockpiling weapons whose sole purpose is to discourage others from using theirs. How long can we keep up this posturing before someone challenges the uneasy truce?

With the cold war allegedly over, we’re taught to fear a nuclear-armed Saddam or Iran or North Korea—that other Axis of Evil country who would be a lot better off providing food for its people than building a couple of handfuls of atomic weapons of their own. Now, I don’t like the thought of nuclear weapons in the hands of desperate, crazy people any more than you. If the only countries allowed to have these weapons were the ones we consider reasonable or sane, then, well, we wouldn’t need nuclear weapons, would we? Speaking purely as an advocate for the living Earth now, in terms of overall firepower there’s a much greater threat posed by the estimated 7,650 nukes still waiting and ready in US silos, or the 8,420 Russia still holds, than the fewer than ten claimed by tiny North Korea.

In the immortal words of Mr. Bob Dylan:

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we’re forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side.