Without trying to insult Mike Sylwester any further, there is another specter to a world without nuclear weapons.
It is then a world that is safe for a large conventional war.
The last big conventional war (WWII) killed 60-80 millions? Still uncounted numbers in China and the old USSR; generations of men, women and children defenestrated in Easter Europe and Germany, not to mention the Holocaust of the Jews and other undesirables by the Third Reich.
A world without nukes is a world of a few big true military powers and many small nations now fearful of being dominated. Treaties and alliances will start to matter again. Nations arming with modern ‘smart’ munitions and powerful conventional weapons. Our defense budget may actually have to go up.
And then if a war REALLY does break out, how costly will that be?
Since the end of WWII, there have been any number of skirmishes, some costly, between the Great Powers; Korea, Viet Nam, the Arab-Israeli wars; ugly civil wars in the Congo, Nigeria, Angola, China, etc., that have killed millions. But no world-wide conflagration that has wrecked nations such as WWII.
Yes, nuclear weapons are pretty scary, but the fear of nuclear reprisals has kept the avarice of the big powers and those similar minded in check.
Over the last 20 years, we have seen more countries try to enter the nuclear club; Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, South Africa and now Iran. What’s needed is a real non-proliferation strategy to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. That is lacking, and wishful thinking about the US zeroing out its arsenal of nuclear weapons will not persuade those of ill intent to suddenly become model world citizens.