Rogue nations developing nuclear weapons? The first was the USA (though Germany, Britaina nd lately it has been discovered, Japan, were well on the way). The only country to actually use them so far has been the USA. Hmmm. Yes, I've heard too that that was done to save American lives and end WW2 quickly. Maybe that was part of it, but I can think of at least two other reasons: the first is fairly generally accepted I believe, that the USA wanted to send a clear signal to Russia (which was overrunning Europe faster than the 'other allies') not to get too big for its boots. the second reason might be a bit less palatable to all you folks out there, but I feel it has to be seriously considered however inhumane it sounds. Werll, it's this: the scientests who dveloped the first A-bomb had a pretty good idea of what it woould do to a bunch of rusted old trucks and shacks in the desert.... but to a real city with real live people? Where would they find such a laboratory? And lo! just at that time they were presented with a once-in a lifetime opportunity to have that question answered immediately, an opportunity which was unlikely to come again for many years and for which certainly no volunteers would be found. The Japanese were the perfect guinea pigs. And if terrorism is the deliberate targetting of civilians, the USA must rank as one of the greatest terrorists of all time for those two bombs alone. (Don't worry, I am well able to distinguish between peace loving US folk and the neo-con regimes that infest the body politic from time to time).

That ushered in an era of tense standoff. Other countries got nuclear weapons. The situation looked more unstable. So some time later, with tens of thousands of bombs apiece, the two big nuclear superpowers thought it would be a good idea if no more countries joined the nuclear club and so they dreamed up the SALT and non-proliferation treaties. They agreed to get rid of some of their immense stockpiles of WMD (while still keeping a couple of thousand) and in exchange dozens of countries agreed for some reason not to try and acquire nuclear weapons. Today, the main threat of terorists getting their hands on nuclear material comes from the stockpiles of WMD developed during the cold war.

Since nuclear weapons seem to be the main deterrent to being wantonly attacked these days, it makes sense for everyone to try and get them and as fast as they can. US foreign policy in the last few years has had a direct bearing on the sudden new desireability of nuclear bombs among all the other nations.

And since we're talking about rogue states in the region, you could hardly find a more rogue or maverick state than Israel, who will neither confirm nor deny it has nuclear wepaons, though it took Mordechai Vanneu's whistleblowing on their nuclear programme seriously enough to jail him for 18 years and threaten him with further jail if he talks to anyone (i.e media). It's estimated Israel has about 100+ warheads (its secret services had to steal uranium as part of this programme).

We have two choices: get rid of all these nuclear wepaons (a daunting task) or admit that otherwise every vulnerable nation will try and acquire them as their only form of security. And who can blame them?