Keeping stockpiles is not the answer

Kim Jong-il has apologised to China and reassured his powerful neighbour that he has no plans to conduct further nuclear tests, according to reports.

It seems the North Korean leader is backing down in the face of unprecedented pressure from a historic ally and this has been widely reported throughout the world. What has been less commented on is the fact that America is repairing a stockpile of 2,200 deployed nuclear weapons that will last well in the 21st century. This is part of a programme to upgrade existing weapons to give them a longer span.

North Korea carries out a nuclear test (which seems to have been a failure) and justifiably faces international opprobrium while the US upgrades its existing stockpile without a word of protest.

Of course the despotic and paranoid regime in Pyongyang possessing a nuclear weapon is deeply alarming. But America's massive nuclear arsenal is far from reassuring. After all, America has a first strike policy. The permanent members of the security council are nuclear powers, a contradictory situation when a body called the Security Council has the ability to blow up the planet.

But the real issue here is that nuclear weaponry does not guarantee safety and that has been obvious from events ever since and including 9/11. The Mutually Assured Destruction policy of the Cold War really was MAD but it is time that madness stopped. Gradual, open and accountable disarmament will go a long way to stop proliferation, which is the scourge that threatens mankind today. There are other developments that endanger life on the planet, such as global warming, rampant disease, but none have the immediacy of nuclear weapons. Keeping ageing stockpiles is not the answer to security fears. The bomb endangers, not secures. The sooner it is removed as a military option the safer we will all be.