It Used to Be MAD. Now It's Just Mad

In today's news:

Both the congressional panel and the Council on Foreign Relations task force agreed with Obama's view that prevailing conditions do not allow the elimination of nuclear weapons. They agreed that a safe and secure U.S. nuclear force is needed to reassure America's allies, which without that protection would seek to develop their own weapons. (emphasis added)

We have nukes so that other nations will feel secure and not build their own. It's a dirty job but that burden is America's gift to the world, or at least that part of the world that agrees with us. Several of these allies--Israel, Britian and France--are so thankfully secure that they built their own nukes anyway. And nations that don't agree with us, well, they'll build nukes too.

So it all works. Or not.