North Korea is an official Attention-Wh*re.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

We have our own idiots with our own Nukes unfortunately... and since the end of the Cold war i fail to see the immediate need for such a vast stockpile throughout europe (which yes was a deterrent etc in the Cold war)

And when we've got our own idiots in control of our own Nukes... having your's as well just feels a little to much like overkill

Perhaps you don't realize that Russia still has it's nukes pointed at us (and you) and we still have our nukes pointed at them.  Yeah, Cold War might be over...but the chance of a nuclear war is not gone.

[PsYcO aSsAsSiN]

Just to add additional items to the above posts...North Korea has developed solid fuel rockets that can in theory hit San Francisco and Los Angeles, both more likely targets than Seattle.

As for anti-ICBM weaponry, the ABM missile shield that is still being tested is pretty much fully operational as of now, with missiles loaded into the silos at Vandenberg AF base in California and at some remote location in Alaska. Even though the program isn't 100% done, it is currently our only defense in case the psycho in North Korea wanted to launch a nuclear strike anytime soon.

[BTs_Mysterio]

What makes everyone so sure they would use such a obvious missile delivery method?

["Sixhits"]

that said, i saw in the paper yesterday apparently the US has over 100 Nuclear bombs it keeps in the UK... can u take them away please?

It's called "Deterrence", BFG.  Deterrence is that thing that says "if you attack me, I have the power to fight back and do far more destruction to you than you did to me."  It is that deterrence that has kept the world out of a full-scale nuclear war since the first nukes were used in 1945.  So instead of telling the U.S. to take them away...you might want to start thanking us for having them there.

I think one can make a more correct argument about this issue.

It was not deterance that kept the world safe. If there was a single doctrine that "kept the world safe" it was the concept of MAD - or Mutually Assured Destruction. If you attack me then no matter what you do I will be able to destroy you just as you destroy me. This combined with realpolitik -  national policy where it sole goal is the advancement of the national interest - and you had a reciept, if your leaders were rational, for safety.

So, thus, possesion ot nukes alone does not garuntee safety. In fact, unless other powers possess a roughly equal number of nukes then deterance breaks down and becomes beligerance.

And so we come to America today. The sole nation in the world capable of truly destroying everything. There is no balancing power anymore and that has freed the insane and irrational people in America to do what they will with our immense might. We have gone from our weapon systems providing a deterance, and thus safety, to there existance becoming the strong arm of our beligerance and thus making us less safe.

It isn't an issue of the cold war ending or even our possession of nukes or our emense might: it's that lack of strong enemies has allowed for the rise of those mad people inside our country to consider using our might for reasons other than deterance and into conquest. Which, we can argue, has a detering affect.

But it has other affects, our wars of conquest in the middle east, as we have seen with the rearming of Iran and N. Korea. Let alone the military unification Europe is going through and the worldwide realignment of alliances and associations the Bush Doctrine of "Pre-Emptive" War has wrought.