Talk:Nuclear disarmament/@comment-92.25.190.148-20160223163736

Our main need at present is for the machinery to take effective multilateral action on all matters of global concern. I think I have to coin a new word here. If unilateral means one-sided, multilateral merely means many-sided. That isn't enough. The only effective alternative to one-sided action in this sphere is all-sided action, so the word we need is omnilateral. If we take nuclear disarmament as an example, clearly the main obstacle to agreeing how to go about this is the absence of the requisite machinery. If a nuclear power proposes to shed its nuclear weapons unilaterally, the obvious objection is always "But what about the others? How can we shed these weapons if other nuclear powers do not follow suit?" Clearly we have to find the means of ensuring that any law entailing nuclear disarmament is omnilateral in its scope; there must be no single nuclear weapon lurking anywhere on the planet. The nuclear issue is an extreme case but it does graphically demonstrate the lamentable absence of the kind of machinery we would need in order to implement omnilateral action.We are stuck with the menace of nuclear weapons for as long as it will take to get that kind of machinery. And the nuclear threat is only the most total of the many which cry out for urgent remedy - conventional weapons, arms trading, climate change, the rich/poor gap, tax havens, exploding population growth, ocean mismanagement, forest and ecological vandalism, etc. The trouble is we do not have very long. This planet could remain habitable for hundreds of million years, but not if we remain as tribal as we are at present. So much of our current activity implies short term thinking, a habit which can never fit us for the long term which could have been ours. The fate of Syria and the consequent stream of migrants into Europe does not bode well for the future. If this worries you, please read http://www.garrettjones.talktalk.net