Nuclear Insanity?

When there was an "arms race" and both America and the Soviet Union were building nuclear ICBMs at a rate which endangered budgets, it was insane since there were far more weapons than we could ever use before extinguishing all life on the planet. It had to come to a halt.

Today I read that Russia is testing a new kind of weapons, a Hypersonic Glide Vehicle, and that China has tested one in November (and it may be ready for deployment today) and that America has been testing them and hopes to deploy them in the 2018-2022 time-frame.

Russia is testing new tech for its ICBMs - Business Insider

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"Why do they need such weapons?" Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with top military officials in December 2017. "I believe they want it for one thing – blackmail – as it creates an illusion of a possible strike with impunity."

"They are searching for some violations on our part while consistently infringing on it themselves," Putin said

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The U.S. Navy's Ultimate Weapon: Hypersonic Missiles Fired from a Submarine | The National Interest Blog

I suppose that any time there is an idea and technology to improve a weapon system, there will be someone who will do it and sell the product to make a buck. That other nations would follow suit only makes sense. It's the 'arms race' all over again. Insanity rules.

Now that America is terribly in debt and all the projections show us going further and further into debt, can we not wonder if America is headed to the same fate as the Soviet Union (bankruptcy)? When does the insanity end, so living can continue?

I don't doubt that Putin's statement is self-serving and that as this technology emerged there would have been development by any nation which had it, thus leading others to do the same. That all world leaders are unable to use their brains to 'stop' seems universal and unrelated to ideology, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), or any other categorization. Human fear just takes over (and it is easily argued that it's for good reason). But, at what point does reason also recognize the futility of this process? What does it take for people to stop wasting their resources, time and energy on developing things which should NEVER be used? Is this a disease which afflicts only those in power?

Maybe the story of Adam and Eve was correct, and that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is Evil. Maybe we would be better to not have knowledge. But here we are, we know the facts and yet we lack some critical factor which enables us to change to something we all recognize as being better. It's a tragedy.