In November, Pope Francis in his great wisdom declared that the “possession of nuclear weapons is…immoral.” Thus, all countries should unilaterally give up their nuclear weapons if they wish to be moral.
Unfortunately, like many things the current pope has said over the years, this statement was guided more by leftist thought than belief in G-d, religion, or even common sense. The truth is that nuclear weapons – developed almost exclusively by Jewish intellects (Einstein, Teller, Oppenheimer, et al.) – are actually Hashem’s gift to the world! They have kept the world at peace for over 80 years, which makes them arguably the most moral weapons ever developed.
Without the threat of mutually assured destruction (MAD), the Soviet Union and the United States would have likely fought each other using conventional weapons shortly after World War II. While such a war would have caused untold destruction to the world, it would have also given the Jew-hating Stalin cover to persecute Soviet Jew.
Nuclear weapons also saved us in the 1970s. During the early days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel faced an existential threat from both Syria and Egypt. So Golda Meir made it very clear to Richard Nixon that Israel was thinking of using tactical nuclear weapons in the battlefield. That prospect stopped both the Syrian and Egyptian armies dead in their tracks and convinced Nixon to re-supply Israel with conventional weapons, enabling Israel to ultimately defeat the Egyptians and Syrians and gain valuable territory as well.
The pope is not totally wrong. It is immoral for some countries – like Pakistan, North Korea, Russia, and France (just kidding about France) – to have nuclear weapons. These countries should be strongly encouraged to destroy the nuclear weapons they possess. And of course Iran should not be allowed to acquire nukes. But nuclear weapons in the right hands can lead to continued world peace.
The Torah declares that in the Messianic era, the whole world will live in peace. It seems that nuclear weapons are a crucial part of that plan.