I always thought that since the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union came toppling down, the Cold War must have thawed out as well, like a bucket of ice cream on the counter. But apparently the threat of nuclear annihilation still plagues us all. As naïve as I must be, the threat of nuclear disaster will be with us forever. Since that fateful day in New Mexico more than fifty years ago man has been cursed with the ability to destroy himself—and to destroy himself pretty damn good.

The Cold War was fought on the basis of deterrence: if we can nuke them as bad as they can nuke us, then they won’t want to nuke us. Brilliant idea. Of course if anybody decides to get testy, the meek get screwed and cockroaches inherit the earth. Of course the Soviet Union collapsed and we won the Cold War. I don’t really know what we won, but it must prove capitalism can kick communist butt.

Now we jump ahead to today and the latest nuclear holocaust scenario. Now we’re not so worried about Russia as we are about all these little ragtag countries with nuclear capabilities. They probably couldn’t completely wipe us out, but they could take a nice bite out of Los Angeles. And our brilliant notion of deterrence doesn’t work anymore. You can’t point intercontinental ballistic missiles at every country on earth and dare them to so much as look at us the wrong way. Now the brilliant idea is to build a missile defense system. If they launch a missile at us, we’ll just blow it out of the sky.

Somehow this is becoming a big issue in the current presidential election, and so it matters to everyone. It sounds like a nice little plan doesn’t it? We’ll be nice and safe from all the nuclear nasties out there. But somehow I don’t think it quite works that way. First of all, it hasn’t proven 100% effective. It’s worked a few times, but that’s not the kind of assurance I’m looking for. Secondly, what exactly happens to a nuclear warhead when it’s blown up in mid-flight? Is there just a nice pretty explosion and radioactive material falls in some poor dope’s backyard? Or does the explosion trigger the nuclear reaction and we’ve got a mushroom cloud at 60,000 feet? “Today’s high will be 75 with a chance of fallout later this evening.”

What a lot of people seem to be missing in this debate is that when it comes to nuclear weapons, there are no assurances. Since Trinity we’ve had to live without assurances. Technology isn’t going to save us this time. Nuclear weapons were invented to destroy, and that they do. You can’t defend against a nuclear blast. All you can do is hope you’re close to the center so it’ll be over before you realize it started.

The only thing we have to hope in is the common good of mankind, which frankly, doesn’t leave much room for hope. We can put our best efforts towards nuclear disarmament and destruction, and then just hope nobody decides to hold out and blast somebody. Nobody wins with nuclear weapons, and some fancy defense system isn’t going to make everything okay.

Let’s just pretend we do install this high tech defense system. What happens then? Well, suddenly America becomes invincible. If the system works as good as its supporters say it does, nobody can touch us. It’s like a little kid who says he has an invincible shield. While he’s got that invincible shield he can do anything he wants. He can beat up all the other kids and nobody can stop him. Of course, following little kid logic, another kid would simply say he has a gun that can shoot through an invincible shield. And the argument snowballs into a childish charade of ‘my weapon can beat up your weapon.’

If we install a missile defense system we’ll be setting ourselves up as an invincible giant. Do you think other countries like that idea? Not a bit. But everybody already hates us, so what’s the difference? And what happens when something goes wrong? What happens when a renegade country decides to risk itself and spook us? We could annihilate them, and nobody could do anything to us. Pretty soon America is the big bully on the block that nobody likes (if we’re not already). Such centralized power is never a good thing. You can’t hope to bring the world peace at gun point.

So where does this leave us? I’m sorry to say, but it really doesn’t leave us anywhere. Nuclear weapons are a plain and simple curse. If somebody wants to drop a nuclear bomb on us, they’ll find a way, missile defense system or no missile defense system. All we can do trust in the goodwill of mankind not to nuke his neighbor. Considering the inherent sinfulness of man, that kind of makes the joke on us. But the joke’s already on us. It’s been on us since that day at Trinity.

The only hope we really have is the healing power of Jesus Christ. His death on the cross brought freedom from our inherent sinfulness, and only through his love can we hope to escape this cruel joke we played on ourselves. Love conquers all, and as ridiculous as it sounds, I think it can conquer nuclear annihilation as well.