For the last fifty years, Amer­i­ca has swag­gered around the globe like a par­o­dy of one of it’s Hol­ly­wood West­erns. Like John Wayne car­ry­ing his six-shooter down the Main Street of Dodge City, Amer­i­ca has strut­ted around the world, tak­ing nuclear weapons wher­ev­er it want­ed it’s way, from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Gulf of Pana­ma to the Gulf of Persia.

Well, the oth­er cow­boys in town have got­ten the mes­sage. To be some­one in the nuclear age means you need to car­ry your own six-shooter. In the last few weeks, India and Pak­istan have offi­cial­ly joined the nuclear cow­boys by set­ting off nuclear weapons. Dodge City’s just become a lit­tle tougher.

Inter­na­tion­al out­rage against India and Pak­istan is a lit­tle strange. No one’s real­ly doubt­ed they had nuclear capac­i­ty. Like Israel, it’s long been known they have nuclear weapons. The dif­fer­ence between them and the more estab­lished nuclear pow­ers is sim­ply the log­ic that says it’s okay for some coun­tries to have nuclear weapons but not oth­ers. Like all double-standards, it was just a mat­ter of time till the this one fell to its own hypocrisy.

The debut of two new nuclear cow­boys has brought into sharp relief the real work of our age: full nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment. The real Dodge City, Kansas long ago out­grew it’s gun­slingers. The only John Wayne’s who stomp down its Main Street these days do so for the tourist cam­eras. It’s a qui­et Mid­west­ern town full of shop­ping malls, drug stores, and fast food restau­rants. There’s no need for tough sher­iffs, show­downs, or six-shooters.

The Wild West is long gone, rel­e­gat­ed to the movie screens and cut­sey gift shops. It’s time to close the door on the nuclear age too. Time to pack in the six-shooters and learn to live togeth­er under inter­na­tion­al law. Lets leave nuclear brinks­man­ship to Hol­ly­wood screen­writ­ers and let the real world live in peace.