Blog Question - Is Nuclear Deterrence Needed Today?

Considering nuclear technology exists, and some countries have it, I suppose I'll relent that we should have it too. The trouble is that the more that nuclear technology proliferates, as it most assuredly will, the more likely there will be some sort of nuclear attack somewhere in the world. I do think that if America took the lead in disarmament and non-proliferation we could reduce the availability of nuclear weapons throughout the world. Nuclear weapons do not serve the US very well in a strategic sense, since we don't use them (for obvious reasons,) and we have conventional weapons that can do just about anything we need to do strategically. These weapons of course also serve as a deterrent. I guess the problem with the "weapon as deterrent" philosophy is that you're assuming that your enemy is a country such as the old USSR who also has nuclear weapons and who cares about the "mutually ensured destruction" concept, and not some rogue terrorist group who just wants to inflict massive damage and doesn't care about the result, in which case our nuclear arsenal isn't much of a deterrent. So against North Korea or any other countries who have nuclear weapons I guess we do need them, but that by no means keeps us safe from some nutcase with a suitcase bomb. Which, you know, sucks.