I want to add, that arms are still needed in this day-and-age, even to uphold peace. So many things are not as black and white as they seem.
I am quite happy NATO (to name one) can deter bad actors from attacking it, or in worst case use them to protect its member states. But, yes, ideally weapons would be history.
They speak more elegant… or French
Anrwerp is Belgium, though ;)
Indeed, that is what had happened to the League of Nations and why the US never joined.
Also the UN is still an important platform where diplomatic relations are upheld even in dire situations. Even with Russia it is important to have some lines of discussion.
I think this is the most overlooked aspect, besides it never being in time to do any good for the crisis we are in now.
I believe, the increasing cost and loss in efficiency compared to alternatives will always be an issue for NE to be out-priced by solar and wind (Dunai, 2019; WNSIR, 2022). These cost will eventually come back to the end user.
Most definitely the reason why nuclear advocates want the government to give securities and don’t dear to be the entrepreneurs they claim to be (NOS Nieuws, 2018). Please give me some welfare state, but I’d rather have some more solid solutions.
Costs. Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) analysis by U.S. bank Lazard shows that between
2009 and 2021, utility-scale solar costs came down 90 percent and wind 72 percent, while
new nuclear costs increased by 36 percent. The gap continues to widen. Estimates by the
International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has seen the LCOE for wind drop by
15 percent and solar by 13 percent between 2020 and 2021 alone. IRENA also calculated that
800 GW of existing coal-fired capacity in the world have higher operating costs than new
utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) and new onshore wind (WNSIR, 2022).
Of course, I neither wanted to portray arms sales as just something good. Unsurprisingly, states manage to have these twisted deals in the name of national interests.