New Conventional Weapons?

President Obama has announced that he is considering the deployment of a whole new kind of weapon - and this time, it's not nuclear. With the idea of reaching Global Zero, the United States apparently needs new conventional weapons which essentially have the same destructive effects as nuclear weapons, but without the whole "shit, now everyone is going to die from radiation" addition.

It's called the Prompt Global Strike. When effectively developed, it is supposed to be capable of reaching any point in the world from its launch base in less than an hour. The implications of this is huge. With pinpoint accuracy, it's military strategic capabilities are enormous.

However, at the same time, its problems are enormous. We are essentially creating a weapon that is just as or even more destabilizing to international security than nuclear weapons without the attached negative stigma. The U.S. would be sticking out it's tongue at other countries, proving that they were capable of following the promises signed in Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while at the same time keeping its military capabilities in tact.

How much would this change? Yes, environmentally and morally these weapons are better. But when we look at the international system, these new weapons would do nothing to assure stability. We would have another case of the 1945s, except this time we hopefully wouldn't be testing it out through a military attack on another country (Iran's probably shitting its pants). So we prove we have this weapon. Now other countries will want this weapon. Spies here, spies there, would the United States be alright with sharing the technology?

This would do the opposite of solving the proliferation problem. Right now we have Iran going through the extremely tricky process of enriching uranium and separating plutonium, and we have no way of knowing whether they actually are capable of 'weaponizing' (their goal, of course, is to keep us guessing. Otherwise their deterrent wouldn't work.. well, until they test it). So do we choose between the potentially unhidden nuclear weapons that might not even reach the US (they need to get the nuclear warheads on ICBMs, not really a walk in the park), or insanely heavy and fast conventional weapons that could hit any target within the United States in less than an hour.

If these weapons replace nuclear weapons (if Global Zero IS actually achieved.. which in my opinion is never going to happen), there is no way that current nuclear states (and the 'rogue' ones) would accept another case of nuclear monopoly by the United States. Iran, in fact, would abhor it, and would do everything they could to steal blueprints, develop the production capability (since now, all they have to worry about is the missile development), or acquire it through theft or proliferation by a new A.Q. Khan of conventional weapons.