I love spring. I love it. It's a wonderful season. Whoever designed spring should be commended, given some type of award or honorary plaque. I should like to shake the hand of the inventor of spring.

Nothing can ruin a beautiful spring day. Nothing. Actually, wait, I'm wrong. One thing can ruin a spring day:

Atomic holocaust.

Yes, atomic holocaust can ruin a spring day. You step outside your front door to greet the spring morning, only to glance a mushroom cloud blooming on the horizon. Why, it's enough to make you want to turn right around and head back to sleep. Ahh, nothing like an atomic holocaust to ruin a nice spring day.

"Mike, it's the first day of spring in 2002," you say out loud during class towards your copy of the Collegian, "Why are you bringing up atomic holocaust? This is not 1962. The specter of full-out nuclear war no longer haunts the collective American psyche. Over the last twenty years, fear of atomic annihilation has dropped off of the list of top ten American fears and now resides well below the fear of dogs, snakes and public speaking. You dig?"

No, I do not dig. The fact that we do not fear nuclear annihilation is a major problem. And the Bush administration's current nuclear agenda could place the United States and the rest of the world in levels of nuclear danger unseen since the hottest moments of the Cold War.

Earlier this week, the Energy Department announced their forthcoming implementation of President Bush's plan to develop strategic "bunker-busting" nuclear warheads. These bunker busters would be capable of burrowing to great depths before detonation and thus would be capable of destroying an enemy's underground facilities.

Nuclear weapons do not make themselves. Humans make them. But humans have not made any nuclear weapons in the United States since 1992, when our first president named Bush put a halt on all research and development of nuclear arms.

So when the current Bush administration says that it wants bunker-busting nukes, it is not a simple request for a new strategic weapon, but rather an announcement to the world that "Yehaw! The U.S. is making nukes again!" Upon hearing such an announcement, the rest of the world decides that it's best to open up their nuclear labs as well. Suddenly, not only do we have a few new bunker buster bombs, but we have a whole new slew of nuclear weapons lying around the world in all shapes, and sizes.

Such a rush towards nuclear development would catastrophically disrupt the delicate balance of deterrence upon which the world's nuclear peace relies. Nuclear deterrence unfolds thusly: with the existence of nuclear weapons in more than one nation comes the assurance that if one nation were to use a nuclear weapon against another nation, the attacked nation would retaliate with excessive force against its assailant. Thus, the wages of any use of nuclear war would be nearly suicidal. This idea, known since the fifties as "mutually assured destruction" (or MAD for short (no relation to the seminal humor magazine which turned 50 this week)) has kept nuclear peace for over 50 years.

Up until (current) Bush's dramatic policy shift, the United States has adhered to MAD's central premise that the only acceptable reason for the existence of nuclear weapons was to prevent their own use. In fact, the United States pledged never to be the first combatant to "go nuclear" in any sort of combat situation.

But in pushing the development of bunker-busting nukes, the president is saying that there are times when use of nuclear warheads is acceptable even if America has not been attacked by a weapon of mass destruction. Such an assertion destroys the deterrent power of MAD. For if there is even the slightest perception that the United States might "go nuclear" without any direct provocation, then rogue nations like Iraq or North Korea would have every reason to attempt a preemptive strike the United States, setting off a chain of reactions that could spell an atomic-based mess.

The desire to create powerful strategic weaponry is understandable. We need to be sure that we can deal with nations are in any way supporting terrorism against the United States. However, President Bush fails to recognize is that there is no force unleashed by humankind more destructive than that of the nuclear weapon. When the atomic bomb was created, suddenly it became possible to wipe out the whole of humanity. To think that such obscene power can be somehow wielded for good in the "right hands" is hubris at its most excessive (not to mention the plot of Lord of the Rings).

The Bush administration does not sufficiently fear the terrifying reality of the world's nuclear situation. It feels as though its actions are so righteous, so blessed, that they somehow are not subject to the cold calculus of international nuclear deterrence. It feels as though complete and total nuclear war is something of the past, a fear of a forgotten age. However, the nuclear threat is still very real. And the only way we can maintain a world safe from nuclear catastrophe is through a true fear of disrupting the delicate balance of deterrence. Unfortunately, with Bush's new stance on the nuclear arms, as spring begins we've found ourselves one step closer to nuclear winter.