Do you believe the existence of nuclear weapons will assist the world in reaching peace sooner?

No. Financial dependence will.

Because China and the US have intertwined economies they will never have a total war against each other. How could they? Without the US China's economy would falter... without China the US would have a supply problem.

That's your real mutual destruction.

@Jared... what peace? There has been non stop wars around the world... Korea, Vietnam, the middle east, all over Africa, several Slavic countries and in South America.

While the super powers did not directly fight... they had no problem destroying smaller countries as their proxies.

2nd response to Jared... if there has been a reduction of wars following WW2 (which I don't believe to be true) It would have more to do with wartime exhaustion and nothing to do with the ability to create a bigger bomb. The truth that you probably don't want to hear is that those big bombs aren't anymore destructive than a thousand smaller ones. The real game changer was the nuclear fallout that makes it a "dirty bomb" but again.... the technology to make a thousand smaller dirty bombs already exists.

The EXISTENCE of nuclear weapons has no bearing on world peace. It is about who possesses them, and the posseser's intentions.

The current Global Nuclear disposition is fairly balanced in a way that it promotes military stability and peace. There is nothing refuting that, any other violent conflicts are not a product of existing nuclear weapons.

Endstate: Nukes used as defense Promote peace. Otherwise, they promote violence.

Another real world Analgoy: Fertilizers.

Fertilizers can be used to increase agricultural production creating stablility and peace in third world nations, but also in these same nations the fertilizers are used as weapon in Homemade Explosives production.

Does there existence affect peace? No, it's how they are used, just like Nuclear Weapons.

I just laugh at people saying that no, it makes the world worse off. Since WWII, we have seen the longest peace period in world history, declining violence in the world since the WWII: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk (go to 8:00 to see the relevant statistics).

Now you can argue the differing reasons, no doubt, but to say that there is any evidence to suggest that nuclear weapons increase violence (i.e. decrease peace) is ridiculous. There are logical reasons to believe that the proliferation of nuclear weapons increase peace and the main argument is simple: no one is willing to use them nor willing to face the consequence of using them (i.e. a nuclear retaliation).

I believe a nuclear weapon will be used again sooner or later (I think it's inevitable) and will likely come from a rogue state like Pakistan. But the consequences of such an action will be great and it will unlikely lead to a "nuclear holocaust". We (the US) don't need to retaliate against a nation like Pakistan with nuclear weapons, we can happily obliterate the country with conventional weapons, so the idea that nuclear weapons somehow change the course of human history seems unlikely and a little paranoid (in my opinion).

@drixnot: peace is a relative term. No one is claiming that there is perfect peace in the world. But the facts are that there have been fewer wars, fewer genocides, etc. since WWII. If you think I'm claiming that there has been world peace since WWII then you misunderstood me. What I am saying is that it's been more peaceful than any other time in human history.

I don't agree that getting rid of our Nuclear Weapons will help us reach world peace.

There's a reason the United States and the Soviet Union never exchanged gunfire during the Cold War.

EDIT: Down-votes? You disagree with the facts?

Mars is very peaceful -- not a tree standing. We can be like Mars if we use nukes to achieve peace. Ohh -- just the wind, otherwise so quiet!

Is kept us safe since 1945. The history prior to that has all the great nations in one war after another.

Now we kill each other with trade policy.

World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.

Well...that depends on what you mean by "peace".

It could have good effects or horrible ones.

I think it does the complete opposite .