“Nuclear weapons are unacceptable. The fact that they can wipe out the entirety of civilization makes them particularly inhumane. Weapons like this have never existed before in history and they cannot be allowed to exist. If we do not get rid of them, sooner or later they will be used,” Gorbachev told Der Spiegel when asked whether a nuclear-free world could be achieved now, Sputnik News reported on Saturday.
There are serious obstacles on the path to a nuke-free world, though, Gorbachev warned.
“And can we really imagine a world without nuclear weapons if a single country amasses so many conventional weapons that its military budget nearly tops that of all other countries combined? This country would enjoy total military supremacy if nuclear weapons were abolished,” the Soviet Union’s first and last president noted.
When asked whether it was the US he had in mind, Gorbachev replied:
“You said it. It is an insurmountable obstacle on the road to a nuclear-free world. That's why we have to put demilitarization back on the agenda of international politics.”