Nuclear Weapons? Whats the Point?

In a major departure from my usual "might is right" position on things, I find myself agreeing with non-proliferationists on the matter of nuclear weapons. There is really no point in the widespread possession of nuclear weapons. Everyone is so afraid to use them all they are good for is a chain rattler at best. They are good as a threat but no one is really willing to suffer the consequences for actually using them. Would it not be better to fight convention wars to solve our problems?

During the Congress period (15^th and 16^th centuries) wars were fought by professional armies and the citizens were really left out of it. I think it would be wise to work at returning to such a system. Its effective is evident in three ways: 1) War would minimally affect the citizens of the country. 2) Most of the conflicts were take place between either states and states or states and some non-state actors. 3) It would leave an opening for institutions to begin to step in and facilitate diplomacy if necessary.

One of the chief problems of the 20^th century was the huge nationalist feelings of the nations involved in the World Wars. War really impacted the citizens of all the players and these wars required great sacrifices from them. The benefits of a professional army system would be that only those who wanted a life of fighting and adventuring would be affected much like the War in Iraq is far removed from the American people now. Turning the American armed forces into a highly paid and highly trained mercenary-like force would make them extremely flexible to make the necessary tactical changes that would enable them to be an effective fighting force in a large field conflict but also able to root out terrorists that afflict us in small urban situations.