Picture taken of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The picture was taken from one of the B-29 Superfortresses used in the attack.
Image- Public Domain
Comparable to the Cold War years, the world finds itself on the doorstep of nuclear destruction. With constant changes in world regional power struggles, political divergence, and the turmoil of cultural and religious instability, there is a crisis of global instability and conflict. Also contributing to the crisis of global instability and conflict are rivalries within the realm of third world nations that lack major power status. At the heart of this crisis are the rogue leaders who see nuclear weapons as their ticket to power and prominence. Disenfranchised nationalistic, religious, and cultural group’s see these same weapons as a legitimate means to pursue their political agendas are also inciting a state of crisis. Employing nuclear weapons would be an insane act that would be devastating to earth and all of its inhabitants.
If a twenty megaton nuclear warhead were to strike Boston, the city would literally disappear within a radius of four miles from the point of impact. More than 750,000 people would die outright, from concussion, fire, and heat. Many of them would be vaporized. Blazing windstorms, originating in a fireball as hot as the sun, would rage for a radius of twenty miles, killing 2,300,000 people instantly. Another 500,000 people would be disabled and in shock. Anyone who viewed the explosion from a distance of forty miles or less would likely be rendered sightless. Epidemic disease would be carried by flies and mosquitoes impervious to radiation, and in the opinion of a number of authorities, such diseases from the past as polio, dysentery, typhoid fever, and cholera would resurface.
A unique aspect of nuclear weapons stems from the fear that they promote. The entire world is familiar with images of the horrific results of a single atomic warhead (comparable to a one-megaton nuclear warhead) dropped on the city of Hiroshima. In that bombing 110,000 of Hiroshima's 240,000 men, women, and children were killed. Another 2,500 people died annually for the next 35 years from complications ensuing from exposure to high levels of radiation. The magnitude of Hiroshima's carnage has been imbedded into the world's collective consciousness, and we now realize that nuclear weapons are indiscriminate killers of soldiers and civilians alike.
Bluffing with nuclear weapons (as outrageous as it may seem) was used with great success during World War II. The U.S. effectively bluffed Japan into conceding the war by using two of the United States three nuclear weapons. Japan, not knowing that there was only one remaining weapon, feared there was a much larger nuclear stockpile and found itself in no position to call the bluff. This bluff demonstrated the great utility of nuclear weapons in the termination of a conflict. A more overwhelming lesson learned from this first use of nuclear weapons is that they are not just battlefield weapons; they are also an effective political instrument of terror.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
Thanks for fully outlining the nature of the insanity, although I think you over-rate the risk of non-state use. Nuclear weapons do require a very high level of technology.
Also, you say "rogue leaders" see this as a way of increasing their power. But if you look at the comparative situations of Saddam Hussein versus Kim Jong Il, it is clear that this can be seen - as Iran probably sees it - simply as a way of staying in power, rather than expanding your power, something that US policy only encourages.
2 - Bob A. Booey
Anyone who's interested in the psychological and cultural meaning of nuclear weapons, should read any book by psychiatrist Robert Lifton about the topic.
That is all.
3 - Dave Nalle
If US policy were to nuke rogue countries developing nuclear weapons before the got their programs too far along then I imagine that would be a pretty effective deterrent. Where's the big stick when you need it?
Dave
4 - Bob A. Booey
That's parody right? You're being willfully unthinking this morning. Is this the new "Dave Nalle, Idiot Internet Guy" character you're trying out as a goof or what?
Nuclear weapons are only an effective deterrent "big stick" when NOT used, hence the mystique and threat. If you start using them indiscriminately, you're not going to kill all the people you want to kill, you're going to kill people you don't want to kill, and you're going to have serious military, economic and environmental consequences even if you avoid nuclear war.
You can't "nuke" away a potential Iran nuclear development program, by the way, for multiple reasons. Read the Christian Science Monitor article I linked on one of these other silly nuclear topics.
That is all.
5 - D L Ennis
This was only meant to inform those who don’t know of the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons…and for apparent self proclaimed geniuses to call silly.
I know Dave is kidding, but some days I think we should fire them all in every direction including straight up and say screw it. Humanity is doomed anyway; we all know that, it’s just a matter of time before we destroy ourselves. Bob, why don’t you go first?
That would be all!
D L