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The USA’s unique deadly sin

By Brian Holden - posted Wednesday, 13 May 2009


If a nuclear winter is unthinkable, then an enquiring 12-year-old might wonder why thinking adults have triggers which can set in motion something unthinkable. On four occasions during the Cold War, false alarms brought either the USSR or the USA close to retaliating against the other.

For about 40 years, the Cold War forced every human on Earth to stand on the edge of an abyss. We may have survived that threat, but only after atmospheric nuclear testing has contaminated earth, air and water with radioactive substances.

Of what use are such weapons? They are ineffective against military personel who can disperse and even shelter underground or under the sea. The target must be very large and immobile and on the surface. Only a city qualifies. The inhabitants of a city are those who wish nothing more than to be left in peace.

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No defence is possible against multiple-entry warheads (as possessed by Russia). The chaos caused by Hurricane Katrina announced to a stunned American people that their government were not up to managing the similar devastation caused by a blow from a single Hiroshima-size nuclear weapon.

It is as if the human species is driven by a death wish coded into human DNA - a fusion-type weapon 50 times as powerful as the fission-type Hiroshima bomb has been produced.

How did we ever get into this insane situation?

It all began in 1905 when it was proven mathematically that matter had the potential to be converted into pure energy. It was academic as no one had any idea as to how this could be achieved.

Later it was discovered that in nature certain atomic nuclei were being converted into pure energy to a very limited degree. The technical job was to build on that natural mechanism to get usable amounts of energy through a process called a chain reaction. In 1941 a nuclear reactor in which there was a controlled chain reaction was built in the USA. But, developing a source of energy to replace fossil fuels was not what it was all about.

Adolph Hitler had made it clear that he would like his people to enslave the rest of the world. If he could deliver uncontrolled chain reactions to a few of the major cities of the potential slaves, then he could possibly achieve his aim. The American reactor was simply a stepping stone to the building of such a weapon before Hitler had one.

So far the work had been honourable but by late 1944 it became obvious that Germany, which was under night and day bombing, could not possibly build an atomic bomb. The project was enormous and only the USA was capable of carrying it out. That year of 1944 was the time to stop - but the project was directed by generals and politicians, and not by scientists.

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There was even more reason to call a halt to the project in May 1945 as Germany had surrendered and Japan with 58 cities burned out by fire bombing and with no industry or shipping, could be starved into submission by a blockade. That was not the thinking: “Once it was proved that the atomic bomb worked, men discovered reasons to use it” - (Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb.)

Out of the war emerged two superpowers leaving France and Britain as has-beens. Now that the USA had shown how to build a bomb at a small fraction of what it had cost that country, the has-beens just had to get the bomb for no other reason than that they hated being has-beens.

Later, when the fusion-type weapons (hydrogen bombs) appeared, it became horribly obvious what we had gotten ourselves into. However, in the early days the fission-type atomic bomb was the ultimate glamour accessory.

Our prime minister Bob Menzies became fearful when it appeared that Britain was considering an alternative site to Australia to test its first bomb in 1952. So huge was the status of ownership of the bomb that this pipsqueak nation felt it could share in the glory by being a test site.

Why the USA is responsible for us now sharing our planet with more than 23,000 nuclear weapons

The USSR had its own atomic bomb by 1949 for the following reasons:

  • until the USA detonated the first atomic bomb, the world had no idea if such a weapon was a practical possibility. It required an immensely rich nation whose homeland was clear of hostilities to do the experiment;
  • if there had been no American project within which the USSR had its own spies, there would have been no Soviet bomb in the foreseeable future as the USSR did not have the resources to run up blind alleys as the USA had;
  • if the USSR finally did become the offending nation to introduce a monster to the world in peace time, it would have been pilloried by the UN. That original sin was not possible as the USA had already committed it;
  • the paranoid anti-Communist USA’s demonstrated willingness to use the bomb on its enemy’s cities removed any hesitation the equally paranoid Soviets may have felt about building the bomb.

The Cold War seems to have faded away. Now there are new complications

Outside of North Korea, we know that all the members of the nuclear club have checking systems which we hope will work. But, in North Korea it seems that nobody can question the decisions of one man. Then there is nuclear armed Israel which has made it clear that it if it is to go, then it will take the Arab world out with it.

Even so, a first nuclear strike via a missile can be ruled out. All that would be required is that the weapon be detonated in a container within a ship docked in an American or Israeli port; and the Taliban are getting closer to the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan. If they ever get their hands on it, God may call upon them to use it.

Summary

There is a very high probability that without the USA’s image of itself in 1945 as being the world champ, there would not be a single nuclear weapon in the world today.

Footnotes

Kyoto was chosen as a target, but then rejected as one of the politicians had happy memories of honeymooning there. So, the children of Kyoto were not to be cooked, but the children of Hiroshima were because of one man’s happy honeymoon. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen not because they were strategic targets, but because they were two of the few cities left that still had buildings to knock over which would enable before-and-after photos of what the new big gun could do.

Japan wanted to surrender - but not unconditionally. The USA demanded unconditional surrender. After the two nuclear bombs achieved that unconditional surrender, the USA then gave the Japanese basically what they wanted in their conditional surrender. Probably history’s most tragic exercise in point scoring.

The archives reveal that the dominant issue in the mind of the American government prior to using the bomb was not Japan at all. It was Joseph Stalin’s USSR. The American president imagined that rattling the atomic bomb would make the USSR more manageable. All the rattling did was engender in the Soviets the desire to get an atomic bomb of their own.

Horrified scientists such as Niels Bohr and Leo Szilard warned of an unfolding arms race after the world saw pictures of the mushroom cloud. They were dismissed as eccentrics. In 1986 there were about 70,000 nuclear warheads. We are lucky we are still here to talk about it.

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About the Author

Brian Holden has been retired since 1988. He advises that if you can keep physically and mentally active, retirement can be the best time of your life.

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