The atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima in 1945, weighed 9,000 pounds and was equal to 12,000-to-15,000 tons of TNT. It vaporized five square miles of the city and instantly killed an estimated 60,000 Japanese people. Tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure and more.
Three days later, a second atomic bomb, weighing nearly 10,000 pounds, and equal to 22,000-ton of TNT, was detonated over Nagasaki. Nagasaki was nestled amongst valleys and mountains thus reducing the bomb’s effect, destroying only 2.6 square miles but instantly killing another estimated 40,000 Japanese people. Again, many thousands more died later from the effects of radiation exposure and more.
Six days later, Japan surrendered.
I am not attempting to justify or controvert the decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan based on the pretense of ending the war and avoiding millions of more war casualties that a land invasion of Japan would certainly precipitate; that is history. I would like to make the point, however, that we have moved on from atomic bombs and now populate our nuclear arsenals with hydrogen bombs, potentially, 1,000 times more powerful than atomic bombs, placed on tactical missiles capable of delivering multiple warheads to multiple targets.
A thermonuclear warhead weighing little more than 2,400 pounds can release energy equal to more than 1.2 million tons of TNT, nearly 100 times the energy that destroyed Hiroshima.
To my point… Russian troops are aggregating on Russia’s border with eastern Ukraine. War hawks in the United States Congress are talking about putting American troops on the ground in Ukraine and even bringing up the idea of a preemptive nuclear strike.
What kind of insanity, given the destructive capabilities of current nuclear bomb technology, does that suggest? Does anyone still think we can conduct a limited nuclear war? And given the fire power of today’s thermonuclear weapons, it wouldn’t take much to destroy whole cities at a time.
Maybe you’ve seen “Fail Safe,” where Henry Fonda, as president, had a nuclear-armed plane get through a call-back of an erroneous “GO” command, and drop an atomic bomb on Moscow thus prompting Fonda to invite Moscow to drop a bomb on NYC in a “tit for tat” exchange; an attempt to placate the Russians for America’s mistake. No, I think the satire, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” is a lot closer to what would happen than the reserved and even-handed responses in “Fail Safe.” In other words, full on mutual destruction. They had a term for it back in the day, MAD, mutually assured destruction. Once begun, there is little success in turning back.
The point is that nuclear weapons have no place in our world; they are too big and the world is too small. What was once used to destroy two cities, based on the pretense of ending a war, is now a technology with enough power to destroy the entire world many times over. The ancient technique of fighting until dusk and then going home, only to return to the battlefield in the morning, starts to sound really sane.
I have no stomach for war. In fact, short of an invasion of the homeland, or something equally offensive to Americans, I have no desire to send my sons or grandsons into war; into a war to defend eastern Ukraine from the Russians. A Russian invasion of Ukraine does not rise to that standard. I would council my sons to resist, or leave, in the presence of any pressure, from Neo-Cons and war hawks, to serve as fodder on the ground in Ukraine. There is nothing patriotic about fighting a war in Ukraine to satisfy the hunger of the military-industrial complex and those getting rich from such. if the Congress wants a war, let the esteemed members of the Senate and the House of Representatives first send their children and grandchildren into the fray.
BTW, did we learn anything in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq? One begins to wonder.
Change My Mind! 