The topic of nuclear warfare has been controversial for many years. Leaders of nations are quick to play the nuclear war card as a solution to disagreements with foreign nations. Although nuclear warfare is perceived to offer protection and bring peace and stability to nations in quarrels, it should not be allowed because it causes humanitarian disaster and loss of life. Nuclear weapons such as the atomic bomb was first developed during World War II, it was used twice in history and both times by America and against Japan. The bombs created catastrophic events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tens of thousands of Japanese non-combatants were killed with these nuclear strikes. The intentions of the mass murders were to bring the Japanese to surrender. …show more content…
Other military leaders of other nations should follow South Africa’s example. According to the statement on greenpeace.org, “Obviously the more leaders with fingers on the button, the more likely one of them will trigger a nuclear war, by accident or design” is very true (Greenpeace UK). If more nuclear weapons are in the hands of corrupt leaders, they’ll be quick to use them in a quarrel with another country. There are several controversial and significant treaties that try to control the issue of nuclear weapons such as, The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START I and START II). Although we have these treaties, nuclear weapons continue to be developed and pose threat to all humankind. For example, in the beginning of this year, President Trump and Kim Jong Un went back and forth threatening each other with nuclear …show more content…
29 May 2018 C N Trueman "Operation Downfall" historylearningsite.co.uk The History Learning Site, 19 May 2015. 29 May 2018. Greenpeace UK. www.bing.com/cr?IG=AFEA524558AD431484E30B0A275CF484&CID=0C17356DEB29669919663E92EAD467FE&rd=1&h=9Pfpd6ZrSX7apzNfxQ4wZr_37kgqlXPlS9zAf2y0dzU&v=1&r=https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/&p=DevEx.LB.1,5602.1. 29 May 2018 History.com Staff. “Atomic Bomb History.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2017, www.history.com/topics/atomic-bomb-history. 30 May 2018 JUST-WAR THEORY - Mount Holyoke College. www.bing.com/cr?IG=9BF9E1744488406A99BC573E77033318&CID=066EC73B469D610F2437CCC447606042&rd=1&h=jf4JrbZZwP1QwjRBYxFhX5MDROtw255R_elA8GWstiM&v=1&r=https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~jasingle/justwar.html&p=DevEx.LB.1,5516.1. 29 May 2018 “Nuclear Disarmament South Africa.” Nuclear Threat Initiative - Ten Years of Building a Safer World, www.nti.org/analysis/articles/south-africa-nuclear-disarmament/. 29 May 2018 O'Hanlon, Michael E. “Is a World Without Nuclear Weapons Really Possible?” Brookings, Brookings, 28 July 2016, www.brookings.edu/opinions/is-a-world-without-nuclear-weapons-really-possible/. 29 May
In August of 1945, both of the only two nuclear bombs ever used in warfare were dropped on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. These two bombs shaped much of the world today.
We are told, "To love thy neighbour" and "To treat." our enemies, as we would want to be treated. " If you were to look at these commandments you would see that nuclear warfare could never be justified, and if you do provoke a nuclear war, you should be punished. That brings me into the second reason why countries retain nuclear weapons and that is a threat. It is a way of protecting your country, but you will protect yourself and retaliate if provoked.
Atomic Bomb The use of the atomic bombs on Japan was necessary for the revenge of the Americans. These bombs took years to make due to a problematic equation. The impact of the bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people and the radiation is still killing people today. People today still wonder why the bombs were dropped. If these bombs weren’t dropped on the Japanese the history of the world would have been changed forever. The Atomic bomb took 6 years to develop (1939-1945) for scientists to work on a equation to make the U-235 into a bomb. The most complicated process in this was trying to produce enough uranium to sustain a chain reaction. The bombs used on the cities cost about $2 billion to develop, this also making the U.S. wanting to use them against Japan. “Hiroshima was a major military target and we have spent 2 billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history- and won.” (3) The bomb dropped on Hiroshima weighted 4.5 tons and the bomb used on Nagasaki weighted 10 kilotons. On July 16, 1945, the first ever atomic bomb was tested in the Jamez Mountains in Northern New Mexico, code named “Gadget.” The single weapon ultimately dropped on Hiroshima, nicknamed “Little Boy,” produced the amount of approximately twenty- thousand tons of TNT, which is roughly seven times greater than all of the bombs dropped by all the allies on all of Germany in 1942. The first Japanese City bomb was Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. An American B-29 bomber, named Enola Gay, flown by the pilot Paul W. Tibbets, dropped the “Little Boy” uranium atomic bomb. Three days later a second bomb named ”Fat Boy,” made of plutonium was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. After being released, it took approximately one minute for Little Boy to reach the point of explosion, which was about 2,000 feet. The impact of the bombs on the cities and people was massive. Black rain containing large amounts of nuclear fallout fell as much as 30km from the original blast site. A mushroom cloud rose to twenty thousand feet in the air, and sixty percent of the city was destroyed. The shock wave and its reverse effect reached speeds close to those of the speed of sound. The wind generated by the bombs destroyed most of the houses and buildings within a 1.
When President Truman authorized the use of two nuclear weapons in 1945 against the Japanese in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, the nature of international security was changed irreversibly. At that time, the United States had what was said to have a monopoly of atomic bombs. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union began working on atomic weaponry. In 1949, it had already detonated it first atomic bomb and tensions began to heat up between the two countries. With the information that the Soviets had tested their first bomb, the United States began work on more powerful weapons1, and a fight for nuclear superiority had begun.
Eric Schollser argues in his paper “Today’s Nuclear Dilemma,” that the nuclear weapons in the world, and the issues that they are associated with, should be of major concern to today’s society. Nuclear weapons were of worldwide concern during the time of the Cold War. These weapons, and their ability to cause colossal devastation, brought nightmares into reality as the threat of nuclear war was a serious and imminent issue. The US and Russia both built up their inventories of these pieces of artillery, along with the rest of their arsenals, in an attempt to overpower the other. This past terror has become a renewed concern because many of the countries with these nuclear weapons in their control have started to update their collections.
The world would be a far safer place had nuclear weapons not been developed. The possibilities of a small terrorist cell building a nuclear bomb and detonating it in a city are probable within the next twenty years.
In today’s society many countries and even citizens of the United States question the U.S. government’s decision to get in involved in nuclear warfare. These people deemed it unnecessary and state that the U.S. is a hypocrite that preaches peace, but causes destruction and death. Before and during World War II the U.S. was presented with a difficult decision on whether or not to develop and use the atomic bomb.
Nuclear weapons continue to present a real threat to humanity and other life on Earth. Scholars of international relations and policymakers share in the belief that the sheer power and destructiveness of nuclear weapons prevent them from being used by friends and foes alike. Then the real question becomes; what is the need for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons are defined as, volatile device that originates its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release massive amounts of energy from fairly small amounts of matter. Nuclear weapons have greatly changed the way war is fought. Along with these more dominant weapons come ways to control and countermeasure such power. Nuclear weapons have changed the way the world thinks about war. The development of nuclear weapons started rather innocently as a physical wonder but has become a basis of constant fear among many nations.
Nuclear weapons are the safest defense mechanism in the world. Although nuclear weapons can lead to mass destruction and the loss of thousands of lives when detonated, they are the optimal solution to the conflicts between countries in the future. The actual use of the nuclear weapon is not the deterrent, but rather just the mere fact that a country could use it against another country which avoids the large scale conflict. Thus, nuclear deterrence presents itself as a preferred security option. Firstly, based on deterrence theory, nuclear weapons will lead to Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). This means that if nuclear weapons are used in warfare, either side will not be able to succeed in winning, as the destruction caused by the weapons will be too much for either side to recuperate from. Since the detonation of “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” over Nagasaki and Hiroshima, nuclear weapons have never been used in warfare again. The world saw the destruction which a nuclear bomb could have. Ever since, this has driven fear to never use nuclear weapons. Although many countries possess nuclear weapons today, they have yet to engage in a nuclear war. This has so far maintained “a tense but global peace” (Mutual Assured Destruction, 2014). As the use of nuclear weapons would lead to the ultimate destruction of humankind, nuclear deterrence is a viable security option as shown by the MAD principles, the application of the MAD doctrine throughout history and the current global stability.
Atomic bombs were the first nuclear weapons to be developed, tested, and used. In the late 1930s physicists in Europe and the United States realized that the fission of uranium could be used to create an extremely powerful explosive weapon, in this case, the atomic bomb. How did the Americans build this weapon of mass destruction? What happened to the Japan after the bombing? Finally, How did this impact war?
Throughout the entirety of the twentieth century, the most disputed topic of discussion has perhaps been that of nuclear weapons. Some people argue these weapons of mass destruction are vital to the survival of order and decency in the world, while others contend that nuclear weapons will bring an end to civilization as we now know it. Regardless of both of these arguments, there are two things that just about nobody can deny – nuclear weapons are extremely expensive and enormously destructive.
The nuclear bomb was the most devastating weapon ever created by man. It was developed between 1942 and 1945 during the second World War. The project to build the worlds first atomic weapon was called The Manhattan Project. The nuclear bomb was based on the idea of splitting an atom to create energy, this is called fission. Three bombs were created, “Trinity”, “Little Boy”, and “Fat Man”. “Trinity” was dropped on a test site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, proving the theories, engineering and mathematics of the bomb to be correct. Shortly after that, not more than 2 months, the U.S. performed the first actual nuclear attack in the history of war. The bomb “Little Boy” was dropped on the town of Hiroshima, instantly killing thousands. “Fat Man” was dropped shortly after on the town of Nagasaki. After the bombing almost all scientist involved with the creation of the bomb regretted its construction and spoke out against the abolishment of nuclear weapons.
The Cold War was a time of great tension all over the world. From 1945 to 1989, the United States was the leader and nuclear power and was competing with the Soviet Union to create huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. However, even though the Cold War ended, nuclear weapons are still a threat. Countries around the world strive to create nuclear power, and they do not promise to use it for peaceful purposes. Some examples of the struggles caused by nuclear weapons include the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Iran’s recent nuclear weapon program. Surely, nuclear weapons have created conflict all over the world since the Cold War era.
Governments from other countries should be able to work things out and settle business without fearing that someone will be threatened with a nuclear war. These weapons have a very high percent of total destruction, other countries do not think about when they use these fatal weapons as an excuse, of what they will really do when sending the bombs off. They are only thinking of defending themselves no matter what the consequences are, little do they know that it could come back and bite them in the butt. Nuclear weapons will not only cause destruction to one country but all of them. Banning these dangerous weapons will make sure that these excuses will no longer be a problem to the world, countries and nations will not have to fear if they are putting the entire world in
South Africa is the only country in Africa to successfully develop nuclear weapons, and then to voluntarily dismantle them. To start Africa’s affiliation with nuclear weapons’, South Africa signed 50-year nuclear collaboration agreement with the U.S. in 1957. A nuclear weapons program was then started in1970 with scientists that were instructed to build various nuclear weapons. By 1990, the president of South Africa, F.W. de Klerk, ended the program with the aim of joining the NPT as a state without a nuclear weapons capability. In 1991 they then joined the NPT and came to a safeguards agreement with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). This was an organization that promoted peace, which they also performed, safeguard inspections. South Africa thus submitted its declaration on facilities and nuclear material inventories, and the IAEA then had to verify the completeness of our inventory.