Today’s Nuclear Weapons Are Not Hiroshima’s Atom Bomb - William W. Smith, III

Today’s Nuclear Weapons Are Not Hiroshima’s Atom Bomb - William W. Smith, III

Far be it from me to dispute Dr. Mackubin Owens’ impressive credentials as a writer and historian of military strategy (Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, July 27). But as a member of the generation who grew up during the nuclear age, I would respectfully like to add a further perspective.

 

Tokyo had been fire-bombed, which was quite a graphic demonstration to the Japanese of the destructive power of American bombing. Whether or not the invasion plans mentioned by Dr. Mackubin would have been needed to force Japan’s surrender, other historians now understand that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were meant as a demonstration to the Soviet Union, our wartime ally and soon-to-be adversary during the Cold War.

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As a result of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombing, and after the failure of negotiations at the United Nations to abolish all nascent atomic weapons programs, we as elementary school children, were told in the 1950s that in the event of an atomic war, we were to hide beneath our school-desks. We read magazine articles about the luxurious fallout shelters of the wealthy, stocked with drinking water and weeks' worth of canned food.

 

Today when you look at the presumptive targeted areas of the USA during a nuclear war, you see that our whole East Coast, from Maine to Florida, would be heavily bombed and over-bombed. Yes, Rhode Island would cease to exist as a habitat for human life. But it was not until the 1980s when climate scientists realized that a nuclear war would result in a years-long ‘nuclear winter’ that the full horror of a modern nuclear war was understood. Soot from burned cities would circle the globe, dramatically changing the climate and making it impossible to harvest crops for potentially years or tens of years. Those humans not burned, blasted, or irradiated to death would starve, along with terrestrial and marine animals worldwide.

 

This understanding is clearly behind the efforts of the non-nuclear nations of the world to negotiate the 2021 Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, now in force as international law in 68 countries. The US has not yet accepted this treaty, though if it would, our country might once again be seen as a leader of world statesmanship.

 

So let us not look back on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings as mere desperate acts of war, whether necessary at the time or not. Let us understand that in today’s world, nuclear war cannot be allowed to happen. All of our considerable scientific, intellectual, diplomatic, military and political skills must be focused on this goal. To safeguard our people, our culture, and our beautiful little coastal state, we must find a way with other nations to take these weapons apart.

 

 

William W. Smith III lives in Jamestown. He is a long-time activist in Rhode Island's peace community.