WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
THE EVOLVING THREAT IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Others pages in this series:
Introduction
What are WMD?
Nuclear Weapons
Atomic History
Biological Weapons
Chemical Weapons
ATOMIC HISTORY
Prepared by Laura Reed, Security Studies Program, MIT, Cambridge,
MA, USA
On August 6, 1945, in the final stages of World War II, the United States
dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. A second atomic bomb
was exploded over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The
advent of nuclear weapons profoundly changed conventional thinking about
war and peace. The magnitude of nuclear weapons’ destructive power
posed an entirely new order of threat in light of the specter of the
instantaneous annihilation of vast numbers of people with little prospect
of defense. As then-President Harry Truman put it to Congress in October
1945, “The release of atomic energy constitutes a new force too
revolutionary to consider in the framework of old ideas…”
The development of nuclear technology ushered in a period of impassioned
debate about the dangers posed by a nuclear arms race and proposals for
ways to reduce the military incentives toward first use of nuclear weapons
in a crisis. The unprecedented destructive power of nuclear weapons as
well as the virtual impossibility of protecting civilian populations
contributed to the view that all-out war, or total war, was suicidal.
Nonetheless, in the early days of the Cold War, American and Soviet military
planners relied on a strategic doctrine known aptly as "MAD"—or
mutually assured destruction—which threatened the use of nuclear
weapons in response to an attack as a way to deter an adversary.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, Cold War tensions contributed to a
series of confrontations that repeatedly raised the specter of nuclear
war. One oft-cited confrontation in 1962, known as the Cuban Missile
Crisis, brought the United States to the brink of nuclear war with the
Soviet Union, a prospect that was only narrowly averted at the last minute.
Meanwhile, during the Cold War, nuclear arsenals continued to grow.
In this period, the United States and the Soviet Union conducted thousands
of nuclear tests as they developed more sophisticated and lethal weapons
systems. The two Cold War rivals ultimately amassed arsenals that totaled
some 60,000 nuclear weapons. The number of declared nuclear weapon states
increased from one to seven.
A fascinating paradox of nuclear weapons is that the nuclear threat
hangs over all key security decisions, yet key governmental decision
makers and even military planners have increasingly realized that nuclear
weapons have only limited relevance and utility in most realms of international
policy. Over time, a consensus has emerged among many security analysts
(with some notable exceptions in the current U.S. administration) that
nuclear devices are not legitimate weapons of war because of their lethality
and indiscriminate nature. Furthermore, the catastrophic implications
of a nuclear attack have shifted the majority opinion toward the view
that there can be no winners in a nuclear war.
In a July 1996 decision regarding the legitimacy of nuclear weapons,
for example, the World Court took a formal position on the issue, finding
that there is no justification for the first-use of nuclear weapons.
The acceptance of such a view has grown steadily over the past sixty
years, starting with public revulsion and outcry in the aftermath of
the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and influenced by some
quarters of the military establishment as well as religious doctrine, such as
the Catholic Bishops’ widely distributed 1983 Pastoral Letter on
War and Peace.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
For a moving account of the effects of the bombing of Hiroshima, see:
John Hersey, Hiroshima. (NY: Vintage Books; Reprint edition, 1989).
For an excellent introduction to WMD issues, see Joseph Cirincione,
Jon Wolfsthal, Miriam Rajkumar, Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological,
and Chemical Threats, Second Edition Revised and Expanded, Washington,
DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005. http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?
fa=view&id=16650&prog=zgp&proj=znpp
For a discussion of some of the drawbacks of the broad term “weapons
of mass destruction,” see: Owen R. Cote, Jr., “Weapons of
Mass Confusion: A security strategy doomed to failure.” Published
in the April/May 2003 issue of Boston Review. http://www.bostonreview.net/BR28.2/cote.html
Top
Home | About
Us | Contact Us | Help
|
