Learning to live with the Bomb

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Sept. 2 marked the 70th anniversary of the formal sur­ render of Japan, which put an end to World War II.

There were some World War II firestorm air raids on targeted civilian worker neighborhoods in Hamburg, Dresden, and especially Tokyo that were nearly as horrible and deadly as the first crude atomic bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. But those earlier atrocities—in violation of international law—required the use of hundreds of planes striking at peak weather conditions. The world was shocked to learn the devastation in the two medium-sized Jap­ anese cities was the result of a single bomb dropped on each from a B-29.

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of this dark­ er day for humanity we are still told it was really a humanitarian act. It is claimed this demonstration of horror actually saved millions of American and Japa­ nese lives that would have been lost in a ground inva­ sion of the Japanese homeland.

Rarely mentioned in the mass media, but confirmed by multiple sources, were the desperate efforts dur­ ing the summer of 1945 by Japanese officials to initiate back-channel surrender talks. They sought only one condition—a guarantee that their Emperor would remain.

These overtures were curtly rejected as Truman, Attlee, and Stalin stuck to the game plan of the Pots­ dam accords insisting on unconditional surrender. Of course, after the Japanese capitulated, and General Douglas MacArthur was designated to oversee the occupation of Japan, his first order of business was to retain the Emperor he saw as a valuable buffer against the revival of the Japanese communist and so­ cialist movements.

The use of atomic bombs was not essential to the total Allied victory that the Japanese—running out of food and fuel and even morale—were prepared to accept months earlier. Their introduction was not intended to end the Second World War but rather to serve notice on the postwar world that the USA was now a super-power on a scale never before seen.

Not only did America emerge with a robust econo­ my while others were in shambles—the ruling class in this country could boast of having a monopoly on a new terrifying weapon of mass destruction. More than that, they had shown they were prepared to use it. This not very veiled threat was particularly aimed at the Soviet Union and the emerging Chinese Revolu­ tion. Further expansion of the Red Menace, now em­ bracing a third of the world’s population, would not be tolerated.

But this monopoly was soon broken as the Soviet Union quickly developed its own nuclear weapons. That led to a Cold War arms race—building ever big­ ger bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles, launched from both land and sea, capable of deliver­ ing them. The now two super-powers soon accumu­ lated between them enough power to destroy every living thing on the planet—many times over. Each side had the capability to launch “massive retaliation” if attacked.

There could be no winners in such a war. The two great powers adopted a doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, known by the appropriate acronym MAD. There was one really close call during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis that was resolved through com­ promise just short of Doomsday.

When the Soviet Union began to disintegrate 25 years ago—in no small part due to enormous spend­ ing on MAD—Russia took control of the nuclear forc­ es. A series of treaties between the new ex-KGB Mos­ (Left) The ruins of Hiroshima after the U.S. bombed the city on Aug. 6, 1945.

cow regime restoring capitalism and the USA agreed to stop targeting one another’s cities and drastically reduced their number of stra­ tegic nuclear weapons. The current limit for the U.S. is a “mere” 1605—down from a truly mad Cold War peak of more than 31,000. Paltry as this new limit might seem, it’s enough to destroy every major popula­ tion center outside the USA. Surely even Dr Strangelove would be satisfied with that fire­ power, and you would think there would be no plans to build new ones. But even common sense is no match for the ambitious goals of “our” ruling class.

In an informative piece on the Aljazeera America site, Michael Pizzi and Micheal Keller write, “…. American taxpayers will soon be spending more on nuclear weapons in real dollars than they have since the end of the Cold War. In October 2013, just four months after calling for yet another one-third reduc­ tion in the stockpile, President Barack Obama announced plans to ‘modernize’ the entire nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years, argu­ ing that updating and replacing the so-called nuclear triad—the submarines, jets and bal­ listic missiles designed to deliver warheads— will help create a leaner, sleeker nuclear fleet. “But leaner doesn’t mean cheaper, at least not in the short term. According to a recent study by two researchers at the Monterey In­ stitute of International Studies, Jeffrey Lewis and Jon Wolfsthal, Obama’s modernization program could carry a price tag of over $1 trillion, vaulting nuclear weapons spending relative to the overall de­ fense budget to a level comparable to the 1980s.”

Of course, while not unimportant, cost is not the only objection that should be raised to this bipartisan backed plan. As long as these weapons exist there is always the danger that they will be used, if not inten­ tionally like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then acciden­ tally, or through miscalculation. From what I hear from many eager candidates for president, I would not trust them with the launch codes.

Fidel Castro was at Ground Zero during the closest we have come to MAD becoming reality during the 1962 Missile Crisis. Now retired at age 89, he still writes perceptive observations about the state of the world. He has said, “Numerous dangers threaten us, but two of them, nuclear war and climate change, are decisive, and both are ever farther away from coming close to a solution.”

Fidel is spot on. Nuclear War, followed by Nuclear Winter, would be swift and catastrophic. Climate Change will be more insidious, spanning decades. Both threaten the future of civilization, perhaps even our species. Both are caused by human activity that can be altered.

Fidel goes on to say, “I think it is a basic duty of all serious and sane persons, who number in the mil­ lions, to fight to postpone and perhaps to prevent that dramatic and imminent event [nuclear or climate ca­ tastrophe] in today’s world.”

It is the American ruling class and their government that has been, and continues to be, the prime culprit in the crimes leading to both overarching crises.

While a promising climate action movement is shaping up, the same cannot be said for the nuclear weapons threat. Many have become complacent over the quarter-century of weapon-reduction treaties