We still have much to fear from nukes
In politics it’s often the small stuff that matters. — Kelly Mcparland
‘Let there be no mistake: we shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war,” U.S. President Harry Truman said, hours after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. “If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”
That was Aug. 6, 1945, one of the last days of the Second World War. Hitler was already dead. Japan would surrender within a couple of weeks (though not before American war planes dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, proving Truman’s words true). And the world would not witness another nuclear attack for at least 75 years.
It would be nice to be able to end that last sentence with the phrase “ever again,” but who knows. We have already had more than a few close calls, most of them “oops” situations, rather than purposeful steps towards the annihilation of an enemy, yet no less potentially deadly.
Pesky wildlife played a surprisingly central role in the narrowly avoided accidental first strikes of the Cold War era. A flock of geese was mistaken for a Soviet bomber attack after activating a radar early warning system in the 1950s. A flock of swans flying over Turkey was similarly confused for unidentified aircraft, causing NORAD to suspect a Soviet offensive, in the same decade. A bear climbing a fence at a Duluth, Minn., airbase later led to a klaxon scrambling two squadrons of nuclear-armed fighter planes in the ’60s.
And that is just the near-nuclear-havoc wreaked by living creatures. Don’t get me started on the weather. (Did you know that when the sun aligned just so with high altitude clouds and certain satellites, Soviet computers would hallucinate an incoming ballistic missile?)
For a world battling a coronavirus pandemic, it is tempting to take things one existential threat at a time and figure that with the Cold War being long over, this is not the moment to fret over the dangers of man’s potential radioactive destruction. Let’s at least settle this whole mandatory mask debate first, right?
Unfortunately, the threat of nuclear war deserves more attention than ever. Earlier this week, on PBS News Hour, former U. S. secretary of defence William J. Perry expressed his view that, “The danger of a nuclear catastrophe today is equal to the darkest days of the Cold War.”
Perry goes into more detail about his concerns in a new book called, The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race And Presidential Power From Truman to Trump. Co-authored with Tom Z. Collina, the book is well worth reading in its entirety, but even its broad strokes offer a convincing argument that a higher level of atomic angst than is currently evident in the public is called for.
One theme is the precariousness of the United States’ present system, in which the president possesses the sole authority to launch a nuclear attack, with no consultation required. Having that power rest in a single individual has its advantages — it is what saved Japan from the devastation of a third atomic bomb, Truman having possessed less of a stomach for mass civilian casualties than his generals.
But relying on one person’s clear-headed judgment allows for no fail-safes. What if the president is high on pain meds or drinking heavily or suffering from Alzheimer’s (as were presidents John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, respectively, during at least some of their time in office)? Or what if the president is, let us say, personally prone to be petulant and impulsive? Do we really want to bet the future of human existence on his or her exclusive rationality? Right now, the world is making exactly this wager.
Perry and Collina emphasize that sole authority undermines safety. They are compelling when they contend that the U. S. policies of first use ( a nuclear attack on an adversary that did not launch a nuclear attack first) and launch on warning (a retaliatory nuclear attack in response to an unconfirmed nuclear strike) do the same — a notion that our bear and bird experiences seem to bear out.
It is a lot to ask of people: focus on arms control and disarmament when life has already been upended by a deadly virus. Humans are not great at multitasking.
But there is so much more to lose from a nuclear attack than there is from even a crippling pandemic. The horrific photos, statistics and personal accounts being circulated to mark the Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries should help dispel any doubt.