Nuclear Warfare

The United States, with assistance from the UK and Canada, designed and built the first atomic bombs under the "Manhattan Project". This pretty much started the ball rolling for development of more powerful nuclear weapons. Some incidents in which nuclear weaponry have been employed was during World War 2 where the nuclear bombs "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" detonated respectively over the skies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is estimated that 220000 people died in both bombings. Such was the power of nuclear weaponry and opened the eyes of people around the world to fear it.

Thus from this, nuclear warfare was born. It truly puzzles me that humans pursue the development of weapons that could pretty much destroy the Earth and everyone on it. During the Cold War, the United States and the USSR increased their nuclear stockpile drastically, letting it serve as nuclear deterrence. The goal to this was of course to achieve second strike status - the ability to respond to a nuclear attack with some of its own, and subsequently strive to acquire first strike status, where one is in a position to destroy an enemy's nuclear arsenal before they even retaliate. During the peak of the Cold War, there was more that enough nuclear weapons to blast the Earth to oblivion, yet more was made and many still coming.

The use of nuclear if at all should be carefully debated upon, such that lives are not lost withiout reason. In the case of the Japan bombing, nuclear attacks were preferred as it was argued that many lives would be lost in an invasion. Furthermore, Japan might not surrender without sufficient military pressure. However, many argue that the bombings were immoral as many innocent civilains were killed and the attacks were unnecessary for tactical and military reasons. Amidst all the arguements, none can prove each other wrong; what is done is done. No one would have known the outcome if the United States were to abort the bombing.

Due to the immense power of nuclear weapons, laws have been imposed so as to limit the use and creation of such weapons. Nuclear-weapon-free zones have been declared all over the world and weapons developtment is prohibited through signing of treaties. As recently as 2006 a Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone was established amongst the former Soviet republics of Central Asia prohibiting nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons are not the pinnacle in military might, with the advent of fusion or hydrogen bombs, the world may very well be heading towards a superweapons war. Much care must be taken or regret we will over our actions.