Nuclear(War and Peace)

We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were
silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade
the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, Now I
am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
On the morning of August 6, 1945, an enriched uranium bomb was dropped over the Japanese city of
Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb with a plutonium payload was dropped at Nagasaki. These
are the only two instances nuclear weapons were ever used in warfare the first and the last.
It isnt difficult to see why.
A total of 200,000 people (or more, or less, depending on which source you use) lost their lives directly
in consequence to the bombings. Roughly half of whom died within 24 hours, and 90% of which died
within the week. But the tragedy doesnt end just there- not only are these numbers the highest ever
fatality rates recorded in one event in the history of human civilisation, there are ripples of this one
incident still causing grotesque deformities, cancers, and disorders in children being born today.
Nuclear War.
Right now, as you read this, all over the world - approximately 17,500 nuclear weapons exist. Most in
the arsenals of the USA and Russia. Almost all countries, thankfully, have signed pacts wherein they will
not use and proliferate the technology of nuclear weapons. Some (like South Africa) have gone ahead
and destroyed their entire stockpiles altogether. India and China have state policies of: no first use.
Because even a limited nuclear attack is a bad thing, as we have seen; and total nuclear warfare even
worse.
Even one nuclear bomb of a decent capacity is absolutely capable of reducing to rubble an entire city.
Go on, open your browser and Google Nagasaki before after aerial images, youll see what I mean. The
buildings and people were vapourised, others burned, and yet others poisoned by radioactivity.
With enough tonnage to, you could wipe out an entire country. Entire nations may be felled.
But those nations might still have retaliatory weapons stockpiled. And then the nation that did the
destroying, would be destroyed in turn.
This situation is termed Mutually Assured Destruction and is one of the prime reasons we survived the
Cold War even though the Doomsday Clock reached its closest ever to predicting a large scale nuclear
war then.
The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock that tells us, by the proximity of its minute hour to midnight,
how close or far we are from a full-fledged nuclear war. Now, it stands at 11:55. Five minutes away. (But
it has since been corrected to include global warming and other activities we humans tend to be so good
at, that they may wipe out our entire civilisation)
Consequences of a nuclear war are equally worrisome. Two words most referenced in pop culture are
Nuclear fallout and Nuclear Winter.
Fallout or Black Rain is radioactive material that gets carried into the atmosphere, where it might
precipitate onto the blast sites. It is usually particulate and people exposed to its high levels of radiation
may be adversely affected. A nuclear winter on the other hand, affects everyone. It occurs after a
sufficiently large explosion where a massive quantity of soot and other matter is expelled into the
atmosphere, causing a large, dark cloud, over everything. Crops will fail, temperatures will precipitously
drop, rain will cease to fall, diseases will proliferate, all because sunlight will be unable to penetrate the
cloud.
The survival of humanity as a whole, post-apocalyptic war, is a tricky question. Like the rest of nuclear
war and philosophy concerning it, we arent altogether sure, and it would be wisest to assume theres
more to it than just what you see. As Dr Strangleove fans will note, it is quite possible we may survive
unscathed. But as some others will think, how exactly?
Nuclear Peace
Fortunately, we silly humans, contrary to beliefs and suppositions, are rather adept at surviving. And in
this case, keeping situations like war to a minimum.
Nuclear peace is a hypothesis which states that the mere presence of nuclear weapons, reduces war.
Of course, not everything is all so black and white; there are reasons among reasons too. One reason
Pakistan is not attacking India is due to nuclear weapons. India tested a weapon Smiling Buddha in May
of 1974 at Pokhran in a rare display of courage, then went on to say we would never fire first. (The
unsaid being: of course, if you fire first, well, we make no promises)
The Cold War was also averted due to nuclear weapons (among other reasons). The sheer power of
these warheads and their presence seems a rather powerful deterrent too.
Although, historically as well, the number of Wars being fought, has been greatly reduced after Nuclear
weapons were funded and programmes initialised.
Its almost as if humanity is collectively realising: an eye for an eye, makes the whole world blind.