Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Remembering Nukes

 THE HUMAN RACE suffers from so many self inflicted self destructive forms of damage that it can be considered a miracle that we still still exist, and that a fairly sizable portion of our species lives lives of relative comfort and contentment. Three in particular merit mention. Climate change, viral pandemics, and nuclear weapons. The first two, either of which could and might well bring about the end of humanity, have much discussed in recent months and years, appropriately. The forgotten monstrous menace, about which we have lulled ourselves into forgetful complacency through familiarity with a threat which never does more than lurk and and loom, is nuclear weapons. The fact that at least nine nations possess enough of them to do incalculable harm constitutes the anvil hanging over our collective heads. A new book by nuclear weapons researcher Fred Kaplan "The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History f Nuclear Wars" traces the history of seventy years of nuclear weapons over the course of every presidential administration which has had them and had to deal with them. For decades the official policy of the United States  has been and remains that it is willing to use atomic weapons first, and that any country, especially Russia or china, which attacks an American ally will be hit with overwhelming nuclear force. On several occasions the United States has come close to nuclear war, sometimes because of intelligence gathering mistakes or technical errors, there have been shockingly many instances in which atom bombs are accidentally dropped out of planes but did not explode, times when they were lost, or almost unintentionally detonated, mistakes of absent minded thoughtlessness, and every expert in nuclear arms history, every military, historical, and scientific expert agrees that it is a miracle that there have been no nuclear wars since World War Two. At one point the United States ha a nuclear arsenal of thirty thousand bombs and warheads, today, the number is down to three thousands, thanks to nuclear weapons treaties and technological improvements. When Trump took office, he asked why he didn't get to have as many atomic bombs as the other presidents had. He thought he was being cheated.

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