4. SINCE 1945
As soon as WWII ended, the US accelerated its production of nuclear fuel, atomic bombs, and the military infrastructure for deploying them. While this effort was underway, a whole new generation of nuclear weapons, hydrogen fueled thermonuclear bombs were developed. These bombs would become even more powerful, increasing their destructive equivalent by 1000 times, and simultaneously shrinking new warheads in size, so that several could be fitted onto each missile that could be fired from land, airplanes, and submarines. The Soviet Union test fired its first atomic bomb on September 23, 1949, and the nuclear arms race was on.
A new branch of the US military establishment was created, Strategic Air Command, for the sole purpose of deploying nuclear weapons on bombers, that would eventually grow to over a hundred B-52s, with several hundred thermonuclear bombs and missiles in the air at all times, and ready to be dropped on Soviet targets, any time day or night, for 50 years.
A complete force of guided missiles were constructed and placed in underground silos in seven midwestern United States, with up to 12 nuclear warheads apiece. They too are still in place, and ready to launch within minutes.
US Navy submarines, cruising the world’s oceans, carry hundreds more warheads on guided missiles, also ready to launch within minutes. Half of the US Trident submarines are based in Bremerton WA.
At the peak of the Cold War, the US had about 32,500 warheads, and the USSR had about 35,000. Due mostly to the high costs of maintaining them, both nations have been reducing their inventories ever since.
Significant reductions have been brought about by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, which was signed by 190 states, and went into effect in 1970. Its core agreement was that non-nuclear-weapon states would not acquire them, that nuclear-weapon-states would agree to reduce their numbers and eventually disarm, while sharing civilian nuclear technology with the other states. Several states, that had been trying to build nuclear weapons, forsook them, and an international nonproliferation regime has been successfully reducing the nuclear weapons in the world ever since.
The most recent numbers, in 2021, are about 13,080 total warheads, including 5550 in the US, 6255 in Russia, 290 in France, 350 in China, 225 in Britain, 90 in Israel, 156 in India, 165 in Pakistan, and 40-50 in North Korea.
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, was a bilateral agreement between the US and USSR, and began in1994. It set the maximum number of warheads at 6000 each. Obviously, we haven’t reached these numbers yet, but progress in reducing the danger has been significant. New START went into effect in 2011, extending the reduction program, and setting a new maximum at 1550 warheads each for US and Russia.
While these slow but steady declines in nuclear weapons stockpiles have been going on, conservative politicians and munitions industries in the US gained enough influence to begin a reversal of the positive disarmament program. Using the general national fear fostered by the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Defense budget was greatly expanded over the next several years, a trend that still continues, and new projects were included. We are now building new nuclear weapons again.
There is serious resistance to the nonproliferation regime in our country. Much of it is based on the financial interests of the huge industry that has grown up around nuclear weapons. Manufacturers of military hardware, processors of fissile materials, financiers of all these programs, and the representatives of all the states where these things are made and based, all have vested interest in keeping the production of weapons, and the vehicles to disperse them, running full time.
Likewise, there is great resistance to any moral questioning of nuclear warfare. Except for the many scientists, including Oppenheimer, who came to regret their accomplishment, most of the people who built and used the first A-bomb refused to admit any wrongdoing, and they have gained a large and vocal society of defenders. The controversy over the Smithsonian’s proposed exhibit in 1995 showed dramatically how deep and broad their support is. In addition, the politicians and church leaders who may have doubted, but failed to question the use of nuclear weapons all these years, have given cover to those more closely involved. The longer their silent consent has continued, the farther removed has become the horror of those first two bombs. For younger generations, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are just words in a book, and not real cities full of real people, savagely slaughtered for reasons they never knew.
How will this contradiction resolve itself in the future? When the last B-29 bomber crew, and the last Hibakusha have passed away, what will the rest of us have learned? We are inheriting this disastrous legacy, and it is our responsibility, our moral duty to take up this horrible dilemma, and solve it. Regardless of who was at fault, or what fears and illusions initiated this grisly episode, we must do the right thing and make an end to it. We must dismantle all the nuclear weapons left in the world, beginning with our own, shut down all production of bomb materials, and establish international monitoring to ensure these things are never again made, to threaten our children and grandchildren.
next: near misses >
As soon as WWII ended, the US accelerated its production of nuclear fuel, atomic bombs, and the military infrastructure for deploying them. While this effort was underway, a whole new generation of nuclear weapons, hydrogen fueled thermonuclear bombs were developed. These bombs would become even more powerful, increasing their destructive equivalent by 1000 times, and simultaneously shrinking new warheads in size, so that several could be fitted onto each missile that could be fired from land, airplanes, and submarines. The Soviet Union test fired its first atomic bomb on September 23, 1949, and the nuclear arms race was on.
A new branch of the US military establishment was created, Strategic Air Command, for the sole purpose of deploying nuclear weapons on bombers, that would eventually grow to over a hundred B-52s, with several hundred thermonuclear bombs and missiles in the air at all times, and ready to be dropped on Soviet targets, any time day or night, for 50 years.
A complete force of guided missiles were constructed and placed in underground silos in seven midwestern United States, with up to 12 nuclear warheads apiece. They too are still in place, and ready to launch within minutes.
US Navy submarines, cruising the world’s oceans, carry hundreds more warheads on guided missiles, also ready to launch within minutes. Half of the US Trident submarines are based in Bremerton WA.
At the peak of the Cold War, the US had about 32,500 warheads, and the USSR had about 35,000. Due mostly to the high costs of maintaining them, both nations have been reducing their inventories ever since.
Significant reductions have been brought about by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, which was signed by 190 states, and went into effect in 1970. Its core agreement was that non-nuclear-weapon states would not acquire them, that nuclear-weapon-states would agree to reduce their numbers and eventually disarm, while sharing civilian nuclear technology with the other states. Several states, that had been trying to build nuclear weapons, forsook them, and an international nonproliferation regime has been successfully reducing the nuclear weapons in the world ever since.
The most recent numbers, in 2021, are about 13,080 total warheads, including 5550 in the US, 6255 in Russia, 290 in France, 350 in China, 225 in Britain, 90 in Israel, 156 in India, 165 in Pakistan, and 40-50 in North Korea.
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, was a bilateral agreement between the US and USSR, and began in1994. It set the maximum number of warheads at 6000 each. Obviously, we haven’t reached these numbers yet, but progress in reducing the danger has been significant. New START went into effect in 2011, extending the reduction program, and setting a new maximum at 1550 warheads each for US and Russia.
While these slow but steady declines in nuclear weapons stockpiles have been going on, conservative politicians and munitions industries in the US gained enough influence to begin a reversal of the positive disarmament program. Using the general national fear fostered by the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Defense budget was greatly expanded over the next several years, a trend that still continues, and new projects were included. We are now building new nuclear weapons again.
There is serious resistance to the nonproliferation regime in our country. Much of it is based on the financial interests of the huge industry that has grown up around nuclear weapons. Manufacturers of military hardware, processors of fissile materials, financiers of all these programs, and the representatives of all the states where these things are made and based, all have vested interest in keeping the production of weapons, and the vehicles to disperse them, running full time.
Likewise, there is great resistance to any moral questioning of nuclear warfare. Except for the many scientists, including Oppenheimer, who came to regret their accomplishment, most of the people who built and used the first A-bomb refused to admit any wrongdoing, and they have gained a large and vocal society of defenders. The controversy over the Smithsonian’s proposed exhibit in 1995 showed dramatically how deep and broad their support is. In addition, the politicians and church leaders who may have doubted, but failed to question the use of nuclear weapons all these years, have given cover to those more closely involved. The longer their silent consent has continued, the farther removed has become the horror of those first two bombs. For younger generations, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are just words in a book, and not real cities full of real people, savagely slaughtered for reasons they never knew.
How will this contradiction resolve itself in the future? When the last B-29 bomber crew, and the last Hibakusha have passed away, what will the rest of us have learned? We are inheriting this disastrous legacy, and it is our responsibility, our moral duty to take up this horrible dilemma, and solve it. Regardless of who was at fault, or what fears and illusions initiated this grisly episode, we must do the right thing and make an end to it. We must dismantle all the nuclear weapons left in the world, beginning with our own, shut down all production of bomb materials, and establish international monitoring to ensure these things are never again made, to threaten our children and grandchildren.
next: near misses >