Hiroshima to Today: Confronting the Nuclear Threat
Eighty Years After the Atomic Bombings, We Face a New and Growing Nuclear danger — One That Must Be Stopped
by Kate Hudson, Co-National Secretary, Left Unity, UK
As we commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the criminal attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by US atomic bombs, we must recognise that we are closer than ever to nuclear war. The war on Ukraine has greatly increased the risk. So too has Nato’s location of upgraded nuclear weapons across Europe — including Britain — and Russia’s resultant siting of similar weapons in Belarus. Irresponsible talk suggesting that “tactical” nuclear weapons could be deployed on the battlefield — as if radiation can be constrained in a small area — has made nuclear use more likely. And last year, after decades of reductions since the end of the Cold War, the global nuclear stockpile increased.
Governments across Europe are making these problems worse. They are leading a massive programme of rearmament, including talk of European nuclear proliferation; but they are in denial about the dangers it is unleashing. This is a bad time for humanity — and for all forms of life on Earth. It’s time for us to stand up and say No: we refuse to be taken into nuclear Armageddon.
It is also right that we should take the opportunity of this tragic anniversary to clarify the facts of the atomic bombing.
Conventional wisdom, especially in the US, says it was necessary to drop the bomb to bring about a speedy conclusion to the war and save lives. Even today many people believe that the bomb was necessary to bring about a Japanese surrender and to avoid the need for an invasion of Japan by the US, which might have cost hundreds of thousands of lives. But extensive scholarly research in the US shows that this just wasn’t true. By the time the bomb was ready for use, Japan was ready to surrender. As US General Dwight Eisenhower said, Japan was at that very moment seeking some way to surrender with minimum loss of face, and “it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” And British wartime leader, Winston Churchill, said, “It would be a mistake to suppose that the fate of Japan was settled by the atomic bomb. Her defeat was certain before the first bomb fell and was brought about by overwhelming maritime power.”
In August 1945, within seconds of detonation—“in the wink of an eye”—atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed over 210,000 people, most of them civilians. The blasts not only incinerated entire cities instantly but left behind a silent killer: radiation, which caused leukemia, cancers, birth defects, and ecological devastation for decades. Survivors, known as hibakusha, carried both visible and invisible scars, as the fate of entire generations was altered in moments of blinding light and searing heat.
So if Japan was ready to surrender, why were atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? A significant factor in the decision to bomb was the US’s desire to establish its dominance in the region after the war. Those planning for the post-war situation believed that this required US occupation of Japan, enabling it to establish a permanent military presence, shape its political and economic system and dominate the Pacific region. But the US’s key strategic concern, above all, was the position of the Soviet Union in the post-war world.
Evidence suggests that the US wanted to demonstrate its unique military power — its possession of the atomic bomb — in order to gain political and diplomatic advantage over the Soviet Union in the post-war settlement in both Asia and Europe. So nothing to do with ending the war with Japan.
Many European scientists worked on the US Manhattan Project because they saw the development of the atomic bomb as a necessary evil in the arms race to defeat Hitler. At the end of 1944, it was clear that Germany was not going to succeed in making an atom bomb. In these circumstances, the eminent Polish scientist Joseph Rotblat left the Project. Others tried to alert politicians to the dangers ahead and prevent the use of the bomb. But top politicians pressed ahead.
As Rotblat himself later pointed out: “There is good reason to believe that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not so much the end of the second world war as the beginning of the cold war, the first step in a fateful chain of events, the start of an insane arms race that brought us very close to a nuclear holocaust and the destruction of civilisation.”
In memory of all those who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and those who have suffered the consequences since, we must do our utmost to prevent the same catastrophe happening again; let us take action to prevent our politicians catapulting us into nuclear war — and the destruction of all life on this planet.