America's First Atomic Bomb: Life After The Cold War

In the final year of World War Two, the Allies prepared for what was anticipated to be a very costly and devastating invasion of the Japanese mainland. This was preceded by a U.S. firebombing campaign that destroyed 67 Japanese cities and the Battle of Okinawa, wherein almost 100,000 civilians died. Having developed the world’s first nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project, the US Government made the decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in combat on the town of Hiroshima. Three days later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Combined, the bombs killed almost 150,000 people immediately, and they are attributed to more than 170,000 more
There seemed to be an irreconcilable conflict between the Communist Soviet Union and the Capitalist United States. To combat the Soviet Bloc, American politicians, generals, and civilians rallied for american nationalism through fear-mongering and conspiracies. Demagogues such as Joseph McCarthy preyed on Americans’ insecurities to promote an anti-communist rationale. THis movement is known as known as the Red Scare. In By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, Paul Boyer characterizes life in the shadow of the red scare and the nuclear arms race. He investigates how “the fundamental perceptions which continue to influence our response to the nuclear menace were first articulated, discussed, and absorbed into the living tissue of the culture” (pg. 367). In doing so, Boyer exposes the division between the interests of the American public and the interests of the military and politicians, both of whom acted entirely out of self
Georges Clemenceau once said “war is too important to be left to the generals.” In Dr. Strangelove, Col. Ripper remarks that now “war is too important to be left to the politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought” but Kubrick’s message implies that war is too important to be left to anybody at all. So with the persistence of nuclear technology as weapons of mass destruction, the question arises: Do we, as decision-makers, have the restraint not to use such weapons on one another? The question remains unanswered, but if there is to be peace, we must remain cautious and aware of their implications. Nuclear technology gives humanity an incredible opportunity to move forward, but if misused, it could send all life on earth back to the stone