Nuclear weapons have been a major issue in our society since their creation. They have only been used once against another country, but that single instance was enough to put fear in the hearts of the world. From Hiroshima to the Cold War and even today, these weapons have set a heavy shadow over many countries for the knowledge of what they can do. However, while these weapons are used to cause destruction to enemy nations, they have also become a means of peace. The possibility of nuclear weapons being used in the future has become a deterrent for what could have been a nuclear catastrophe.
The actual creation of a nuclear weapon is in fact not that difficult for a group of scientists to make with the proper materials. To create a working atomic bomb, they would only need three things. First, they would need the knowledge of how a bomb works. Second, they would need appropriate amounts of material to be used in either fission or fusion. Finally they would need a way to bring the materials together while at the same time being sure that it would not explode when they don't need it to (Molander 30). This means that if a group - suppose a terrorist group - could gather the proper knowledge, materials, and facilities, they could create a nuclear weapon capable of causing massive destruction to another country.
There are two basic processes by whick an atomic bomb is created. The more common atomic bomb works through a process known as fission. Fission is the splitting of an atom's nucleus into two or more parts. This normally only happens when heavier elements are "bombarded" by neutrons. These neutrons split the nuclei of the element into smaller atoms, and in the process release large amounts of energy. These continue to strike other atoms which keep the reaction going. The most commonly used isotopes in fission are Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239. Neither of these are found in their pure form naturally (Diehl 199). A fission bomb is the basic creation of which the nations have so many and which could cause so much death and destruction.
The other type of nuclear weapon is the hydrogen bomb also known as a thermonuclear bomb. These bombs work through fusion (Molander 34). Fusion works in much the opposite way that fission does. In fusion, two nuclei of light elements fuse together in order to make a heavier element. In order for fusion to occur, the repellent forces between the protons of different nuclei must be overcome. This can only be done at temperatures over 100 million degrees celcius. Because of this, fusion requires much more energy than fission. However, it also releases much more. The most frequently used materials for fusion are tritium, also known as H-3, deuterium, labeled as H-2, and deuteride, whose formula is Li-6. Deuteride breaks down into deuterium and tritium at fusion heat (Diehl 200). A fusion bomb is much more destructive than a fussion bomb, making it an even greater threat to enemy nations. These are the processes by which the explosion is actually created. The explosion has still yet other processes and parts within it.
The explosion of an atomic bomb includes three parts to be exact. The first of these three is the blast itself. It happens in a fraction of a second. A wall of compressed air is released from the explosion, moving at 12.5 miles a minute or 750 miles an hour, just over the speed of sound. The human body can in fact take up to 200 pounds of pressure per square inch before physiological damage occurs. The problem is that most buildings fall at five pounds per square inch. Most death caused by the blast itself is indirect, caused by falling buildings and flying debris or glass (Molander 37, 38).
The second phase of the bomb is thermal radiation, or heat. About 35% of the energy from an atomic bomb goes towards the heat. This moves at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second. This comes in two pulses. The first is smaller as the fireball begins to form, having much fewer casualties than the second, which releases from the initial pulse about a second later. The thermal radiation injures in two ways. It burns the skin directly, with a 1-megaton bomb giving off fatal burns in a five mile radius. The second is through conflagrations and fire storms, which burn and consume oxygen at such a rapid rate that it literally sucks the oxygen out of the air (Molander 38, 39).
The final phase of nuclear weapons is the radiation. The effects of radiation can be both immediate and eventual. With an acute dose, there is a wide range of effects. The amount of radiation the body is exposed to is measured in roentgens. At the least amout, ranging from zero to fifty, there are no obvious effects, with only minor blood changes. Starting at eighty roentogens, nausea and vomiting begin to start on some of the exposed. At 130, radiation sickness begins. Once it reaches 270, deaths are expected in 20% in two to six weeks. At four hundred, that is raised to 50% in a month. Between 550 and 750, few survivors are expected in six months. At one thousand, no survivors are expected with time. Finally, at five thousand, death is thought to be immediate (Bell 106). There is also the issue of radioactive fallout. Fallout is radioactive soil and dirt that is brought up into the air by the explosion which later falls back to the ground as dust (Molander 140).
The death total for a nuclear attack is both astounding and horrifying. At least 50% of the people in the area of an atomic bomb die immediately (McNamara 31). However, simply surviving the original death toll is not necessarily a good thing. "The survivors who get through the first days of weeks might live to regret their 'luck' when they found nothing to eat, no heat in winter, [and] no help in rebuilding" (Molander 39). Taking New York as an example city, and using eighteen as a supposed amount of the usual one-megaton bombs, an estimated death total in this city of 16.3 million would be somewhere around 12.9 million people. Adding injuries to this number, it further expands to a suggested 15.9 million (132). This means that almost 80% of New York City would be completely wiped out.
The end of World War II was an example of just how destructive and harmful the use of nuclear weapons can be. The first nuclear bomb to be used against another country was dropped on August 6, 1945. Nicknamed Little Boy, this uranium bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, and contained the power of approximately 12,500 tons of TNT. The bomb was detonated at 1,900 feet above ground and reached around 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit at its center. About 66,000 died immediately, either from the blast itself or the firestorms caused by it. Lethal burns were also found for a two mile radius, killing its victims in minutes or hours (Diehl 180).
This immediate destruction, however, was only the beginning of the problems in Hiroshima. It may have been a dramatic start, but there was still more to come. The effects of radiation were delayed, but still devastating, perhaps more than the actual explosion. As described by Sarah Diehl and James Moltz, authors of Nuclear Weapons and Nonproliferation, "a day later, inhabitanta who had appeared unscathed began developing signs of radiation sickness...; many died within weeks. Survivors spoke of victims walking with their burnt skin peeling off in sheets and rivers choked with the dead and dying trying to relieve their pain" (180). The numbers only continued to increase as time took its toll on the supposedly lucky survivors. The death total eventually grew to around 200,000 (McNamara 31).
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and the second dropped on Nagasaki three days later, made for a quick end to what could have been a much bloodier and brutal war. It is much the reason the Japanese surrendered when they did. The knowledge of what this weapon could do lead to an understandable unwillingness to allow for more. On August 11, 1945, give days after Little Boy struck Hiroshima, Japan surrendered (Molander 92).
The closest that our country has ever been to a nuclear war is undoubtedly the Cuban Missile Crisis. During this crisis, the Soviets had approximately 162 warheads in Cuba, and the island's dictator, Fidel Castro, was in agreement to a counter attack of nuclear missiles if America did attack (McNamara 31).
On October 14, 1962, a mission brought with it pictures of launch pads being built by Russian engineers in Cuba. These missiles would be able to hit every major city in America except Seattle (Molander 97). That same month, the U.S. Navy placed a blockade of sorts on Cuba, although calling it such would be considered an act of war to which the Soviet Union had every right to retaliate against (Rhodes 103). On October 23, nine days after the pictures were brought in, that the general public of America was informed of the situation by President John F. Kennedy on national television. Said Kennedy, "it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an act by the Soviet Union on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union" (Molander 99).
On October 26, 1962, three days after Kennedy's remarks, the Soviet ships finally left Cuba. After negotiations, the Soviets promised to remove their missiles from Cuba in exchange for the promise of the United States not to invade Cuba.
A major problem with the issue of nuclear weapons is that accidents can and have occurred. "Much of the concern about nuclear war lie in the risk of nonrational reaction by one side or the other. We all know from our own experience that anger and fear can lead to actions one regrets, things that seem 'crazy' when we look back on them. The same is true for nations" (Molander 173). But when nuclear weapons are added in to the equation, the stakes become much higher. "In conventional war, mistakes cost lives, sometimes thousands of lives. However, if mistakes were to affect decisions relating to the use of nuclear forces, there would be no learning curve" (McNamara 32).
We are not perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. However, when it comes to issues such as these there is no room for error. There have been issues of such mistakes in our history though. One examle of this would be on November 9, 1979, when NORAD reported a massive number of incoming missiles. It turned out that this false information was caused by "an inadvertant introduction of simulated data into the computer." In a similar incident on June 3, 1980, the same effect resulted because of a "bad chip in a communications processor computer" (Bell 175). Both of these could have caused a major "retaliation" attack to a non-existant threat. The systems of neither side are perfect, and there must be a way to keep accidents or mistakes from causing such drastic problems.
There are a few ways that nuclear powers keep these kinds of problems - or even others caused by a third party - from causing an all-out nuclear war. The leaders of the countries are connected through "hotlines" so that they can find out directly what is going on and whether or not it is a threat that demands retaliation (Bell 150). For technical problems and the possibility of being detonated by another source, the weapons are rigged with devices known as permissive action links, or PALs, which require a code directly from the white house in order to detonate. However, these are only used in "advanced" countries such as the U.S., Russia, France, and Great Britain (Moltz 133).
Some arguments claim that the nuclear weapons program in the United States is too expensive. A grand total of about 5.8 trillion dollars has been put into it, with only 0.5% of that estimate going towards dismantling (Moltz 313). However, why would we as a nation want to put all of this money to waste? In order to rid of the bomb, money must also be spent. We would simply be spending more money to reverse a project that has already cost large amounts. To do so would make even less sense than spending the money in the first place.
Ridding of our nuclear forces would not only be a bad move as far as money is concerned; it would be a huge hit on our nation's security. Part of the United States' defense is by intimidation. In this, a country will arm itself to the point where the enemy cannot see any good in attacking them (Molander 158). Nuclear weapons have become the primary source in this form of defense. This type of defense is also known as deterrence because it keeps other countries from attacking because of the knowledge that they will receive massive damage in return (Bell 135). As is stated in the Nuclear Almanac, "only in desperation would we attack in the knowledge that a nuclear countervalue response would wreak a very heavy toll on our cities in return" (148). The damage that would come in return to a nuclear attack on another nuclear power or their allies is absolutely unacceptable. This possibility could be seen as both dangerous and safe. it is a trust in the other side's refusal for sacrifice.
However, simply reducing the number of bombs in the countries will not make the issue any less dangerous. As chairman of U.S. Strategic command C. Paul Robinson stated, we cannot "uninvent" nuclear weapons (Kitfield 1). Just because we get rid of ours does not mean that they will no longer exist. Somewhere, someone will always have such weapons with which they can threaten other countries, including ours. Therefore, we need such weapons of our own in order to create nuclear stability. Nuclear stability is the possibility for both sides to be able to retaliate to an initial nuclear strike. (Krauthammer 2). This means that there would be enough weapons left over on the defending side to return an attack and destroy the homeland of the other. Because of this, no one is willing to make the first strike. They know that they will be hit in return. If there is no first strike, then there is no nuclear war. Therefore, nuclear stability relies mainly on not only having nuclear weapons, but having enough of them.