More than 110,000 people died within seconds after two atomic weapons were dropped by America on Japan in 1945, bringing about Japan's surrender days later and the end of the Second World War.
The bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 destroyed the city and ultimately killed 140,000 people due to the radiation fallout. A second bomb dropped three days later on Nagasaki claimed 70,000 lives.
Mercifully, there has never been a repeat.
That 80-year peace, marked this week with sombre ceremonies attended by ageing survivors, has largely been due to nuclear states accepting the concept of MAD, or “mutually assured destruction”, in which no one wins in a nuclear showdown.
But today, the language around using the weapons has become bolder.
There are several global fault lines where a nuclear detonation could happen, from Ukraine to India-Pakistan, Iran-Israel and the Korean peninsula, experts have told The National.
Arguably, the world took its eye off the issue in the post-Cold War years. Or the reality was that deterrence was doing its job. But today, nuclear use is more likely than it has been since 1945.
The nuclear treaties which held the two Cold War superpowers in check for decades are now receding. The 2010 New START treaty, between Russia and the US, limiting them each to 1,550 long-range missiles, will expire in seven months. The 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which eliminated weapons with ranges between 500km and 5,500km, was formally terminated in 2019.
Last week, US President Donald Trump announced that two nuclear ballistic submarines were being deployed to turn up the heat on Russia over a Ukraine ceasefire. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has alluded to using nuclear weapons since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022.
More bombs
The world is heading towards what experts call a “fourth nuclear” age with a rapid build-up of arsenals, a breakdown in arms control and increased tension between nuclear powers.
The first age was the invention of the atomic bomb used against Japan, the second was the massive stockpiles during the 1960s and 1970s, and the third was the post-Cold War era when nuclear conflict appeared to be in abeyance.
Those Glasnost arms control treaties saw the number of warheads drop from 70,000 to less than 10,000 between 1986 and January this year. But they are on the rise again, and former US president Barack Obama’s vision of “a world without nuclear weapons” is receding.
China is forging ahead with its nuclear arsenal, building it up from a few hundred to potentially 1,000 warheads within five years. North Korea is boosting its nuclear programme with missiles that can reach California.
Europe is also rearming, with Britain increasing its number of warheads from 225 to 260. Rather than only having a submarine-launched deterrent, the UK might also purchase F-35A fighters capable of delivering a bomb by air.
America’s Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles will be replaced with the Sentinel system, and the US Air Force will upgrade its B-2 Spirit bombers, which struck Iran’s nuclear programme in June, to the advanced stealth B-21 Raiders.
It is also developing the W93 warhead to be housed on its new Columbia-class submarines, the first addition to the US nuclear arsenal since the 1980s, after doubling the budget at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the last five years.
Israel, with an estimated 100 warheads, is currently the only nuclear-armed country in the Middle East, and it intends to ensure Iran does not follow suit.
Small yield
Nuclear warfare experts have concluded that, in 2025, nuclear arms control is in a parlous state.
The grim lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “are fading into the background” 80 years on, said Dr Marion Messmer, nuclear proliferation expert at the Chatham House think tank.
“We're at a point where you have various voices advocating that nuclear war can be fought and escalation can be contained,” she said.
“But if you look at the impact of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the radiation damage and long-term consequences survivors had to live with, that's a really dangerous path to go down.”
This is especially worrying when there is serious discussion about using low-yield weapons alongside the “feasibility of controlling a nuclear exchange”, said Darya Dolzikova, nuclear proliferation expert at the Rusi tank think.
“There is a valid question over whether nuclear use can stay limited, but that's a very hard thing to argue, as you run the risk of escalation fairly quickly. That limited nuclear use is unlikely to stay limited.”
The passage of time from the 1945 bombings made it easy to forget that “we are talking about inflicting a catastrophe on human beings”, she added. There has also been a “normalisation that we live in a nuclear world” with the number of global active warheads now at 9,614.
It is lamentable that the massive impact of a nuclear strike on civilians, something in the forefront of people’s minds during the Cold War, “appears to have been forgotten”, Dr Messmer said, “especially as we have so many different potential escalation pathways now”.
Leaking umbrella
There is also growing concern that America’s promise to protect its allies under a nuclear umbrella is weakening, leading those countries sheltering under it, such as South Korea and Japan, to seek their own weapons for deterrence against North Korea or China.
There is also a debate over whether Europe’s only nuclear powers, France and Britain, are enough to deter a Russian attack.
“It's unsurprising that both France and Britain have been in conversations about the value of enhancing Europe's own nuclear deterrence,” said Brig Ben Barry, nuclear proliferation expert at the IISS think tank. If the current outlook is bleak, the “only solace”, he argued, is that nuclear deterrence has prevented major war for the past 80 years, “but at the moment it’s as on edge as it's ever been”.
Hamish de Bretton Gordon, who commanded a British army specialist nuclear regiment, said: “We're arguably in the most precarious nuclear position that we have been in the last 80 years.
“There’s a lot of people now with their fingers on the red button.”
Positives
But there are some positives gained from the past eight decades, with at least three countries persuaded to give up weapons programmes. South Africa did so in 1989 as apartheid was ending. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to dismantle 1,700 warheads, which was then the world’s third-biggest stockpile, and, in 2003, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi agreed to terminate his nuclear programme.
However, the last two countries were invaded, with a big question mark over whether that would have happened if they had been nuclear-armed.
That reinforces the argument for America’s nuclear umbrella, said Brig Barry. But he also warned that if there is a limited nuclear exchange – and Armageddon does not ensue – other countries may decide they want their own.
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Paper lanterns are pushed out onto the Motoyasu River close to the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the world's first nuclear attack by the US on Japan on August 6, 1945. AFP -
Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui, right, places a list of atomic bomb victims in the cenotaph during the Peace Memorial Ceremony at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. EPA -
Doves fly over the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan, to commemorate the advent of nuclear war on August 6, 1945. Reuters -
A mother and her child float a paper lantern on the Motoyasu River in Hiroshima, Japan. EPA -
Floral wreaths at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. AFP -
Visitors at the Atomic Bomb Dome at sunset on August 6, the 80th anniversary of the US using nuclear weapons. Getty Images -
People pray before the cenotaph at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. EPA -
Doves are released at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. EPA
“Especially if the US is less interested in deterring the foes of its allies, that will increase the anxiety of countries that might otherwise have foresworn nuclear weapons,” he added.
But Ms Dolzikova also argued that with the International Atomic Energy Agency retaining its role, “there are still tools available, and alarms in place” to prevent nuclear proliferation.
“We need to look at micro risk-reduction opportunities and making sure the lines of communication are open to ensure we don’t ever get a repeat of 1945,” she added.
