Living in the shadow of nuclear atrocity

The world’s first – and only – nuclear attacks, in August 1945, were credited with forcing Japan’s stubborn wartime government to surrender. But the bombs killed more than 200,000 innocent civilians, many of whom only succumbed after the prolonged agony of radiation sickness.

Survivors of the attack continue to suffer, carrying permanent scars and chronic illnesses in addition to nightmare memories that will haunt them to the end.

The United States Air Force dropped the bomb on Hiroshima on August 6 and then targeted Nagasaki three days later. Less than a week after that, on August 15, Japan surrendered, bringing an end to the global war.

Some historians hold that the twin nuclear attack helped prevent an even greater death toll that would have resulted from a planned land invasion of Imperial Japan. Others argue that the atomic bombing was unnecessary because Japan was already facing imminent defeat. The decision to unleash atomic weapons and their role in Japan’s surrender remain a fierce point of contention.

One unexpected impact of the bombings was that they became an important deterrent against the future use of nuclear weapons. Global public opinion has been awakened to a terrifying power that has the potential to wipe out humanity.

The United States reportedly considered using nuclear weapons again during its wars in Korea and Vietnam, but concern over a global backlash seemingly outweighed the imperatives of military strategy.

“You have got to understand that this isn’t a military weapon,” US president Harry Truman said in the early 1950s, though he had earlier sanctioned the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. “It is used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses. So we have got to treat this differently from rifles and cannon and ordinary things like that.” 

Truman’s view of nuclear weapons seemed to shift after he witnessed the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings – and possibly also growing public opposition to nukes.

At a memorial ceremony in Hiroshima last week, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan would submit a fresh resolution at the United Nations General Assembly later this year to abolish nuclear weapons. “As the only country ever attacked by an atomic bomb, we have a mission to create a world without nuclear arms,” he said. “We have been tasked with conveying the inhumanity of nuclear weapons, across generations and borders.”

Wars are often started by a handful of leaders seeking victory at any cost, but it is innocent civilians who usually suffer most in the bloody chaos that follows.

In the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s horror, nuclear weapons have proliferated but have never since been used. The global abhorrence at their effects stands as a powerful deterrent to leaders of nuclear-armed nations. The true way to honour and commemorate the victims of the attacks in August seven decades ago would be to strengthen this taboo as a guard against any future nuclear atrocity.