The decision to end the war quickly by dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified to the world as it was estimated to save up to a million lives. Was it? Probably. About 100,000 Japanese had been killed shortly beforehand from more conventional bombing of Tokyo. It certainly saved the lives of ten thousand Australians close to starvation in Japanese prisoner of war camps.
I was conceived just before the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan and grew up during the Cold War. Nobody was sure what would happen next.
Nobody can argue that nuclear weapons or nuclear weapon testing or indeed any form of war does not harm us all. The United States believes in deterrents. Are they right? Perhaps so. There has not been a nuclear bomb used in 75 years. William Perry believes we must still do all we can to remove nuclear weapons from our world and I agree.
How easy is it to make a nuclear bomb?
It is extremely difficult technically and extremely expensive both in money and energy terms.
In today’s dollars the cost to make enough fissile material runs into tens even hundreds of billions.
What about “dirty bombs”, bombs containing radioactive material. I read a comment from those responsible for clean-up and decontamination that it would be a simple, straightforward process.
Some of the information above came from my notes when I undertook courses from Stanford University online: “Living at the Nuclear Brink” by Dr. William J. Perry and “The Threat of Nuclear Terrorism”. These courses delved into these issues very intensively, but my notes are sparser. Dr. Perry and his associates did not underplay the threats of misuse of nuclear weapons.
My Blog has become My Nuclear Journey 