How Nuclear Weapons changed the World? Explores the development and use of nuclear weapons. Currently, nine countries possess nuclear capabilities. They include the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. As of the start of the decade, these countries held approximately 13,400 warheads. Of those, about 3,720 are deployed with operational forces. While the number of nuclear weapons has decreased since the 1950s, the threat of war remains.
With the introduction of nuclear weapons, the relationship between military force and political influence has completely changed. No longer can the Soviet Union attack the United States or use a nuclear weapon against a nation. It is difficult to say when nuclear weapons will cease to be needed. Yet the Soviet Union and China are both nuclear powers. They have been able to deter each other with the aid of the United States and Britain. Indeed, the United States continues to help Britain keep their deterrent forces intact.
The United States and the Soviet Union are closely watching the development of nuclear weapons. The two nations reached approximately parity in terms of nuclear power and security. Thus, neither nation could strike the other without risking a counterstrike. The benefits of using nuclear weapons in a proxy war diminished drastically. Hence, in the early 1960s, President Eisenhower considered a nuclear option to negotiate a cease-fire with North Korea, but later decided against it.
The use of atomic energy created monsters in Japan. The movie Godzilla (1954) referenced the actual event when a Japanese trawler crew was exposed to radiation. Godzilla’s devastation of Tokyo looked like a documentary. Another film about nuclear weapons is Them! (1954). The movie is based on real events. The US military dropped atomic bombs over Japan at the end of World War Two.
The number of nuclear weapons and their precise means of delivery were well known. But the coexistence between nuclear facts and nuclear strategy remained problematic. It was unclear how many nuclear weapons each country would be able to deploy, how to deliver them, and how they would be used. Yet, despite the uneasy coexistence between these two factors, both sides fought nuclear wars. In the end, this was the best course of action.
The spread of nuclear weapons led to a second nuclear revolution, which was perhaps more complicated and complex than the first. A stylized standoff in the Cold War had been replaced by a world with few safeguards. States fought routinely and had nuclear weapons. In addition, small weapons could be smuggled into countries. Nuclear issues had returned to the strategic discussion and were the subject of serious strategic thought.
The U.S. nuclear arsenal remained relatively unchanged for several decades, but the types of weapons and their ranges had changed significantly. This change in posture reflected negotiated arms control limits, U.S. objectives, and the limits of nuclear weapons. The U.S. arsenal’s evolution is reflected in the current nuclear force posture. It is important to note that these weapons are still highly effective in deterring potential adversaries.
Since 1945, the explosive yield of nuclear weapons has increased exponentially. As a result, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs changed the nature of war and the balance of power. The Hiroshima bomb killed 70,000 people instantly and thousands of more over the following years. Fortunately, it ended World War II, but nuclear weapons are far from useless. For now, the question remains: how nuclear weapons changed the World?
The humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons testing continue to be studied. New research reveals the long-term health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons. Some of these impacts have sex and age-division-diverse impacts. Furthermore, many communities are still unprepared for the consequences of nuclear weapons testing. In this regard, there is a need to develop and share information about the long-term impacts of nuclear weapons.