Nuclear war is no fair
You and everyone you know is dead. Your family, your friends, your pets, your employer, your employees, your neighbors. The land is barren, the greatest of trees are smoldering sticks and homes and buildings are reduced to rubble and ash. The stage was already set for this and the parties that have gotten us to this point, well most of them are dead too, but a select few of them have survived in bunkers. Yay for them. It doesn’t have to be this way and it might not be if we make better choices.
The fact that nuclear weapons exist at all is the most insane fact. Not that any of the methods and technology of war leading up to the advent of nuclear destruction , methods that are employed around the globe daily, is justifiable, because it is not.
While the use of nuclear weapons might make most of us and our civilization extinct, many of us owe our potentially fleeting existence to nuclear weapons. I sure might, when considering the prevailing justification for the only to-date use of nuclear weapons and both of my grandfathers’ time in the Pacific in WWII. The official US narrative is that the dropping of nuclear bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was Truman’s only option to end the war other than a ground invasion of Japan and that a ground invasion would have killed a very significant portion of the American male population. We dropped the 2 bombs, killing between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians. Whether these were truly the only options as the war was already won and the bombs were a sort of ethnic-mass killing of Truman’s and a message to the Soviet Union (an ally at war turned adversary at ‘peace’) is debated, but that is not what this is about.
The existence and widespread proliferation of nukes is such an insane fact that we compartmentalize it and kind of force ourselves to forget about mutually assured destruction because it is unpleasant to think about or we pretend that it is not as horrific as we know it is. People tell themselves and each other that there is ‘nothing we can do about it’ which I hear all the time and quite frankly, I am tired of hearing.
Take a look at this video. A woman explains to NYC residents what they should be doing in the event of the ‘big one’. The advice was to get inside and stay inside as close to the middle of a building as possible, to get clean if you were outside during the blast and to stay tuned to local media. While the steps promoted in this video might apply to those outside the blast radius, I think a more realistic PSA for those within New York City after a nuclear strike would have told people to think whatever final positive thoughts or prayers they could while their flesh melts and their brains boil inside of their skulls, but perhaps this video is for the event of a nuclear strike in New Jersey or Philadelphia?
I think videos like this exist to downplay the severity of nuclear war. They plant the subconscious seeds that it’s not almost guaranteed extinction for most of us once bombs start falling. I’ve seen many articles in the last year or so downplaying the severity as well. This type of propaganda went hand in hand with consent manufacturing for tit for tat US driven escalations in the Ukraine war such as ‘non-defensive’ arms to Ukraine, the mystery sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, eventually sending long-range missiles to Ukraine after the world’s attention was diverted to the Middle East, all of which are insane escalatory measures taken by US leadership which bring us closer to nuclear war.
Concerning the long range missiles to Ukraine, Peter Dickinson of pro-war think tank, the Atlantic Council, states that the guiding philosophy behind these escalatory measures rely on Russian restraint:
The Kremlin has long insisted that the supply of ATACMS missiles to Ukraine represents a red line. However, Russia has issued similar warnings repeatedly during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but has yet to back up its threats with concrete action. On numerous occasions since February 2022, Russian officials have declared that the delivery of everything from anti-tank weapons and artillery shells to tanks and cruise missiles are all red lines. Each time a red line is crossed without consequence, Russia’s credibility is further eroded. All eyes will now be on Moscow to see if the crossing of this latest red line will produce a major response.
I just think its really unfair . Humanity has incredible potential to collaboratively solve its problems and live in peace. As I have continued to say, I think that if these particular problems between these sets of warring populations is solvable and that we can solve all of it. First we have to foster a culture of humanization, de-escalation and population de-traumatization combined with public pressure to avoid war and to renew old conversations about nuclear non-proliferation. But all our government seems to be able to foster is a culture of militarism and escalation. We are better than that.
