The radicals

There are radicals afoot. Men and women with strange, unlikely new ideas that could lead us astray. Wild-eyed dreamers who want to remake reality based on their own confused view of the world. They have developed a theory that they fervently believe in and now they want to stuff it down the throats of the world. Radicals: emotional, fervent, dreamers.

Shortly after nuclear weapons were invented, this crowd told us that the history of the world had been divided into two ages: the prenuclear and the nuclear. They told us that everything was different. They told us that war was no longer possible, that nations with nuclear weapons would never be attacked, could never be bested in war, that nuclear weapons invested their possessors with mighty diplomatic suasion - all sorts of drastic changes had been made to the way the world worked.

Well, none of that turned out to be true. The Atomic Age looks and feels pretty much like the pre-Atomic Age. Nations still fight wars. The US and the Russians both lost wars, despite possessing the "ultimate" weapon (Vietnam and Afghanistan.) As England and Israel can attest (Yom Kippur War, Falklands War) possessing nuclear weapons doesn't prevent you from being attacked - even by countries that don't have nuclear weapons. The US doesn't regularly get its way diplomatically. And war doesn't seem to be impossible - far from it.

Where nuclear weapons are concerned we have to be conservatives. We have to reject the notion that history has radical jumps and shifts, that there can be sudden, cataclysmic changes in the fabric of human experience.

Look at Hiroshima. Destroying cities has never won wars. Never, never, never. Three thousand years of experience with human conflict with nary an instance of a city destroyed and the other side capitulating. For Hiroshima to have coerced the Japanese into surrendering it would have to be the first time in history. That would be a shocking exception in the continuity of human experience. Of course, the radicals say, nodding their heads. Everything is different with nuclear weapons. It shouldn't surprise us if they break all the old rules.

In this matter, I am conservative. I believe in the evidence of history, not in the wild-eyed speculations of nuclear theorists. I think we are still fundamentally the same as we have always been. Nuclear weapons are impressive. They can blow up a lot of stuff. There is no doubt that they are dangerous, powerful weapons. But have they fundamentally changed the world? It doesn't seem as if they have.

If we believe the radicals - that nuclear weapons are so powerful that now everything is different, that all the old rules of human behavior are moot - then we have to bow down before nuclear weapons as omnipotent. But if, in this matter, we side with the conservatives, the ones who point out that destroying cities and killing civilians has never won wars, then we can argue that nuclear weapons aren't really that useful. And weapons that aren't really useful get banned.

In this matter, I'm a conservative.

Hiroshima, again

This year I've been interviewed a bunch of times on the radio around the anniversary of Hiroshima. Today I talked to C. S. Soong of "Against the Grain" on KPFA FM in Berkeley, CA. It's a very smart show and C.S. is a good interviewer. You can listen here. (I'm the second half of the show.)

Chicago Tribune

I wrote a piece about Hiroshima and its significance that's been published in the Opinion section of the Chicago Tribune. You can read it here.

It's a complicated thing trying to debunk one of the most pervasive myths of the twentieth century in 750 words but the editors were happy with it, and so am I.

Hiroshima day

August 6th was the 63rd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I was asked to speak by the Coalition for Peace Action - they held a wonderful picnic/poetry reading/music/serious talk/light talk event. The main speaker was Ambassador Thomas Graham who spoke eloquently about the need to support ratification of the Nonproliferation Treaty.

I was also interviewed for comments about Hiroshima by the English language radio arm of Agence France Presse, KKZZ AM radio in Ventura, CA, KPFK FM in Los Angeles, and KBOO FM in Oregon. Details on the appearances page.

I was also asked to write an opinion piece for the Chicago Tribune's Perspective section this Sunday about the significance of Hiroshima. It's a thrill to write a column for the Tribune, a paper with a storied past. And the guy there was really nice. My friend Michele has promised to buy up some actual paper copies at the corner and send me one. I'll post a link as soon as the Trib puts it up on their site. [Extree! Extree! Read all about it! Nuclear Bomb a Dud!]

Helena Cobban

Hellena Cobban asked one of the smart questions at the New America Foundation presentation (she used a word I had to go home and look up) I did, and she wrote about the event on her blog. Helena is a writer and researcher on global affairs who is both a Quaker and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. She previously wrote a column for the Christian Science Monitor and is currently a contributing editor for the Boston Review. You can read her account of the presentation at the New America Foundation here.