History of Nuclear Weapons
Second World War
The world’s first nuclear test was conducted on 16 July 1945 by the United States. It took place in Alamogordo, in the desert of New Mexico, and was codenamed ‘Trinity’.
The test was a result of a top-secret programme, The Manhattan Project, which began in 1942 with the aim of building a nuclear bomb. Over the next few years production and research facilities were set up all over the United States (US). This work took place amid fears from some scientists that Hitler’s Germany might be developing nuclear weapons. But not all agreed. Joseph Rotblat, a physicist and refugee from Poland, resigned from the Manhattan Project in 1944 when he discovered this was not the case. He was then banned from the US for the next 20 years.
Just three weeks after the test, on 6 August, a nuclear bomb was used against an enemy for the first time. The US exploded a uranium device, called ‘Little Boy’, approximately 2000 ft above the Japanese city of Hiroshima killing around 140,000 people. On 9 August a second nuclear bomb, this time a plutonium device called ’Fat Man’, was exploded at the same height above the city of Nagasaki with around 74,000 deaths. The second world war was at an end and the nuclear age had begun.
In January 1946, the General assembly of the newly-formed United Nations (UN) passed its very first resolution. It called for “the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction”. Despite the UN resolution, many countries began research into exactly those weapons by carrying out nuclear tests.
The Cold War
From the 1950s until the end of the 1980s there were two ‘superpowers’ in the world – the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR). The nuclear arsenals of the two grew and grew. Initially the US had far more warheads but by the 1980s the Soviets had overtaken them. In 1956, the number of warheads on the planet was just over 5,000 with the US having 4,600, the USSR 400 and Britain 15. Thirty years later, in 1986, the figure was over 65,000 with all but a thousand held by the US and USSR.
The two superpowers justified this build-up of warheads by saying that the threat to the other side of massive retaliation was enough to ensure that they would never be used. This theory is known as ‘deterrence’ and it says that, because of the terrible consequences to both sides of a nuclear war, neither side would risk starting one. The situation became known as ‘mutually assured destruction’ (with the rather appropriate acronym of MAD). However, because of the deep suspicion on both sides, there were countless instances of occasions when nuclear war almost happened by accident. There are accounts of missiles being on alert after radar screens picked up what was thought to be an attack. These usually turned out to be things like flocks of birds. Even after the Cold War, the dangers of an accident are still there. As recently as 1995, the Russians spotted an unidentified ballistic missile over Norway possibly heading straight for them. The nuclear briefcase carried by President Boris Yeltsin was activated for the first time. Russian submarines carrying ballistic nuclear missiles went to battle stations. With just a few minutes to spare, the missile was finally identified as a research rocket.
This was also the time that the idea of a ‘four-minute warning’ took hold. Basically, it was thought that, in the event of a nuclear war, a warning siren would sound indicating that the human race had four minutes left in which to live.
Hope and fear
Things looked better when, in 1958 both the US and the Soviet Union agreed to stop nuclear testing (called a ‘moratorium’). Unfortunately, this did not last and in 1961 both countries began testing again. Rather strangely, at the same time they signed the ‘Joint Statement of Agreed Principles for Disarmament Negotiations’ that set out a programme for general and complete disarmament.
However, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 very nearly provoked a nuclear war. The Soviet Union was placing nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from the US coast at Florida. This was said to be in response to US nuclear missiles being placed in Turkey, close to the Soviet border. Both sides took huge chances, risking the whole future of the planet. There was enormous relief when the Soviets stepped back at the last moment. The US missiles were then withdrawn from Turkey. One good thing to come out of this scare was the setting up of the first telephone hotline between Washington and Moscow.
The first of the Strategic Arms limitations Talks (SALT) between the US and Soviet Union began in Vienna in 1970. As often happens in nuclear history, seemingly contradictory things happen at the same time. Just a few months after the SALT talks began, the US deployed its first missile with independently targeted warheads. This means that when one missile is fired, each warhead can be fired at a different target.
A shift in perspective
Relations between East and West took a turn for the better when Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet leader in 1985. He revived negotiations to get rid of the whole class of weapons that included Cruise and SS-20s and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) was finally signed at the end of 1987. This was the first treaty to actually get rid of existing weapons. Gorbachev’s reforms led over the next few years to the end of the Cold War, the reunification of Germany, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe and finally the collapse of the Soviet Union. People began to feel safer.
Once again, those fears returned in 1991 during the first Gulf War. There was great concern that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) could be used. It was thought that Iraq could use chemical or biological weapons on Israel, which might then retaliate with nuclear weapons. But although Iraq did indeed fire Scud missiles into Israel, they had what is known as a conventional warhead (a warhead that has ‘normal’ explosives and not nuclear, chemical or biological materials).
In July 1996 the International Court of Justice (ICJ), known as the World Court, gave an advisory opinion on nuclear weapons. This was done at the request of the UN. The ICJ made many judgements but perhaps the most important one said that it was illegal for a country to use nuclear weapons unless the very existence of that country was at stake. Sadly, this was ignored and the nuclear weapon states did nothing to show that they accepted or even acknowledged the opinion.
New concerns
One of the reasons claimed by India and Pakistan for not signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was that it did not push the nuclear weapon states into disarming. They used similar arguments for not signing the NPT. So it came as no real surprise when, in 1998 India began a series of nuclear tests at Pokharan in the Rajasthan desert. Pakistan responded with tests of its own at Chagai in Baluchistan. What was even more worrying for the world was that these two countries have been in dispute over the territory of Kashmir for many years. Indeed, they have gone to war three times since 1947. This is the only time that two such bitter neighbours, who have fought each other in wars in the past, possessed nuclear weapons.
At the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in 2000, the nuclear weapon states signed a document outlining thirteen steps towards nuclear disarmament. It included the following:
“An unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States parties are committed under Article VI.”
The world’s media announced that we were going to see the end of nuclear weapons. At the time of writing (July 2004) this could be seen as an optimistic view.
The US government published a document in 2002, the Nuclear Posture Review, which included examples of when the US would use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states (countries that do not possess nuclear weapons). In the build up to the war on Iraq in 2003 Britain made comments about the option of using nuclear weapons in response to a chemical or biological attack on British troops. This was despite the fact that assurances have been given to non-nuclear states that they would not be attacked with nuclear weapons.
Further Reading: ‘Hiroshima Documents Posted by National Security Archive’ http://comeclean.org.uk/articles.php?articleID=118
