Donald Trump and the Hiroshima effect

The President’s visit to Hiroshima last month, site of the first atomic bomb ever dropped, is a grim reminder of the consequences of nuclear war.  So horrendous was the destruction and the pictures of those who survived, that after Nagasaki was nuked three days later, no more nuclear weapons have been used since 1945.  The graphic videos shown around his visit of the consequences  of nuclear weapons should remind us of the reasons why increasing that probability of such use is a formula for ours and others’  self-destruction since so many others have already acquired that retaliatory intercontinental capability. It is also a reminder of why Donald Trump’s proposal to arm Japan and South Korea with nuclear weapons and to cancel or try to renegotiate the Iran deal would open the dam to an arms race, especially in the Middle East.

For the post 1945 succeeding generations, most of the world pursued nuclear disarmament agreements to limit the ability to produce it and to get agreements with nations who did not yet  have nuclear military capability to attain it.  So long as rational leaders understand the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, we may have a shot at preventing such catastrophes.  North Korea is right now the exception and its leadership could be considered irrational.

 Iran was knocking at the door with predictions it would be nuclear weaponized in three months.   The nuclear disarmament agreement with Iran has been attacked by Pres. Obama’s domestic opponents as a bad one because it did not require Iran to cave in on its terrorist activities or to forswear attacking Israel. There was a great deal of doubt if Iran would comply in spite of the historically stringent verification measures in the agreement. So far it appears Iran has lived up to the requirements of the agreement.

There is also fear that the more countries who have nuclear weapons, the easier it is to spread the capability to other countries who would have no scruples in  using them.  There is a direct line to North Korea from Pakistan’s rogue scientists.  The fear is real. It has happened.

That same fear was the main rationale driving the United States to launch the attack on Iraq.  WMD were never found. Use of small scale and nuclear weapons and primitive “dirty” bombs has fed current fears as well. What if the terrorists in Paris used a dirty bomb instead of automatic weapons? Many more would have been killed and injured.

US foreign policy has worked hard to keep the world safe from nuclear destruction. What Trump is proposing is an irrational break from our policies in effect since World War II. For those of us long in tooth remember the fear of a nuclear war in the Cold War, the drive to build back yard bunkers or drills in schools ducking under desks to survive a nuclear attack.  In the Cuban missile crisis, I was tense sitting at my desk in New York City fearing that I might be vaporized.  It was real to me but subsequent generations have no such memories thanks to nuclear disarmament agreements.  The prospect of Donald Trump’s finger on the nuclear button and his nuclear proliferating foreign policy is personally frightening.