Really?
Nuclear weapons are useless? Well, yeah, if you swallow the author's arguments.
The author of this specious blurb, Ashutosh Jogalekar, relies on a book by Ward Wilson entitled, Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons.
For one of these "myths:"
People believe that the dropping of atom bombs on two cities in Japan precipitated the end of World War II in the Pacific and saved uncountable lives, both Japanese and American, which would have been lost by an invasion of Japan.
The two authors, Jogalekar and Wilson, argue that the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were essentially no more effective than the conventional bombs already rained all over Japan by American bombers, and that Emperor Hirohito merely used the nuclear attack as an excuse for unconditional surrender to "save face" (national pride), as if the Japanese leaders had not noticed the difference between fire-bombing and nuclear holocaust. The authors imply, probably unintentionally, that atom bombs were horrific enough to justify abject surrender, as did Hirohito. In fact, the only faces Hirohito saved were those of American soldiers, young Japanese fighters, their women and their children.
We've heard such intellectualized armchair quarterbacking before, as when scholars claimed that even though Truman knew the war would be won by the United States, he dropped the Bomb to intimidate our future enemy--Soviet Russia--as in Don't Tread on Me--or, Don't Fuck With Us.
This may have crossed Truman's mind, but no one really knows his reasoning. It's all conjecture, most like halftime of the Super Bowl, when everyone heads to the kitchen to snack and crack another beer, with nothing else to do but talk.
Cold reality will intrude very shortly.
We've heard such intellectualized armchair quarterbacking before, as when scholars claimed that even though Truman knew the war would be won by the United States, he dropped the Bomb to intimidate our future enemy--Soviet Russia--as in Don't Tread on Me--or, Don't Fuck With Us.
This may have crossed Truman's mind, but no one really knows his reasoning. It's all conjecture, most like halftime of the Super Bowl, when everyone heads to the kitchen to snack and crack another beer, with nothing else to do but talk.
Cold reality will intrude very shortly.
The second "myth" these authors try to deconstruct is the belief that nuclear weapons are a deterrence to war with hostile nations.They cite the Cuban missal crisis as the most famous example of "close calls" to prove that deterrence doesn't keep us safe because there have been a lots of "close calls," while admitting that it worked "by a very slim margin." This is an extremely weak argument. "Close call" is another term for "no cigar." In other words, nothing happened; there was no war. And, in the case of Cuba, the absence of war was not because Nikita Krushchev didn't like our neighborhood, or balked at the expense of building missal sites to threaten us.
Jogalekar's other favorite argument against the effectiveness of deterrence is Sherman's burning of Atlanta near the end of the Civil War. He claims that Sherman's march through the heart of the South did little to deter the fighting spirit of the Southern rebels, as if Confederate soldiers weren't worried about their families back home. Try that argument on Robert E. Lee when he decided that it would be best to surrender.
Finally, Jogalekar compares nuclear weapons to the inherent violence of Tyrannosaurus Rex (a useless dinosaur, obsolete and extinct--get it?). And, he goes on. Pop your eyes on this statement: "One could imagine a use for such a creature in extreme situations...".
Really? In what situation would we make use of a T-rex, with its animal brain? I assume that a T-rex could not be domesticated, like a hunting dog.
In contrast, nuclear weapons HAVE been domesticated. They have not been out of the house since 1945, shortly after they were invented, thanks to the control of the dominant nation on the planet, run by HUMAN brains.
I see that Jogalekar has quite the imagination, warped beyond reality. He argues a lot about what DIDN'T happen (like those "close calls" at halftime).
What DID happen was that Japan surrendered within days of absorbing a devastating atomic attack, and we never went to war against Soviet Russia over Cuba.
Cold reality intrudes again.
Jogalekar's other favorite argument against the effectiveness of deterrence is Sherman's burning of Atlanta near the end of the Civil War. He claims that Sherman's march through the heart of the South did little to deter the fighting spirit of the Southern rebels, as if Confederate soldiers weren't worried about their families back home. Try that argument on Robert E. Lee when he decided that it would be best to surrender.
Finally, Jogalekar compares nuclear weapons to the inherent violence of Tyrannosaurus Rex (a useless dinosaur, obsolete and extinct--get it?). And, he goes on. Pop your eyes on this statement: "One could imagine a use for such a creature in extreme situations...".
Really? In what situation would we make use of a T-rex, with its animal brain? I assume that a T-rex could not be domesticated, like a hunting dog.
In contrast, nuclear weapons HAVE been domesticated. They have not been out of the house since 1945, shortly after they were invented, thanks to the control of the dominant nation on the planet, run by HUMAN brains.
I see that Jogalekar has quite the imagination, warped beyond reality. He argues a lot about what DIDN'T happen (like those "close calls" at halftime).
What DID happen was that Japan surrendered within days of absorbing a devastating atomic attack, and we never went to war against Soviet Russia over Cuba.
Cold reality intrudes again.
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