BY PETER YOUNG

At this time of year, I normally write about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is in remembrance of the total horror - but necessity - of the use of atom bombs to force the ending of the Second World War. This year is their 80th anniversary. 

It is also a compelling reminder of the need to avoid and prevent deployment of a nuclear weapon again which could destroy the world.

On August 6, 1945, the US dropped an atom bomb on the city of Hiroshima. It followed up with another bigger and more powerful one on Nagasaki three days later. These were the first such deployments ever in warfare and there have been none since then.

Both these heavily populated urban areas were obliterated by the catastrophic impact of single such bombs. The official figures show that 214,000 people perished in the blasts. 

The aftereffects of toxic radioactivity and, later, development of cancer, particularly leukaemia, lasted much longer for survivors who had been maimed and even their offspring and rescuers. These effects have spanned generations and are still being felt today.

The momentous decision by the then US president, Harry Truman, to use the atom bomb caused huge controversy on ethical, moral and even military grounds after the US progressively drove Japanese military forces out of the Pacific islands they were occupying. But the eventual consensus was that, in the circumstances, it was the right course of action to take in order to force Japan to surrender and bring the war to a close, the war in Europe having already ended in May the same year.

It is argued by historians that Truman’s decision was justified in order to avoid the mass casualties that would have resulted from an invasion of the mainland, on which the US was already conducting conventional bombing raids, including on Tokyo. 

What is more, the Allies had earlier warned Japan through the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the required terms of a surrender, that Japan’s failure to give up would result in “prompt and utter destruction.”

Many people now believe that, in a modern world with various countries holding nuclear arsenals rather than just the two main powers (plus Britain) - the US and former USSR during the Cold War - the likelihood of their being used again, even carelessly or inadvertently, has become that much greater. 

Those in any doubt that the future deployment of nuclear weapons, now even more sophisticated and lethal than ever, should be prevented would do well to study the terrible effects of these atom bombs dropped in 1945.

Historians maintain that for a number of years after WW2 while the world gradually recovered, people remained in such shock about Hiroshima and Nagasaki – let alone enormous relief the war was finally over -- that little sustained thought was given to devising an international strategy to ban nuclear weapons in the future. 

However, there were dedicated anti-nuclear activists who mounted sustained protests. There have also always been, of course, official memorial ceremonies in a number of countries in addition to Japan itself.

In succeeding years, the United Nations has been at the forefront of efforts to advance nuclear disarmament. It has made this a priority objective. 

Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, several of the major nuclear powers pledged their co-operation in stemming the spread of nuclear technology. 

Although this international treaty did not prevent nuclear proliferation, it was nonetheless judged to have been a major success for advocates of arms control because it set a precedent for co-operation about nuclear matters amongst states; and the general hope was that other more comprehensive agreements would be forthcoming.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which was a multilateral pact that banned all nuclear test explosions, followed in the 1990s. 

It was designed to prevent development of new nuclear weapons or upgrades of existing ones. By 2024, this was signed by 71 nations including those possessing nuclear weapons.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, was established in 2007. It is a coalition of non-governmental organisations dedicated to the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. 

According to reports, it helped to push through the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in 2021. Unsurprisingly, none of the 9 states possessing such weapons – US, Russia, China, France, UK, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea - has agreed to sign it.

ICAN describes nuclear weapons as the most inhumane, indiscriminate and dangerous on earth. They violate international law and cause severe and catastrophic harm and damage to humans and the environment. 

Just one can destroy a whole city and potentially kill millions.

So is it any surprise in the modern unstable world of aggressive dictators that even mention of the use of nuclear weapons sends shivers down people’s spines. 

With nine nuclear-armed states the world has become a more dangerous place. 

At the most, such weapons should be kept for the purpose of ultimate deterrence alone. 

It was, after all, the threat of mutual destruction between the US and the then Soviet Union that kept the overall peace during the Cold War.