When U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev met in Geneva in 1985, they agreed that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” It was a prelude to the end of the Cold War nuclear arms race and the subsequent drastic reductions in the arsenals of the United States, the Soviet Union, and later Russia.
Since then, the original five nuclear-weapon states have reaffirmed this statement, most recently in 2022.
But others disagree, recalling military strategies from the 1950s that envisioned militaries using nuclear weapons on the battlefield to win wars. As a recent example, former Trump administration official David Lasseter said, “The Department of Defense (DOD) is doing almost enough to ensure that America’s warfighters can fight, survive, and win on the nuclear battlefield.” I haven’t done it,” he claimed.
The timing of these comments could not be more inconvenient. The Nobel Peace Prize comes as the Nobel Peace Prize is about to be awarded to Nippon Hidankyo, an organization of atomic bomb survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for their lifelong work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. weapons.
The 1945 atomic bomb that killed more than 200,000 people in Japan would today be called a “tactical” nuclear weapon. Survivors of those “tactical” nuclear weapons are the real experts on what nuclear war means. They crawled through the rubble of the world’s first, and thankfully only, nuclear war. It is indeed ironic that armchair warriors, especially those associated with nuclear weapons manufacturing companies, advocate strategies based on unproven theory rather than real experience.
A-bomb survivors alive today were children when their cities were destroyed by the American atomic bomb 80 years ago. Their average age is now 86 years old.
Sumiteru Taniguchi, who died in 2017, was 16 years old when Nagasaki was attacked. He was riding his bicycle at the time of the explosion. “At the moment of the explosion, I was blown off the bike from behind and slammed to the ground,” he recalled. When he looked up, he saw that the children who had been playing around him earlier were dead.
He suffered severe burns and the wound quickly became infected. He spent almost four years in the hospital recovering from his injuries, which included lying on his stomach for 21 months. He subsequently had to undergo 10 surgeries to remove tumors from the scarred area of his body. The pain and discomfort from the injury never went away.
It is estimated that 38,000 children died in the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fact that so many children were killed, seriously injured, and otherwise harmed in this attack, such as Taniguchi, who served for many years as president of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Victims Council, He served as president of the Atomic Bomb Victims Council for many years, and inspired survivors to dedicate their lives to their work. We will make sure no one ever has to suffer like they did again.
The testimonies of survivors vividly demonstrate that the idea that nuclear war can be waged and won on the battlefield is a dangerous and grotesque nonsense that makes nuclear war even more likely. As Annie Jokovsen’s recent book Nuclear War: A Scenario reveals, the use of nuclear weapons could rapidly escalate, resulting in not only tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths in the vicinity of the explosion, but also private attacks. It would spark a massive war that would end the world as we know it. It only takes a few minutes. It would cause a nuclear winter, leading to the collapse of food production, starvation, and the death of billions of people. The impact on global biodiversity and economies is almost impossible to imagine.
In response to Russia’s nuclear threat during the Ukraine conflict, Terumi Tanaka, co-representative of Nippon Hidankyo, who was 13 years old when the Nagasaki atomic bomb was dropped, said that the use of nuclear weapons would mean “the end of humanity” and, like President Putin, said: He said the leaders “don’t understand the extent of the damage that could be caused.”
Leaders of all nuclear-armed states should ignore the sirens that tell them they can wage and win a nuclear war and instead listen to the voices of hibakusha who urge them to dismantle their weapons before it is too late. It is.
After being informed that Nippon Hidankyo had won the Peace Prize, another co-chairman, Toshiyuki Mimaki from Hiroshima, said that the award would help move closer to the abolition of nuclear weapons, adding, “This is a great opportunity to advocate for the Peace Prize. It will be a strength,” he said. Nuclear weapons must be completely abolished so that the world can achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons. ”
Hibakusha took a major step toward this goal by playing a leading role in creating the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). This treaty completely prohibits nuclear weapons and all related activities. It will go into effect in 2021, and half of the country has already signed or ratified it.
The TPNW provides a pathway under international law for all nuclear-weapon states to dismantle their weapons. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize emphasizes that the governments of these countries have no more excuses and must listen to Japan Hidankyo and hibakusha, join the treaty, and dismantle their arsenals. .
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
