General Invitation – All Welcome

Reflections on the Atomic Age

By Professor Joseph M. Siracusa

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia (with Commentary by Dr Rosita Dellios and Dr Malcolm Davis, Bond University)

ABSTRACT

The awe-struck men who stood in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945, were reduced to introspection by the enormous mushroom cloud that filled the sky. Most of them recognized they had witnessed a turning point in the history of human civilization, for they had let the nuclear genie out of the bottle with little likelihood of putting it back. They had built an atomic bomb with the hope of ending a war, but reaped history’s unintended consequences. More than any other weapon humankind had yet unleashed, nuclear weapons were designed not to target just military forces but urban-industrial centers as well. Because they could protect as they threatened the very essence of life on earth, past nuclear weapons strategies often appeared bizarre as any use projected global devastation. Since 1945 critics of the bomb have expressed alarm that the spread of nuclear weapons will inevitably lead to worldwide destruction. So far, that prediction has not been proved right, but is that due, borrowing a phrase from former secretary of state Dean Acheson after the Cuban Missile Crisis, to just plain dumb luck? Or is it, due to the growing realization that nuclear weapons possessed inherently limited political and military utility, therefore, abstaining from their use was the only sane policy? The nine current members of the nuclear weapon club - the U.S., Russia, Great Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea - today possess thousands of operational nuclear weapons of various types among them. Additionally, at least another 15 countries have on hand enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. But the question remains: What does a nation do with the bomb once it has it? It is a question all members of the nuclear club have confronted at one time or another. Most national nuclear weapons programs thus far have had as their objective simply having the bomb, not using it. Why divert so much in the way of national resources to developing a weapon that is politically limited and theoretically self-deterring? Security and prestige are the most frequently cited justifications for national nuclear ambitions but neither of those ends is served by actual use. In fact, during the post-Nagasaki era, the bomb acquired such a political or moral stigma that security and prestige would likely be rapidly undone for any nation that broke the nuclear taboo and actually used an atomic or nuclear weapon against an adversary. But how long will this taboo govern the use of nuclear weaponry?

When

12 April 2013
11:00am - 12:00pm

Where

Robina, QLD, Australia
Location: Seminar 1, Level 4 of the Humanities Building, (Room 1a_4_41)

Contact Information

Further details or inquiries:

Please contact Dr R. James Ferguson
by email at james_ferguson@bond.edu.au