Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Power of the Atom
When the atom bomb flattened Hiroshima, the whole world changed. Already the belligerents in the Second World War had been far too happy bombing civilian targets to subdue the foe. From the poison gas of the First World War to V2 rockets and jet-powered fighters of the Second, the world witnessed science’s willingness to provide newer and more deadly weapons. Today I’m exploring not the weapons but the way we understand and react to them, the minds of all of us haunted by nuclear war.
When Nagasaki followed Hiroshima, the Second World War ended. Immediately we began to confront the specter of the next. If the Third World War was fought along the pattern of the Second, none of us would survive. Mankind had developed the ability to commit suicide. Have you ever stood at the edge of a cliff and felt the wild impulse to throw yourself off? Even more horrifyingly, it needn’t be an intentional choice.
The morbid fascination with civilizational death has sunk into the collective psyche of mankind. Movie monsters are born in radiation, and ultimately defeated by a brave hero staying behind to set off an atom bomb by hand. Mad scientists no longer have to justify their madness or even do any science on camera. They populate laboratories for good guys to invade much like you’ll find mummies in pyramids or genies in lamps. You want a simple picture to represent science? Either it’s a test tube or an atom.
Somehow we’re three-quarters of a century on from those cities burning and we’re still alive. Why? What’s stopping us from killing ourselves? Let’s take a look.
The Oppenheimer Gambit
J. Robert Oppenheimer, May 1946
Many have said that without one world government there can be no permanent peace, and with no permanent peace there would be atomic warfare. I think one must agree with this. Many have said there could be no outlawry of weapons and no prevention of war unless international law could apply to the citizens of nations, as federal law does to the citizens of states, or have made manifest that international control is not compatible with absolute national sovereignty. I think one must agree with this. Many have said that atomic energy could not be controlled if the controlling entity could be halted with a veto, as in many actions can the Security Council of the United Nations. I think one must agree with this too. With those who argue it would be desirable to have world government, an appropriate delegation of national sovereignty, laws applicable to individuals in all nations, it would seem most difficult to differ; but with those that argue these things are directly possible, in their full and ultimately necessary scope, it may be rather difficult for me to agree.
As director of the Manhattan project Oppenheimer had something of an inside track on that problem. Having become death, the destroyer of worlds, he stumped for the creation of an international organization to control the nuclear fire he helped develop. In the speech I quoted, he was optimistic that this could be accomplished. In his next two speeches* he sounds progressively more pessimistic that his lofty aim might be achieved.
Joseph Stalin and his proxies vetoed any surrender of their own newly developed arsenal. The three-quarters of a century which have elapsed between Oppenheimer’s speech and the present moment have taught us a thing or two about nuclear wars, and about international organizations. As such, I’ve got to voice a rare thanks to Uncle Joe, who through no pure motive of his own, saved us from that fate.
Curiously enough, the idea of such an organization predates the atom bomb itself. Robert Heinlein works out the logic in his 1941 story Solution Unsatisfactory. In that story (and please read the story at the link to avoid my spoiling it here) the US invents a radioactive dust that can be spread by airplane. They use it to end World War II by destroying Berlin, but then are left in a world where anyone with access to uranium and an airplane can destroy nations. They solve the problem as best they can by monopolizing both those things. First as America, then as an international organization, and finally as a world dictatorship. The story finished with a deliberately ambiguous ending as to whether the dictatorship will stand, or civilization will end in a general war with unstoppable weapons.
Oppenheimer suggests that his proposed organization wouldn’t be subjected to the vagaries of national government, as if he wasn’t proposing a de facto government. The hero in Heinlein’s story is principled, foresighted, and courageous. If he were lacking any one of those virtues, his story would have ended in a war that wouldn’t stop while any could refine uranium. But even if his plan worked, it wouldn’t have resulted in a stable state of affairs. The first to point this out was his editor John W. Campbell, both in an editorial aside after the story and also by titling the story Solution Unsatisfactory.
The Union of Scientists
If an international organization wouldn’t solve the problem, what other options are out there? Many have suggested the world’s scientists step up and use their moral authority to shut down the prospect of nuclear war. In The Day the Earth Stood Still, when the politicians of the world failed to heed Klaatu’s warning, the alien Klaatu called for and assembled a convocation of all the world’s scientists to somehow go over the politician’s heads. Outside of science fiction, I offer this quote:
Michel Rouzé, in his 1962 biography Robert Oppenheimer.
In the name of this power [The political power of American Democracy], Oppenheimer had constructed the first atomic bombs. He had been a party to the decision to drop them on the Japanese civilian population. He had stood aside from the efforts made by the majority of United States scientists to convince public opinion that governments must be compelled to abandon these weapons of wholesale destruction. And he had eventually pronounced in favour of making the thermonuclear bomb.
While his biography is generally complimentary towards Oppenheimer, Rouzé displays some bitterness over the atom bomb. Having rejected Oppenheimer’s organization as a front for American dominance (it may have ended up as such but I do believe the offer was genuine) Rouzé takes Oppenheimer to task for therefore having done nothing at all to forestall nuclear war. Nothing at all? Let’s examine Rouzé’s proposed solution.
In 1943, captured documents in Stuttgart showed us that Nazi Germany wasn’t going to get an atom bomb by war’s end. Suppose we had abandoned the superweapon project then, preferring a conventional war to the risk of a nuclear war in after years. Would that have stopped Stalin’s ambitions of a superweapon? Remember his scientists had the option of splitting atoms or splitting rocks in the Kolyma gold mines. Supposing they had the courage of the martyrs, does every scientist, in every country?
What we have is an enormous, high-stakes collective action problem. If the union of scientists can prevent the governments of the world from making atom bombs then the world doesn’t end in nuclear fire. But the incentives for governments to cheat — to hire scab scientists — are enormous. The union can only function if every scientist is a member. Rouzé can claim that a majority of American physicists opposed the bomb. A majority isn’t enough; you need all of them, in all countries, to refuse to build bombs. Anything less leaves the door open to nuclear war.
The Serizawa Sacrifice
Godzilla (1954), courtesy of IMDb
Dr. Daisuke Serizawa: If my device can serve a good purpose, I would announce it to everyone in the world! But right now, it’s nothing but a weapon of mass destruction. Please understand!Hideto Ogata: I do understand. But if we don’t stop Godzilla now, what’s to become of us?
Dr. Daisuke Serizawa: Ogata, if the Oxygen Destroyer is used even once, the politicians of the world won’t stand idly by. They’ll inevitably turn it into a weapon. Bombs versus bombs, missiles versus missiles. As a scientist — no, as a human being — adding another terrifying weapon to humanity’s arsenal is something I can’t allow.
Hideto Ogata: Then what do we do about the horror before us now? Just let it happen? Only you can save us from this tragedy. Even if you use the device to defeat Godzilla, how can it be used as a weapon, if you don’t publish your research?
Dr. Daisuke Serizawa: Ogata, we human beings are weak creatures. Even if I burn my notes, everything is still in my head. As long as I’m alive, who can say I wouldn’t be coerced into using it again?
Professor Serizawa’s Oxygen Destroyer is an atom bomb analog. To fight off the monster woken by atomic testing, they must resort to their own unstoppable superweapon. But as foreshadowed in that last line of dialogue, Serizawa ultimately destroys his own research and his own life to ensure the weapon cannot be used again.
This hope is a variant on the Union of Scientists. Having studied the subject enough to know what terrible possibilities lurk, could we abandon it forever? Close the door on forbidden knowledge so as to protect ourselves?
This was never a possibility with the atom bomb. Reading those sci-fi stories from 1941 (highly recommended!), they all talk about Uranium as a power source. However realistic or unrealistic, the depictions testify to the general knowledge that there’s a great deal of energy locked up in atoms. If the Manhattan project died aborning, then maybe it would take the Soviets longer to build their own atom bomb (copying homework being a core principle of Soviet science) but it wouldn’t have stopped them. Serizawa’s sacrifice was only possible because he was the lone researcher pursuing this line of investigation, with no one else aware of the potential. That doesn’t happen in the real world.
Supposing that in the decades before the war, some far-sighted official could see the potential for nuclear war. Supposing he quietly stifled research from Otto Hahn onward. (But even then, one must ask who has the authority to forbid scientists in multiple free countries?) Do we deploy that for every threat that has the potential for catastrophe? Should we have prevented Covid by shutting down all genetics research in the ’90s? Should we shut down all machine learning research now to prevent a potential robot uprising? Should we all stay in the tropics because this ‘fire’ technology will get out of Neanderthal hand?
In the end, the hope that the scientist will save us from nuclear war assumes that the study of science itself must imbue the scientist with the wisdom to see where his research leads, the meekness to give up his life’s work should he realize it’s headed in a dangerous direction, the honor to refuse bribes, and the courage to brave threats in the name of preventing nuclear war. And he has to get it right every single time. That was never in the cards, and it was clearly so even from the time when Rouzé was writing, which is why he sounds so bitter.
What Else Might We Do to be Saved?
Phil Ochs, I Ain’t Marching Anymore
For I flew the final mission in the Japanese skies
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning I knew that I was learning
That I ain’t a-marching anymore
If Science is a god, then the Scientist is his priest. But not every intercession with the divine goes through the clerisy. This section is a junk drawer of hermits, cultists, and revival tent speakers looking for a different path to propitiate Science’s wrath.
You could Ban the Bomb, as any ’60s hippie chick would recommend. That’s a collective action problem; one even harder to solve than the Union of Scientists. Though it may be possible to make the world a safer place through arms reduction treaties, the difference between reducing an accumulated nuclear stockpile and eliminating it entirely is monumental. If you throw a war and only one side comes, that one does far, far better than everyone else.
Science has led us into this mess; perhaps Science will lead us out? Maybe a force field to block the blast, or a way to suppress a chain reaction entirely? Though I could cite a couple of sci-fi stories discussing the idea, I know of no prospect even suggested in physics which will provide a defense. Also requiring advances in science but slightly more practical, there’s the possibility of off-world colonies. If mankind is not confined to the circle of this Earth, then it’s much harder for us to commit suicide. Though I like this solution (I’m a huge sci-fi geek; can you tell?), it’s not something that’ll happen in the short term.
In the early days of the post-war era, some argued for dispersing the population. Who is going to spend atom bombs to destroy things worth less than the bomb itself? Spread the people and industry of the US evenly across the entire country and our adversaries can’t deliver a knockout blow. The idea looks good at first glance, worse when you think about how to make it work, and completely unworkable when you consider the collective action problem. I don’t know why anyone lives in New York City but good luck convincing 99.7% of New Yorkers to move out.
Finally, there’s Divine Providence. The Good Lord will end the world on His timetable, and no madman with a big red button is going to joggle His elbow. While I think this is in play, I’ll offer no further discussion along these lines.
The Astonishing Nonexistence of Nuclear War
John Foster Dulles
The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art. If you try to run away from it, if you’re scared to go to the brink, you are lost.
What has worked? As I alluded to up above, we’ve had three-quarters of a century without nuclear war breaking out. (Perhaps you noticed.) Why not?
By right, I should start with a long recounting of the nuclear wars that didn’t start: the drills that nobody knew were drills, the saboteur who turned out to be a bear and not the first fruits of a Soviet invasion, the time at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis where Castro urged Khrushchev to launch the missiles knowing full well that Cuba would be annihilated in return. I should describe nuclear strategy and the logic of escalation. I should also detail the steps of the diplomatic dance that the superpowers engaged in: wars with proxy states but never the main opponent, spheres of influence, and whatever skullduggery that didn’t quite rise to the level of casus belli. But that is an entire book and this is only a Ricochet post.
In short, the answer is simple: people don’t want to get blown up. As the atom bomb is a weapon with no defense, the only way to stop it is to convince your opponent not to use it. The practical persuasion kit is your own atom bomb, and the readiness to blow him up. The awareness that if you annoy your opponent enough to use the weapon, you yourself stand a good chance of a nuclear suntan clarifies the mind, and you tend to avoid that path. Despite the mad influence a man feels to throw himself off a nearby cliff, very few do.
That works so long as you have a sane person, reacting rationally to threats assessed in sober judgment. What about the common run of politicians? Without going into details of madnesses and motivations, you need three things before the missiles launch. You need a leader defective in whatever way that he’s willing to burn continents. You need the particular circumstances under which he’s willing to burn continents to occur. Finally, you need the men around him not to be willing or able to stop him when they realize they’re part of a suicide pact. That locus of circumstances is harder to achieve than it seems.
And so despite the honest expectations of nearly everyone alive in 1945 and most of us born since then, I think we’ll sail on into the future for a while yet without the atom bombs dropping. There are plenty of holes in that hope, but it has held steady so far. Oppenheimer didn’t believe such a solution was possible. Rouzé would have scorned it. Professor Serizawa — but he’s a fictional character. While we’d all wish for a better, more elegant solution to the question of the bomb, we’re all stuck with the one we have. And that’s to live today as if the world won’t end tomorrow, because so far it hasn’t.
*Oppenheimer’s speeches as recorded in his book The Open Mind, from whence I drew his quote.
Published in Science & Technology
I find it odd that Dr. Oppenheimer thought that his knowledge of the science of the atom bomb gave him knowledge about if, when, or how the atom bomb might be used. Same for other scientists. A lot more than the science and engineering of something goes into the wise and effective use of that something. We have seen even very recently in the realm of disease spread this odd tendency of scientists to think that their knowledge of the science of the thing should entitle them to direct social and political issues surrounding the thing. The scientists may know some important information, but they don’t know everything.
[Now I must sign off as it happens I am driving today to Los Alamos, New Mexico, birthplace of the atomic bomb, where my son-in-law works on its continuing science.]
Thanks, Hank!
@Internet’s Hank,
I would like to have my High School Student’s read this in the Spring when we study this. Do I have your permission to print and distribute in my classroom?
@DrJekyll
That is our responsibility: as Martin Luther said, “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”
I’m making a note here: huge success.
Gain of Function research is today’s version of the atom bomb.
I’m going to make a long quote here out of the August 1941 issue of Astounding, where they printed a reader’s letter in response to Solution Unsatisfactory. Edited for length. You can find the whole thing here.
Okay, I tried to edit that for length, but that second paragraph man.
Be my guest.
Could be, but at least the Manhattan project boys were doing it because they were worried Hitler would get to the atom bomb first.
The closest we’ve seen to a scientific technocracy would be the pandemic response. Does that make everyone feel all warm and fuzzy about the scientists being above it all and interested only in the good of humanity?
I suppose I could have “brainwash the population into not wanting to use atom bombs” into the section entitled “What Else Might We Do to be Saved?”. I hope this guy gives you the willies just reading him, but in case he doesn’t here’s the counterargument.
A technate who can instill social values into its people has already gained autocratic power over them. A technate who can instill social values into its people will not in all probability instill such values into itself too, so what’s to stop it from gaining autocratic power over every other people it can too? While I find his read of economics to be wrong to the point of incomprehensibility too, I’ll note that the single line in the bit I quoted is unsupported and unsupportable. Unless literally everything is as abundant as the air then there will still be cause for quarrel.
For the better refutation of this future I recommend to your attention C.S. Lewis’ Abolition of Man.
Yeah, that’s why I gave Oppenheimer a little grace. His experience with international organizations at that point was the League of Nations and the opening notes of the U.N. He hadn’t yet seen an international organization competent enough to really screw things up. But even in the terms of debate knowable to him when he penned the paragraph I quoted I think I would have disagreed with his conclusions.
I think Kellogg and Briand might have something to say about that.
How far are you from Wisconsin? Maybe you can have Hank come and deliver a lecture in person.
Fun fact: the Kellogg Briand pact is still the law of the land. I’m still going to argue that it’s not competent enough to be truly menacing.
If you’re really lucky it might be on something you want to hear.
Yeah, you could also teach the kids how to build a computer out of salami and smoked cheddar.
Old saying: Computers run on smoke. When the smoke comes out, the computer stops working.
Great piece, Hank. Lots to chew over.
I think that’s one of the things that makes Fail Safe – and yes, even Strangelove – so unnerving. The situation didn’t require any of those things. It just happened, because men had made a construct that permitted it to happen.
I only saw Fail Safe the once so I’m not conversant on the plot details, but much as I love Dr. Strangelove they did have to juice the experiment before it could work:
There are other things I could point out (You know how the premier loves his surprises) but you can only nitpick fiction so much before people start to think you’re unclear on the concept. I’ve heard of radiation bombs like that in other fiction, but I’m far from certain that such a thing could actually work. I’m absolutely certain that no system built by man is actually tamper-proof. I could buy the existence of something similar to Wing Attack Plan R, but I’d have to see that it exists.
I’d have to go back and watch it again, but wasn’t that also a secret? I’m not sure they actually explained how it was put into place.
I’ve been to one world’s fair, a picnic and a rodeo, and that’s the craziest thing I ever heard come over a pair of headphones.