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How Did We Get Here?

With the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approaching, and with conflict and military action once again spreading across the globe—including the U.S. intervention in Venezuela and the ongoing war involving the United States, Israel, and Iran—it is difficult not to think about how quickly the world can move from political disagreement to military action.

More troubling is the increasingly casual discussion surrounding the possible use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons were once considered the ultimate weapon of last resort. Today, we hear them discussed as part of military strategy, deterrence, and, in some cases, even as a potential first option.

So how did we get here?

Let’s go back to where the nuclear age began.

The Race to Build the Bomb

We know the basic story. The Manhattan Project, led scientifically by J. Robert Oppenheimer, produced the world’s first nuclear weapon. The United States remains the only country ever to use nuclear weapons in war, when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

But it is worth asking a question that has no easy answer:

What would the world look like today if the bomb had never been developed?

The Manhattan Project did not begin simply because American scientists wanted to build a new weapon. The driving fear was that Nazi Germany might get there first.

The possibility was terrifying. Nuclear fission had been discovered in Germany, and many of the scientists who understood its implications were European scientists who had fled Nazi persecution. Albert Einstein’s famous 1939 letter to President Franklin Roosevelt helped convince the American government that the possibility of a German atomic bomb had to be taken seriously.

The Manhattan Project became an enormous scientific and military undertaking involving scientists from the United States, Britain, Canada and Europe.

But then something happened that changed the entire equation.

Germany surrendered in May 1945.

The enemy the bomb had initially been developed to defeat no longer existed.

That left the United States with a weapon unlike anything the world had ever seen—and a war in the Pacific that was still raging.

Japan Was Still Fighting

The argument for using the bomb was not imaginary.

The war against Japan had become extraordinarily bloody. American forces had already experienced the ferocity of Japanese resistance at places such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The United States was preparing for Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands.

The expected casualties were a major concern.

At the same time, Japan itself was being devastated by conventional bombing. The firebombing of Japanese cities, particularly the March 1945 attack on Tokyo, killed enormous numbers of civilians.

But there is another part of the story that deserves more attention.

Japan was not a united government simply refusing to surrender until an atomic bomb forced it to do so.

There were Japanese leaders who wanted to find a way to end the war. The Japanese government had been exploring the possibility of using the Soviet Union as an intermediary in seeking terms for ending the conflict.

The problem was that Japan’s leadership was deeply divided over what surrender should actually mean.

One of the central issues was the future of Emperor Hirohito.

Japan wanted assurances that the Emperor could remain.

That distinction matters.

The United States and its allies had demanded “unconditional surrender” at Potsdam. Japan’s leadership was looking for a way to surrender while preserving at least some of its existing political structure.

So the situation was not simply:

Japan refuses to surrender → America drops bomb → Japan surrenders.

The reality was considerably more complicated.

Then the Soviet Union Entered the War

There was another enormous factor developing at the same time.

The Soviet Union had promised to enter the war against Japan after the defeat of Germany.

On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan.

The following day, Soviet forces invaded Japanese-held Manchuria.

That timing is important because it introduced an entirely new threat to Japan. Japanese leaders were suddenly facing not only the United States but the possibility of Soviet occupation and the expansion of Soviet influence into Japanese-held territory.

And this is where the historical debate becomes particularly interesting.

The United States had already demonstrated the atomic bomb at Hiroshima on August 6.

The Soviet declaration of war came on August 8.

Nagasaki was bombed on August 9.

Japan announced its decision to surrender on August 15.

Historians have debated ever since how much each of these events—the atomic bombs, the Soviet declaration of war, the invasion of Manchuria and the internal political struggle within Japan—contributed to the final decision.

There is no universally accepted single answer.

And perhaps that is precisely what makes the story so important.

Stalin Knew About the Bomb

At the Potsdam Conference, President Harry Truman informed Joseph Stalin that the United States possessed a powerful new weapon.

But there was no agreement to demonstrate the bomb to the Soviet Union as a gesture of goodwill.

Truman was deliberately cautious.

The United States had something the Soviet Union did not yet have: a nuclear monopoly.

And Washington understood that this weapon could fundamentally change the balance of power after the war.

The Soviets, meanwhile, had their own security concerns. They had suffered enormous losses during World War II and were determined never again to be left vulnerable to a potential enemy.

The relationship between the United States and Soviet Union was already deteriorating.

The wartime alliance was beginning to fracture.

The atomic bomb accelerated that process.

Scientists Were Already Worried

What is sometimes forgotten is that some of the scientists who helped create the bomb immediately began worrying about what they had unleashed.

Leo Szilard was among those who opposed using the bomb against Japan without first exploring alternatives.

The Franck Report, prepared by scientists associated with the Manhattan Project, warned that using the bomb against Japan could trigger an international nuclear arms race and damage America’s moral and diplomatic position.

Oppenheimer himself would later become one of the most famous voices warning about the dangers of nuclear weapons, although his position evolved considerably over time.

The concern was remarkably prescient.

The scientists understood something that politicians and generals were only beginning to appreciate:

Building the first bomb was not the end of the problem. It was the beginning.

The Arms Race Begins

After the war, the United States and Soviet Union attempted to determine what should happen to nuclear weapons.

The basic problem sounds almost absurdly simple today.

How do you convince countries to give up the most powerful weapons on Earth while simultaneously convincing them that their rivals will not secretly build them?

The United States wanted effective international controls and inspections before surrendering its nuclear advantage.

The Soviet Union objected to a system that would allow American nuclear superiority to continue while international inspectors gained access to Soviet facilities.

In 1946, the United States proposed what became known as the Baruch Plan for international control of atomic energy. It called for international oversight, inspections and eventually the elimination of national nuclear arsenals.

The Soviet Union rejected the proposal, in part because it viewed the arrangement as preserving America’s existing advantage and objected to the proposed inspection and enforcement mechanisms. The two sides could not reach an agreement.

The stalemate had enormous consequences.

The United States kept building bombs.

The Soviet Union developed its own atomic bomb.

Then came Britain.

France.

China.

India.

Pakistan.

Israel.

North Korea.

The weapon that was supposed to end wars became another instrument of geopolitics.

And the logic of nuclear deterrence took hold.

And Here We Are

Nearly eighty years later, we still live with the consequences of decisions made in those few extraordinary months of 1945.

The United States developed the bomb because it feared Nazi Germany might get it first.

Germany surrendered.

The bomb was then used against Japan.

Japan surrendered, although historians still debate exactly why and how much the atomic bombs and Soviet entry into the war each mattered.

The Soviet Union developed its own bomb.

The United States responded by developing more powerful weapons.

The Soviet Union followed.

And eventually humanity accumulated enough nuclear weapons to destroy itself many times over.

That brings us back to today.

We have spent generations building increasingly sophisticated weapons while repeatedly demonstrating that human beings are still perfectly capable of making terrible political decisions.

We have wars in Europe and the Middle East. We have military confrontations involving major powers. We have governments openly discussing nuclear capabilities and, increasingly, the possibility of using them.

And that leaves me with a question that is probably more important than any historical argument over whether the atomic bombs should have been used in 1945:

What decisions are we making today that people eighty years from now will look back on and wonder, “What the hell were they thinking?”

History rarely changes because of one decision made by one person.

It changes because of a series of decisions that seem reasonable, necessary or unavoidable at the time.

That may be the most frightening lesson of 1945.

The people making those decisions did not know they were creating the nuclear world we live in today.

Neither do we know what world our decisions are creating.

And perhaps the first step toward stopping the current madness is recognizing that history does not require us to repeat the mistakes that created it.