How the world learned to love the bomb?

   How the world learned to love the bomb? 

Mushroom cloud of the world's first full-scale thermonuclear bomb Ivy Mike (10,4 megaton of TNT) in the Enewetak atoll, Marshall Islands, November 1, 1952.

Weapons of mass destruction offer respect in the global theater. Every nation or leader that owns nuclear weapons has noticed that those weapons make them more tolerant than ever before. And that calls the other nations and leaders to the nuclear club. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty denies the delivery of nuclear weapon technology to other nations. 

Some countries are not even planning to follow any contracts. That they made. And because countries like North Korea acquire nuclear weapons, it causes the effect that other countries are willingly joining the nuclear club. Nations like Japan are planning to get their national nuclear weapons for their safety. The nuclear dome protects countries, and that's why Israel, Iran, and many other countries have or plan to create nuclear weapons. 

The Russian nuclear plant projects in Africa can mean that African countries are also interested in nuclear armament. South Africa has made its test explosion. And after the Apartheid government, those weapons were dismantled. But there is a possibility that South Africa planned to restore its nuclear arsenal. In the same way, India and Pakistan joined the Nuclear club. And the Malian military leaders made contact with Russian nuclear cooperation. So, that raises a question: Does Mali want to join the nuclear club? 

On the 9th of August 1945, a B-29 dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Nagasaki was the second and last time that somebody used a nuclear weapon in war. Targets were civilians, but there were steelworks and a naval base in that city. The nuclear bomb was one of the weapons that were planned to make the military stockpile stronger. And in 1945. World War II was going on. The air raids were brutal, and many cities were erased by using firebombs and massive area bombardment. 

So, when U.S. officials ordered the use of nuclear weapons, they, or most of them. Thought that the weapon was the "super napalm bomb". There have been many discussions about the use of those weapons. Was that raid legal, or was it necessary? In that time, the mass bombardments on cities, including civilian targets, were rather usual than an exception. 

And in that time, attitudes were different than today.  Today, we know about cancer, suffering, and other things that radiation and nuclear weapons cause. The Soviet Union made many nuclear tests after 1949. And there can be nuclear victims who are never mentioned. If the Soviets made human tests, those tests were made using GULAG prisoners. 

Nuclear weapons are not only weapons of mass destruction. The most common WMDs are chemical and biological weapons. But the problem is that those weapons are prohibited. The second problem is that their way to affect enemies is worse than anyone ever thought. Biological weapons like weaponized organisms can kill more people than nuclear weapons. But the problem is that those horrifying weapons can cause global epidemics. 

Those silent killers are less dramatic and even scarier than nuclear weapons. There is also a possibility of using organisms as tools that can destroy enemy fuel storage. Or they can deliver deadly organisms like the Ebola virus to the air ventilation. The same microbes that destroy leaked oil can also destroy diesel storage. 

Sometimes people say that nuclear weapons play such a big role in global strategies, because nobody can hide their use. 

There is a possibility. Those enemy agents will slip into the oil storage. And put those microbes into the oil tanks. 

The nuclear, or radiation, weapons are not always nuclear bombs. And the idea of the use of radioactive materials like radium as a weapon was introduced by the French Headquarters during World War 1. The idea was to make the chemical strikes more effective. The problem was that more advanced gas protection systems made chemical weapons ineffective. And the answer was radium bombs. 

Even today, radium that is put around the dynamite is one of the most brutal and feared weapons in the world. Those "Dirty weapons" are of interest to terrorists. The term "dirty nuclear weapon" means a nuclear weapon that is used for terrorist purposes. And one of the biggest risks is the nuclear weapon that has no safety mechanisms. If a primitive nuke will go to the wrong hands. The results can be devastating. 

The Nagasaki bomb, "Fat Man," used a plutonium implosion mechanism. The explosives press the ball-shaped plutonium, bite and crunch it. The implosion mechanism is also possible for the uranium bombs. But in modern nuclear weapons, the fission stage uses plutonium. A plutonium bomb requires nuclear reactors. And that makes those weapons easier to control. 

Shutting down those reactors is enough to stop plutonium production. Another thing is that plutonium is more radioactive, and that brings safety against thieves. But otherwise, all nuclear reactors produce plutonium. And that plutonium is easy to separate. Using centrifugal separation. The centrifugal systems can also separate uranium, U-235, from uranium alloy. The idea is that centrifugal systems collect the heaviest particles at the bottom of the chamber. 

Natural uranium includes a very small part of fissile U-235. Most of natural uranium is U-238. The nuclear reactor bombs use uranium-238 with neutrons. And that turns the uranium-238 into plutonium-239. The uranium line problem is that the first step is that the bomb makers must separate lighter U-235 from heavier U-238. 

But why did nuclear weapons rise to an important position after World War 2? The answer is that the nature of nuclear weapons makes it more acceptable than biological or chemical weapons. Biological and chemical weapons kill people, but they leave structures and merchandise untouched. Those kinds of weapons are brutal in the eyes of people. The neutron warhead, which is an extremely small hydrogen bomb with an energy of less than 0,5 kiloton, is mentioned as one of the most inhumane weapons in history. 

The reason for that is the neutron radiation that kills all living organisms but leaves vehicles and other things without damage. The neutron warhead or enhanced radiation weapon was planned to be used in surgical strikes, and one of its purposes was to detonate enemy nuclear weapons before they reached targets. And neutron warheads are also planned to be used as a primary stage to launch hydrogen bombs. That neutron weapon is one of the most criticized weapon types in the nuclear stockpile. 

The nuclear weapon destroys structures like tanks, ships, and bunkers. That's why it's easier to justify than some biological and chemical weapons. Things like bunker buster bombs look nicer than some human-killing systems that kill people but leave stuff without damage. The dramatic effect of nuclear weapons is the thing that makes them horrifying and, in the same way, effective-looking weapons. 

Those weapons are making their owners more tolerant than any other weapons. When nations justify their military actions against other nations, it is because they have nuclear weapons. That causes a domino effect, and there are more and more leaders who want nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are tools that some leaders can use to justify their power. After World War 2, there were more and more countries and leaders who wanted a nuclear shield around them. 

And the new question is always: who decides who owns nuclear weapons? If nuclear weapon exists, there is always a possibility that somebody will use them. That is one of the reasons why all conflicts always turn so dangerous. Some people willingly pay for those kinds of things. And even primitive nuclear weapons are things that can destroy entire cities. The problem with primitive nuclear weapons like cannon devices that are a copy of Hiroshima bombs is that they are tools that terrorists can use. 

Another thing is that the primitive nuclear weapon, without any safety systems, makes it possible for terrorists to use that weapon in their strikes. In poor countries, there is a possibility that people who work in nuclear weapon programs sell those weapons to some "businessmen". In the wrong hands, all nuclear weapons are dangerous. But the most dangerous things are the nuclear weapons that have no safety systems. The nuclear weapons offer respect in global fields. And that means those weapons are completely out of control. 

https://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mali-junta-russian-state-nuclear-firm-sign-cooperation-deals-2024-07-10/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Mike