In Horse 3212, I yet again expressed my opinion that the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was evil, cruel, and unnecessary. My reading of history leads me to conclude that Japan would have surrendered anyway, and that the dropping of the bombs was just the next step in a war where American Generals has already considered ordinary Japanese citizens as unpeople; as evidenced by the three months of firebombing that rendered 8.5 million people homeless.
I understand the argument that the use of the two nuclear bombs brought about the end of the Second World War because the Japanese surrender came swiftly afterwards; and the chances of history already having happened is 1. However, given the history of firebombing Japan for the three months prior, the documented plans to keep on dropping the bomb, and the appalling lack of value placed on enemies and especially civilians in times of war, I find such justifications gauche.
What I can not know, and hope that I never ever find out, is what would have happened if the events of August 1945 had actually opened the door to nuclear war as being acceptable. The thing that likely held back the newly minted nuclear powers from using the bomb in the Korean War, was the fact that the Russians probably hadn't yet developed the capability to deploy them rapidly and that the Americans had a fit of conscience.
Rather, the American fit of conscience was tempered by their fear of the unknown as to whether or not the Soviet Union had the bomb. Given that America had the bomb and the two sets of Allied powers converged on Germany to carve it up in the immediate aftermath of the way, then the chances of the Soviets getting the bomb rapidly approached 1 with the passage of time. America knew what the bomb could do, having used it twice, and the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction helped temper the two superpowers' desires to use it, through fear of immediate and swift retribution.
What would have happened if the two superpowers had gone and pushed the nuclear button back and forth? I shudder to think. The numbers which accompany what could have been a nuclear war are truly horrendous. If we assume something like the Fat Man bomb which was dropped upon Nagasaki is the standard, then as early as about 1950 a full-scale nuclear war which would have involved the USSR, United States, France and Britain; and would likely result in approximately the equivalent of 3 billion tons of TNT being exchanged. The amount of smoke produced either directly or as a result of things being instantly vapourised and/or liquefied and then consumed by fire, is something in the order of about 100 million tons.
If you did any kind of high school chemistry, then you should remember that 1 mole of gas fills approximately 22.4 litres at standard temperature and pressure. 1 mole of stuff, is the atomic weight of that stuff multiplied by Avogadro's Number, or the atomic weight expressed in grams. 100 million tones of smoke, needs a massive massive space - it works out to be about 77.6 cubic kilometers. When you also add in the amount of dust lifted into the atmosphere, be it radioactive or otherwise, then that's another 500 million tones of dust thrown into the air.
That much dust which would have nowhere to go, would hang in the atmosphere for many many months. A volcanic explosion in 1814 caused the so-called "year without a summer" which is what gave us Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", however this much dust is many magnitudes larger again. That much dust in the atmosphere for many many months, would simply block out the sun's heat and light from getting to the earth's surface as though someone had put up a very large umbrella. Nighttime would likely still exist but it would be kind of like a permanent evening for the whole earth, for months and months.
No sunshine for many months would mean that it would be very very cold. In a place like Australia which is surrounded by the ocean, the average temperatures would like drop by about 25 degrees. In the summer that might mean a daytime temperature in the low teens and at nighttime, freezing. In the winter, even in places like Darwin, it might mean permanent freezing temperatures, even at midday.
If you can not remove sewage because pipes have frozen solid, or have broken, then every city in the world would be a potential breeding ground for all kinds of horrid medieval diseases. With water systems unable to cope with being permanently frozen, I would expect mass outbreaks and possibly co-concurrent pandemics water borne diseases like cholera, typhoid, and dysentery. About the only upside is that mosquito vectored diseases like malaria would possibly become extinct in a hurry. When you combine a lack of fresh water, with a lack of sanitation, with mass starvation due to persistent crop failure because of permanent freezing and permanent evening, then this a a recipe for population collapse.
Permanently frozen ground makes the job of burying the dead more difficult. Presumably what we currently consider essential drugs and medication would rapidly be exhausted and the numbers of people to die in the first few months would be horrendous. That many dead bodies are themselves sites for disease vectors; which only exacerbates the problem. The archaeologists of the year 3100 would find a discrete layer of skeletons and mass grave sites, as untold numbers of corpses would be buried together.
Then there are the larger problems like agriculture and crop failure. I imagine that economies would revert to subsistence pretty quickly and every able bodied person who could till the land, would be pressed into service as soon as practicable. Those who can not work, such as the very old and the very young, would find that the opportunity costs of a very new grim economy, would be horrid. My suspicion is that life expectancies would shrink at a faster rate than seen in a long time and that anyone over about the age of 70, would not be long for this world.
My reading of history, has led me to believe that given events like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, the War in Afghanistan in the early 1980s, Able Archer 83, and nuclear scares in places like Türkiye, Pakistan and India, and who knows what in Korea, that the world probably cam dangerously close to full-on nuclear war several times. As someone who has lived through enough history to feed my confirmation bias that people are inherently selfish and a few wingnuts and nutbags are actively evil, I am very thankful that this tragedy of history never played out; while at the same time being fully aware that it very nearly could have.
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