Eighty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons remain a serious threat to global security

Eighty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons remain a serious threat to global security

Eighty years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world has maintained a fragile norm of nuclear non-use. This long peace has prevailed despite a rise in the number of nuclear-armed states and the continuous modernisation of their arsenals. However, mounting geopolitical tensions and a new arms race are placing unprecedented strain on this restraint, forcing a renewed confrontation with the lessons of 1945. The Catastrophe and the Cover-Up On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM, the United States dropped the atomic bomb "Little Boy" on Hiroshima. The blast and subsequent firestorm immediately incinerated tens of thousands of people. Three days later, on August 9, a second bomb, "Fatman," was detonated over Nagasaki, inflicting similar devastation. By the end of 1945, the death toll from Hiroshima alone had climbed to an estimated 140,000, and Nagasaki to 70,000, as victims succumbed to horrific injuries and the invisible poison of radiation sickness. In the…