Readers are doubtless familiar with the concept of a trick question, in which the asking of the question is meant to purposely mislead the answerer into a seemingly obvious, but wrong, answer. This can include jokes, puzzles, and riddles. In this case, a trick question is posed in order to prove a point (but the reader is forewarned about the nature of the question): How many times have nuclear weapons been used?
Historically, the seemingly obvious answer would be two or twice—twice by the United States against Japan in World War II. This is what a simple Google search would yield also. While that is reasonable, the trick of the trick question is in the meaning of used. If we consider the fact that coercion includes not only direct acts of violence, but credible threats of violence, then nuclear weapons have been used dozens of times since WWII. Indeed, nuclear weapons—being an inescapable aspect of the post-WWII era—are used all the time, by the US and other states.
Lest we are tempted to think this is just a matter of overly dramatic or technical wordplay—nuclear weapons were only really used when they were dropped, not every time they were considered or threatened—consider the following example. A man with a gun points it at another man and demands his wallet. The second man—not wanting to be shot—hands over his wallet. The first man runs away, never firing the gun. Later, were the first man to be arrested by the police for robbing the other man at gunpoint, no one would accept the argument that he did not actually use the gun just because he did not ultimately fire the gun. He would rightly be considered a robber and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
Why should we apply a lesser standard to government elites and nuclear weapons?
In fact, if we apply such a reasonable standard to the brandishment of a gun, then why in the world would we not apply the same standard to the threat and brandishment of nuclear weapons? This is especially the case with nuclear weapons since—much more than a single robber brandishing a gun he does not fire—these weapons can have worldwide impact in their destructive effects. This “trick question” is meant to be clever, but to reveal the incredible threat to which state elites constantly subject humanity.
This insight is not original to me. It was recorded by Daniel Ellsberg in his “Introduction: Call to Mutiny” in Protest and Survive (1981). Ellsberg wrote,
The notion common to nearly all Americans that “no nuclear weapons have been used since Nagasaki” is mistaken. It is not the case that U.S. nuclear weapons have simply piled up over the years—we have over 30,000 of them now, after dismantling many thousands of obsolete ones—unused and unusable, save for the single function of deterring their use against us by the Soviets. Again and again, generally in secret from the American public, U.S. nuclear weapons have been used, for quite different purposes: in the precise way that a gun is used when you point it at someone’s head in a direct confrontation, whether or not the trigger is pulled. (emphasis in original)
Nuclear weapons have been and are used constantly in the global order. This not only puts us, others, and humanity at risk, but the perpetrators are usually not considered criminals, who commit mass assault with deadly weapons. Furthermore, this is often done in secret. In fact, it only took Harry Truman himself seven months before he again used nuclear weapons again in this more subtle way,
In 1946 the Soviets and British agreed to end their World War II occupation of Iran, but the Soviets reneged. They increased their forces and set up autonomous regimes in the northwestern provinces of Azerbaijan and Kurdistan. In a little-known episode of nuclear diplomacy that Jackson said he had heard from Harry Truman, the President summoned Soviet Ambassador Andrei Gromyko to the White House. Truman told Gromyko that Soviet troops should evacuate Iran within 48 hours—or the U.S. would use the new superbomb that it alone possessed. “We’re going to drop it on you,” Jackson quoted Truman as saying. “They moved in 24 hours.”
The post-WWII nuclear situation, in order to avoid actual direct usage of nuclear weapons, we must expect heads of state with command over nuclear weapons (and others, e.g., the people who actually push the button, etc.) to be of such a character that they would be less likely than Harry Truman to use the bomb. This assumes current and future heads of state (and others) will possess an extreme level of careful analysis, cool-headedness, ability to withstand popular and political pressure, awareness of grave consequences, and ethical clarity. Obviously that description matches no past or current political elite, yet many of them use nuclear weapons, putting us all at risk.
A short list of examples demonstrates the breadth of this danger. In a 2007 article in the Asia-Pacific Journal, Peter J. Kuznick wrote “The Decision to Risk the Future: Harry Truman, the Atomic Bomb, and the Apocalyptic Narrative.” In an insightful passage, he writes,
Such concerns are reinforced by the fact that use of atomic bombs has been seriously contemplated and/or threatened by almost every postwar president—by Truman during the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948, by Truman and Eisenhower over Korea, by Eisenhower administration officials in support of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, by Eisenhower during the Lebanon crisis in 1958 and in response to a threatened Chinese invasion of Quemoy and Matsu in 1954 and 1958, by Kennedy during the Berlin crisis in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, by Johnson to defend marines at Khe Sanh, Vietnam in 1968, by Nixon and Kissinger against the North Vietnamese between 1969 and 1972, by Nixon to deter Soviet actions on several occasions between 1969 and 1973, by Carter in Iran in 1980, by George H.W. Bush and Clinton in Iraq, and by George W. Bush in wholesale fashion in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review and afterwards.
As if this were not enough, Kuznick points out that the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum lists several other occasions. For example, nuclear weapons were considered, against Soviet forces stationed in Iran in 1946, Yugoslavia (1946), Uruguay (1948), Guatemala (1954), North Korea (1968), and during the invasion of Syrian troops into Jordan in 1970. And this does not even take account of the Obama, Trump, and Biden presidencies. In fact, the Biden administration has continued to agitate Russia—one of the world’s largest nuclear powers—after being considered too old and incompetent to perform the duties of the president and after another president has been elected, but has not been installed. Also, keep in mind the fact that we do not just have to worry about the politicians in the US using nuclear weapons; other countries have them too.
For some reason, when the stakes are larger, often we put up with the prospect of disastrous possible consequences. In his personal growth book, Atomic Habits, James Clear wrote about the need to make bad habits immediately unsatisfying because we have a tendency to prefer present satisfaction, even at the expense of larger, more significant consequences in the future. He provides an interesting passage about Roger Fisher, a pilot in World War II who later attended Harvard Law School and spent decades specializing in negotiation and conflict management.
Regarding the nuclear threat, Fisher developed an interesting strategy to avoid nuclear war. Clear records Fisher’s suggestion to address the fact that one person, at any given time, could kill millions without ever seeing anyone die, therefore, he wrote,
My suggestion was quite simple. Put that [nuclear] code number in a little capsule, and then implant that capsule right next to the heart of a volunteer. The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the President. If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. The President says, “George, I’m sorry but tens of millions must die.” He has to look at someone and realize what death is—what an innocent death is. Blood on the White House carpet. It’s reality brought home.
When I suggested this to friends in the Pentagon they said, “My God, that’s terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the President’s judgment. He might never push the button.”
