in the media

The New Nuclear Threat

The cold war ended peacefully, and the deployed nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia have been reduced by nearly 90 percent, but we are not safer today—quite the reverse.

by Jessica Tuchman Mathews
published by
New York Review of Books
 on August 3, 2020

Source: New York Review of Books

Seventy-five years ago, at 8:16 on the clear morning of August 6, the world changed forever. A blast equivalent to more than 12,000 tons of TNT, unimaginably larger than that of any previous weapon, blew apart the Japanese city of Hiroshima, igniting a massive firestorm. Within minutes, between 70,000 and 80,000 died and as many were injured. Hospitals were destroyed or badly damaged, and more than 90 percent of the city’s doctors and nurses were killed or wounded. By the end of the year, thousands more had died from burns and radiation poisoning—a total of 40 percent of the city’s population.

Read the Full Text

This article was originally published by the New York Review of Books.

Foreign PolicyNuclear PolicyArms ControlNorth AmericaUnited States
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.