Why We Will Soon Miss The Cold War Analysis

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”1 This statement was made by Robert Oppenheimer after the first successful atomic bomb test at Los Alamos, New Mexico. At approximately 08:15 AM on 6 August 1945, the way in which states viewed conflict was forever changed in a dramatic fashion. On that day a US B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing around 80,000 people instantly. Only three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, causing the deaths of 40,000 more. To date, these attacks remain as the only nuclear attacks carried out in history. The devastating effects of these attacks were ultimately enough to put an end to World War II and discourage the use of nuclear weapons in future conflicts. In War, Peace, and International Relations, written by Colin Gray, he examines five different ways in which nuclear weapons have changed the international system. The first being that nuclear weapons made a decisive victory between nuclear powers impossible. The second change that nuclear weapons brought was that because of their power, a state would be unable to use war to achieve political ends with other major …show more content…
Much the same as Colin Gray, he asserts that if nuclear powers properly secure their weapons from attack, neither side can employ nuclear weapons to gain a military advantage. Even if nuclear weapons are preemptively employed, the defender would almost always have the advantage because they would have the support of the international community and possibly other powers. For instance if Russia were to launch a nuclear attack on the US, they would have to be concerned about a counter nuclear attack from both the US and their allies who also have a nuclear capability (UK, France, and possibly Pakistan or