Fear, War, and the Bomb: Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy (Great Britain, 1948)
by P.M.S. Blackett (a former member of the British Advisory Committee on Atomic Energy)
Notes and facts:
- strategic (independent of other military operations, far into enemy territory) vs. tactical (in support of land forces) bombing
- “regular” bombing vs. atomic: amount required to do same damage, other air power required, damage done, lasting repercussions (railroads up and running in Hiroshima two days after the attack), ability to follow up (Pearl Harbor couldn’t be followed up, so it just provoked a response that led to Japan’s downfall); “Remembering that 1.3 million tons of ordinary bombs were dropped on Germany during the second World War without decisive result, and assuming that some 400 improved atomic bombs would be required to produce the same material destruction, it is certain that the number of atomic bombs required to produce decisive results in a war between American and Russia would run in thousands” p. 88
- 8:15 a.m., August 6, Hiroshima, Uranium 235; August 9, Nagasaki, plutonium, 15% greater radius of destruction, lower casualties due to uneven terrain
- why August? and why done with such speed when the next U.S. move wasn’t planned until Nov. 1. p. 130; “three possible explanations of the decision to drop the bombs and of its timing. The first, that it was a clever and highly successful move in the field of power politics, is almost certainly correct; the second, that the timing was coincidental, convicts the American Government of a hardly credible tactlessness; and the third, the Roman holiday theory, convicts them of an equally incredible irresponsibility.” p. 138-9
- the aggressor tends to try for less damage—they want the resources; the one on the defensive will stop at almost nothing
U.S.S.R. vs. U.S.:
- Blackett pretty adequately proves that it would not be in the U.S.S.R.’s best interest to attack the U.S. “Even if the technical possibility of destroying American cities form European bases is much higher than we have here estimated, such destruction, not followed up by invasion and occupation, would leave America time to recuperate and re-arm, bitterly determined to take eventual revenge. Further, such action would alienate world opinion and tend to solidify a grand alliance against Russia… The lesson of Pearl Harbor is clear. To strike a heavy but indecisive blow at a powerful enemy, without possessing the resources to follow it up by invasion and occupation of the homeland, is to court ultimate disaster.” p. 76
- “preventative war” p. 81, but if U.S. attacks Russia, Red Army invades continental Europe, we can’t bomb all the European cities (although the author argues that we just might)
- “In the actual present world situation, the problems of the application of sanctions by the UN boils down to one problem only. Can sanctions be imposed on Russia? For no one imagines that there is at present any actual grouping of Powers which would be both able and willing to impose armed sanctions on America.” p. 93 after proving America was more likely to use the weapons
- U.S. not as concerned with atomic energy since the U.S. has plenty of energy resources already. But the U.S.S.R. would really benefit from atomic energy research and progress. non-military uses of atomic energy: to produce radioactive elements for medical curative processes, to produce radioactive tracer elements and radiations for use in sci. research and industrial processes, to produce power and heat for industrial and domestic purposes. p. 97
quotes and commentary:
- Atomic Energy Commission first meeting June 13, 1946, Baruch plan p. 144; Bernard Baruch (“blessed” in Hebrew) paraphrases Lincoln: “We cannot escape history. We of this meeting will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we are passing will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.” His plan was rejected, and though the effects of the AEC are definitely visible today, do too many actually remember the members or there actions further than as a face-off between Russia and the U.S.?
(Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address: “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”)
(Lincoln in December 1, 1862, Message to Congress: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.”)
- “A world accustomed to thinking it horrible that war should last four or five years is now appalled at the prospect that future wars may last only a few days.” Bernhard Brodie in The Absolute Weapon, p. 71 (p. 65)
- “The other common criticism of such numerical comparisons is that they neglect the psychological factors; this presumably means that the ‘horror’ of the atomic bomb is so great that a nation’s will to resist will be rapidly sapped… The power of human beings to ‘take it’ is immense; a determined people will lean to stand atomic bombardment, if that is their fate, just as Germans leaned to stand ordinary bombing on a scale up to fifty times larger than that which the enthusiasts for strategic bombing thought would bring about the collapse of their war effort.” p. 61
- “The first World War lasted four years; the second, in spite of the technical advances—or perhaps because of them—lasted nearly six years.” p. 81
- “relatively few atomic bombs would bring considerable added military power to a nation which was already very strong in conventional armaments” p. 90