Taking Disarmament Seriously
As the world commemorates the 65th anniversary of Hiroshima on August 6, leader and citizens should focus on the unfinished agenda of nuclear disarmament. After all, it is sheer dumb luck – not statesmanship, good professional management, or the stability of the world’s nuclear weapon systems – that we have not faced catastrophe.
MELBOURNE – People sometimes forget that the boy who cried wolf ended up being eaten. True, nobody has been killed by a nuclear weapon since the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 65 years ago this month. And, with Cold War tensions long past, it is all too easy for policymakers and publics to resist the doomsayers, be complacent about the threats that these weapons continue to pose, and to regard attempts to eliminate them, or contain their spread, as well-meaning but futile.
MELBOURNE – People sometimes forget that the boy who cried wolf ended up being eaten. True, nobody has been killed by a nuclear weapon since the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 65 years ago this month. And, with Cold War tensions long past, it is all too easy for policymakers and publics to resist the doomsayers, be complacent about the threats that these weapons continue to pose, and to regard attempts to eliminate them, or contain their spread, as well-meaning but futile.