CHY4U1 Unger: Weapons of Mass Destruction : Liam Granger

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Liam Granger

In 1945 during WWII the greatest weapon was unleashed upon the world which was the atomic bomb. It was created by the Allies in response to Nazi-Germany’s development of a similar bomb. It was then used twice on Japan when they refused to surrender in late July and dropped on them in early August until they surrendered August 15th. Little did they know that this bomb that they had created would spark a mad rush of nuclear weapon research and development and enough of them would be created that the world could cease to exist. But is there a plus to having mass amounts of WMD’s?


Nuclear detonation by the US in 1951

Well first of all the atomic bomb was first created in the 16th of July 1947 by “The Manhattan Project” which was the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. The bomb used against Japan is a fission weapon which means that an amount of fissile material usually enriched uranium or plutonium was assembled into a supercritical mass or rather it was added until it would create and exponentially growing nuclear chain reaction. The end result is a bomb that can release upwards of about 500,000 tons which is 500 kilotons. However nowadays the much more efficient fusion weapons or thermonuclear weapons such as H-Bombs ( Hydrogen Bombs) which work by using the energy of a fission and bomb to heat the fusion fuel which causes an explosion far greater than that of a fission weapon where the fission weapon delivered a 500 kiloton explosion a fusion weapon can deliver a 50 megaton or 50 million ton payload from anywhere around the world.

How a fission nuke works

Secondly, between the years of 1947 and 1991 is when the cold war was considered to be in effect as during this time the A-bomb had been unleashed upon Japan and the whole world was arming itself in a massive nuclear fueled arms race. While the two big players in the cold war were Soviet Russia and the United States most other countries were arming themselves in the event that something should happen they would not want to be left empty handed. The cold war lead to many other wars such as the Afghanistan war, the vietnam war and the korean war. As the US wanted to liberate countries that were under Communist Russia influence. But things were so tense that in Albert Einstein’s word’s “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Which basically shows how far ahead he has thought about the A-bomb during his help in it’s construction in 1945 that all parties will want this weapon and will want to advance on it and if there is a World War III then these will be used which if you took the entire world’s nuclear weapons combined that you would be able to destroy the world several times over.

women protesting the cold war around the time of the cuban missile crisis

But is there something good about these weapons? I believe that under certain circumstances that this amount of WMD’s will be very good for earth’s chance at defending itself in a galactic scale event. We have all seen the movies where the mysterious alien invader comes to earth and starts a planetary takeover only to be repelled by the plucky humans and their WMD’s. Well since we do have enough WMD’s to destroy our own planet several times over it would be safe to assume that we have enough to defend ourselves against potential hostiles from beyond. While granted that ET would have to be less advanced than they likely are

and not able to just pummel earth from the clutches of space. As long as they have to enter Earth’s atmosphere than the human race would most definitely stand a chance against them plus if the cold war was a sign of anything than the human race would begin arming itself on a more advanced basis that would be able to propel them into the space age allowing space exploration as well as the inhabitation of planets.

Therefore WMD’s are definitely an extreme source of power that are tied to mankind’s existence whether it be for better or for worse. It has been a constant reminder that despite all the preventions in place such as NATO, that ultimately we can very thoroughly destroy ourselves several times over. It has gotten to the point where it seems like the only thing that will prevent an all out nuclear war is some sort of mass scale invasion of earth or other signs of ET’s existence so that the world can band together and start out mankind’s trek into the unknown.