In Awe of the Atom: Proliferation, Threats, and Costs of Nuclear Management

ince the time of their invention and the first-and-only use on 6 and 9 August 1945 on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively, nuclear weapons have been seen by the states that possess them, or the ones that seek them, as the ultimate guarantors of their security.1 It is believed that these weapons are key to achieving victory in a war that otherwise may go on for a long time or may end in defeat if fought in conventional ways by a weaker country; in other words, nuclear weapons are believed to act as instruments of deterrence. The surrender of Imperial Japan to the Allies after the dropping of atom bomb is referred as the most important case. Some countries tend(ed) to follow the United States (US) path for having the ‘winnable weapons’ that made it to emerge as victorious and super power at the end of World War II.