Today is the 71st anniversary of the testing bombing at the Trinity site in New Mexico, just 21 days prior to Hiroshima and 24 before Nagasaki.
Much has been made of the world that was left behind on the desert floor, and the threshold mankind crossed in a tiny fraction of a second. Hiroshima was the first use of an atomic weapon during war. Nagasaki was the last…we hope. There have been accidents at commercial nuclear plants and military crashes with bombs onboard, but the world has not witnessed another detonation in anger, malice or retribution. We’ve been very lucky, but it has been a kind of miracle that the last 71 years have been atomically peaceful.
Nations have decided that there can be a nuclear club, if aspiring countries agree to play by the rules. Nations which don’t, face severe trade sanctions which can cripple an economy. It is a far from perfect system, but it has worked for the last 71 years.
Nation-states aren’t the main worry of 2016: it’s terrorist groups. Groups with great financial reach, can and will, purchase the technology to build nuclear weapons or sympathetic rogue states will do it for them. Perhaps a hybrid of both strategies.
But the terrorists look for advantage, trying to leverage their advantage which is their Internet reach with their propaganda. Terror camps aren’t necessary when the YouTube of the dark web can recruit and train all over the world.
So now, the threat is a single man in a delivery truck, plowing through crowds of people, celebrating French Independence Day. Yes, there is a deep irony in this. We focus on nuclear weapons and then 19 men with boxcutters stun a nation.