by Since fighting and war first took place, science has played a pivital role in who comes out on top. In Ancient times, the differences between winning and losing a battle could be the sharpness of a dagger or how much a Knight’s armor weighed. Over time, the role of science in war has shifted to include guns, boats, airplanes, nuclear weapons and much more. As wartime technolgy and weapons have evolved, the level of danger they can present has also rapidly increased. Nowadays, nuclear weapons, among other deadly uses of wartime technology, can pose such harm to our society as a whole that it brings into question whether we’d be better off without them. In this post, I want to examine the Manhatten Project and the effect that its had on war and violence since.
Up until the two nuclear bombs, “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagaiski Japan, there was constant pressure throughout the world to develop the best possbile weapons. In order for weapons to be the best, they had to be both powerful and cost effective. In the past, small advantages like having a scope on a gun to imporve vision or having a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) to make it easier to locate an enemy, could prove to be huge tactical and strategical advantages. The Manhatten Project, beggining its research the day before Pearl Harbor day on December 6th 1941, aimed to develop nuclear weapons for the use of the United States militrary. After physicists and chemists spent a few years working on a final product, three bombs were ultimately created inclduing the two that were eventually dropped on Japan. Before President Truman approved the use of the atomic bomb in 1945, scientist Leo Szilard desperately wanted the opportunity to speak to the president about the use of nuclear weapons. He was very nervous about the aftermath that would follow a nuclear attack and the general destruction the bomb itself would cause. Szilard thought that after the first use of an atomic bomb, other nations would follow and it would ultimately lead to an arms race. Unfortuately for society, atomic bombs are a cost effective way to wage war as the US spent about triple the amount of money on tanks than it did on a creating a singular nuclear weapon. Due to this reality, other countries, if financially capable, would also be highly interested in creating their own nuclear wepons so that they don’t fall behind and so they can lower their cost of war. Leo Szilard was absolutely right in his thinking, as the arms race of the Cold War followed the United States first use of the atomic bomb. For the first time in our societies history of fighting wars, the Manhatten Project created a weapon too destructive and too powerful for any country to use. If there were to ever be a full fledged nuclear war, we would without a doubt destroy the planet we call home. Thus, the Manhatten Project, and the nuclear activity that followed has had a lasting effect on how wars are fought today, as even though both sides of a war want to win, they also have a social responsibilty not to destroy the world we live in. In this case, science has progressed too much for societies own good.