Most chemical and biological weapons, blinding lasers, incendiary weapons, non-detectable fragments, etc. have been effectively outlawed by treaty. While nuclear weapons are subject to various limitations and many nations have abjured their use, the best that can be said about them is that their use in war or otherwise is not always illegal.
Since the rationale for existing weapons bans centers around their indiscriminate destructiveness and inherent inhumanity, should nuclear weapons use be made a war crime?
What this is not about (not that that would stop anyone on NSG):
-- difficulties around enforcing a nuclear ban (national means exist for detecting and punishing violations)
-- the practical or ethical justification for actions by the UN or other international organizations
-- whether making nuke use a war crime would effectively deter bad actors or not
Here are some historical facts, as opposed to national myths, about Hiroshima, Nagasaki and their aftermath:
US President Harry Truman never gave an order to bomb Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The Army under Major General Leslie Groves controlled the Manhattan Project and the use of its weapons. Had Truman not ordered no more bombs be dropped after Nagasaki, a third and even a fourth Japanese city might have been destroyed. The idea that Truman was responsible was largely a fiction constructed after the fact to justify continued nuclear weapons development and deployment.
The driving factor in the Japanese surrender was not the bombings but the entry of the Soviet Union into the Pacific theater of war. The discussion in the Japanese war cabinet centered around whether enough casualties could be inflicted on an invading force to enable better surrender terms. Once Emperor Hirohito declared himself, the surrender was inevitable.
Groves compartmentalized information about the horrible aftereffects of nuclear bombing, including radiation sickness, keeping the scientists and physicists involved in developing the bomb largely in the dark. Before a Congressional committee, he bizarrely claimed radiation sickness would be "a very pleasant way to die." Many later stated they would have abandoned work on the bomb had they fully appreciated its likely effects.
The US justification for using nuclear weapons on Japan was equal parts racism, vengeance and the desire to impress the rest of the world, particularly the Soviet Union, with its unassailable military might heading into the postwar period. Truman's statement on Hiroshima claimed, "The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold."
All the evidence points to nuclear weapons use as inadequately controlled by civilians; impossible to confine to military targets; and with devastating, horribly inhumane and long-lasting effects on largely civilian populations. For all these reasons, nuclear weapons use should be made a war crime.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. Go nuts NSG.
