Eighty years on from the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima, the UK and Europe are rearming at breakneck pace, including with more US nuclear weapons. Kirsten Bayes reflects on the waning of arms controls and the rise of the politics of distraction and demonization, suggesting three crucial responses.
During my teenage years in 1980s rural Essex, the overwhelming knowledge that we were “three minutes” away from nuclear annihilation was an ever-present reality. By that point, forty years after the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War was in full swing, and vast arsenals were targeted at the cities of the Warsaw Pact and those of the NATO countries. Our heroes came from Hollywood, by way of rented VHS tapes: James Bond, John McClane (Die Hard) or John Rambo (First Blood). Heroes that promised to protect us through the use of overwhelming force. It was the spirit of the times.
I owned a copy of Barry Popkess’s Nuclear Survival Handbook, with the strapline “Living Through and After a Nuclear Attack”. As well as helpful guides to knot-tying, morse code and semaphore, I recall the book had estimates of the effects of nuclear explosions. My younger self would use a school technical drawing compass to outline concentric circles around likely targets on the Ordnance Survey map. Typically, ground zero was GEC Marconi in Chelmsford (ironically now BAE Systems, an arms dealer which profits from building nuclear submarines). I would try and work out: would I be annihilated in a blinding flash like the residents of central Chelmsford, or would it be a long slow death from nuclear fallout for me? If nothing else, I knew, I would be able to signal using semaphore to passing aircraft, “Best just keep flying.” Plus I would be able to tie up the body bags – made from bin liners – with a well-crafted double hitch knot. Thanks Barry!
Forty years on, it seems not much has changed. There is an ongoing war in Europe – albeit between two former Soviet states – and the threat of nuclear destruction has not gone away. If anything, with news that the UK is to spend an additional £15 billion on its Trident upgrade programme (in addition to the £110 billion+ already committed), plus another £750m to £1 billion on nuclear-capable F-35A stealth warplanes, and the redeployment of US-owned nuclear weapons to Suffolk last month, the risk of a nuclear-armed confrontation is as high as it has ever been.
Meanwhile, the Russians occupy one-fifth of Ukraine and make dire threats to the Baltic States, even as these states and Poland tear up the hard-won landmine treaty, and prepare for large-scale artillery battles. Much like the French “Zone Rouge” no-go zones around Verdun – that are the result of buried artillery shells and mines from the First World War – the widespread use of landmines and high explosive shells could create areas dangerous to human life for decades to come.
We also see our societies echoing the culture wars beloved of American and Russian politicians. Whether poisonous narratives around LGBT+ rights, immigration or disability, the message is always the same: “these people are causing the problems you are experiencing, let the security forces of the state protect you.”
But, as they say in Hollywood summer movies, “the call is coming from inside the house”.
The news that war may look more like Verdun (with drones) than like the murderous night raids of the “Global War on Terror” has European states scrambling to up their already-excessive military budgets. The money, they claim, “has to come from somewhere” and welfare spending is an easy target. To avoid governments being blamed for this, culture war narratives come in: you can’t get an affordable home, they claim, not because we have spent all the money on the military and on tax breaks for rich people (though we did), but because the people coming here in small boats have taken the housing stock (which they didn’t). The newspapers use these tales to spin far-right mobs – of “concerned citizens”, naturally – into a frenzy. And then are shocked – shocked – that there might be violence as a result. Violence that can only be solved by demands for “more bobbies on our streets” or to “send in the army, that’d sort them out.” Perhaps John Rambo is still available.
In such circumstances it can be easy to be disheartened. To not know where to begin.
Start with solidarity
I would suggest the first place to start is, as ever, the development and maintenance of solidarity. Ordinary people, standing together, across whatever divide those in power want to create, is always where resistance begins. Whether in the civil rights movements of the 1960s, the campaign against cruise missiles in the 1980s or 1990s, or the LGBT+ rights movements of the 1990s and 2000s, building a critical mass of resistance and keeping faith with each other remains a key starting point. The reason the first generation of Hibakusha – those directly affected by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – travelled globally well into their old age was to be present, to inspire, and through connection and compassion, to create solidarity.
Demand truth
Next is a demand for the truth, and for transparency. Whether it has been about money spent on nuclear weapons, or arms shipments to Israel used to fuel the genocide in Gaza, the strategy of governments has been obfuscation, denial and straight-up disinformation. All while arms companies profit handsomely. They do this because they know that nobody would support them if they told the unvarnished truth. The words of the powerful are one thing, but we must also learn to turn our attention to what people in affected countries are saying.
The reason the stories told by the Hibakusha of what it was like to be in Hiroshima or Nagasaki are so powerful is that we know they speak the truth, in the face of active silencing. When a speaker from Palestine describes the effect of bombing on his son or daughter, we likewise come to understand the truth of the events there, in a way that words or images shared by the media can never truly replicate.
Create alternatives
And thirdly our resistance comes from the creation of alternatives. The work of Rethinking Security in uncovering what would actually create security for ordinary people reveals that it is not now, nor has it ever been, about scary weapons systems or lucrative arms deals. Instead, security is created by adequate systems for healthcare; support in illness, disability, unemployment or old age; reliable and decently paid employment, these are where true security comes from. Climate change threatens to undermine all of these. And the same is true for ordinary people in Russia, the Middle East, Europe or the Americas, ordinary people with whom we are – or should be – in solidarity. Describing how genuine security might be achieved is the focus of the work on the Sustainable Security Strategy that will be published in autumn 2025.
Eighty years on from Hiroshima it is time we learned that peace is not achieved at the barrel of a gun, or through nuclear threats, but through the patient, steady work of building an international society built on human rights, mutual respect and an economy that works for everybody. One which respects the limits of the natural world.
Instead of drawing circles on maps to symbolise destruction caused by falling bombs, let us widen the circle of our compassion. Let the signals we send be those of peace, and the knots we tie symbolise how our fates are bound inextricably together. And let us hear and repeat the message of the Hibakusha, “never again, not to anyone else.”
The views and opinions expressed in posts on the Rethinking Security blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the network and its broader membership.
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