Perspective with Ryan Bridge: Nukes have prevented 80 years of major war

It's been 40 years since the French sunk the Rainbow Warrior.

They wanted to stop the protests against nuclear testing at Mururoa.

The terrorist attack by an allied country on on our soil was outrageous.

Two years after the event, we cemented our nuclear free stance.
 
We're officially against nuclear weapons.

Testing is bad for the environment, no doubt.

But let me ask you a question. Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have we had another world war?

The answer is no.

We've had decades of cold war between Russia and the West.
We've had plenty of conflict - Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East.
But nothing's escalated quite in the way it did in World Wars I and II.

I think you've got to ask yourself why?

Did we collectively realise the bloody cost of far away battles and drawing our friends into conflict?
Did we wake up after the second round and think, oh, world wars aren't that great.

Or we witness the power of atomic weapons in Japan and scare ourselves silly?

The theory of nuclear deterrence basically says that yes nukes are evil inventions, but their existence deters your enemies from attacking you for fear you'll hit back with a nuke.

Mutually assured destruction.

It's like schoolyard bullies. You don't pick on a guy who's got a bunch of older brothers who could then come beat you up.

The threat of getting totally annihilated deters you from picking on somebody with nukes, or, messing with their friends.

Nukes are bad. But does anybody think without them we'd have gone 80 years without a major world war?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's been forty years since the French sunk the Rainbow Warrior.
They wanted to stop the protests against nuclear testing and
Murouroa and the terrorist attack by our friends on our
soil was outrageous, and it feels as outrageous today as
I'm sure it did then. Two years after the event,
we cement our nuclear free stans. We're officially against nuclear weapons,

(00:24):
the testing of them, the manufacturer of them. Testing, of
course is bad for the environment. But let me ask
your question. Since Roshima and Nagasaki, have we had another
World War? The answer is no. We've had decades, of
course of Cold war between Russia and the West. We've
had plenty of conflict Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East,

(00:46):
but nothing's escalated quite in the way it did in
World Wars one and two. And I think you've got
to ask yourself, why did we collectively realize the bloody
cost of far away battles and drawing our friends into conflict.
Did we wake up after the second round and think, oh,
World Wars aren't that great? Or did we witness the

(01:08):
power of atomic weapons in Japan and scare ourselves silly?
The theory of nuclear deterrence basically says that, yes, nukes
are evil inventions, but their existence deters your enemies from
attacking you for fear that you'll hit back with a
nuke mutually assured destruction. It's like school yard bullies. You

(01:30):
don't pick on a guy who's got a bunch of
older brothers who could come and beat you up. The
threat of getting totally annihilated deters you from picking on
somebody with nuclear weapons or messing with their friends. So, yes,
nukes are bad, but does anybody think without them we'd
have gone eighty years without another major world war. For

(01:55):
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