@Steve
"Time has passed, and we still haven't blown up our world, despite a close call or two."
Not at all a non sequitur. It is exactly what Nash would predict, isn't it? The entire crazy logic of the Cold War game-theory - as satirized by Kubrick in Dr. Strangelove - was that arms reduction and war prevention weren't even possible rationally until MAD. Once the weapons are invented, we need the balance of terror - only when MAD is basically proven can we reveal the exact numbers and agree to reduce.
Since MAD was achieved with the USSR, nuclear war then became suicide, basically impossible. Rational behavior was forced upon us. Even the "close calls" are needed; if the Soviets weren't convinced that the USA was willing to use, they had no reason to respond by building up, since basically spending all your GDP on second strike capabilities doesn't appear at first to be a good idea. But without clear second strike, we don't have MAD.
As repulsive as it seems, we were lucky to have real grown-ups in charge at the time who were capable of doing this crazy logic - we have after all prevented what could have been true horror, a real nuclear war.
MAD worked for our Cold War and it will also work for other problem areas, like India and Pakistan. I might argue that rather than wring our hands about Iran, its possible capabilities, the Shahab-6 missile and what do about it, we may in fact be better off encouraging Israel to reach MAD with Tehran ASAP. . .
On August 6th, in 1945, the world saw the first use of atomic weapons against human targets. On this day 63 years ago, humanity lost its nuclear virginity. Until the end of time we will be a species that has used fission bombs in anger.
Time has passed, and we still haven't blown up our world, despite a close call or two. Which makes it difficult to criticize the decision - would things still have turned out all right, if anyone had chosen differently, anywhere along the way?
Maybe we needed to see the ruins, of the city and the people.
Maybe we didn't.
There's an ongoing debate - and no, it is not a settled issue - over whether the Japanese would have surrendered without the Bomb. But I would not have dropped the Bomb even to save the lives of American soldiers, because I would have wanted to preserve that world where atomic weapons had never been used - to not cross that line. I don't know about history to this point; but the world would be safer now, I think, today, if no one had ever used atomic weapons in war, and the idea was not considered suitable for polite discussion.
I'm not saying it was wrong. I don't know for certain that it was wrong. I wouldn't have thought that humanity could make it this far without using atomic weapons again. All I can say is that if it had been me, I wouldn't have done it.