8.RP.1.2

** By: Patrick Toussaint ** __Nuclear warfare__ (sometimes atomic warfare or thermonuclear warfare), is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is used to inflict damage on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage, and in a much shorter time scale. A major nuclear exchange could have severe long-term effects, primarily from radiation release, but also from the production of high levels of atmospheric pollution leading to a "nuclear winter" that could last for decades, centuries, or even millennia after the initial attack. A large nuclear war is considered to bear existential risk for civilization on Earth.
 * __ Nuclear Warfare __**

Only two nuclear weapons have been used in the course of warfare, both by the United States near the end of World War two. On August 6, 1945, a uranium gun-type device (code name "Little Boy") was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium implosion-type device (code name "Fat Man") was exploded over Nagasaki Japan. These two bombings resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 Japanese people (mostly civilians) from acute injuries sustained in the detonations.

After World War II, nuclear weapons were also developed by the Soviet Union. ), the United Kingdom and France (1950s), and the People's Republic Of China (1960's), which  contributed to the state of conflict and extreme tension that became known as the Cold War. In  the 1970s, India, and in the 1990s, Pakistan, two countries that were openly hostile toward  each other, developed nuclear weapons. Israel (1960s) and North Korea (2000s) are also  thought to have developed stocks of nuclear weapons, and have made the political decision to  retain them to the present time. South Africa also manufactured several complete nuclear  weapons in the 1980s, but subsequently became the first country to voluntary destroy their  domestically made weapons stocks and abandon further production (1990s).

Nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for testing purposes and demonstrations. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the resultant end of the Cold War, the threat of a major nuclear war between the two nuclear superpowers was generally thought to have declined. Since then, concern over nuclear weapons has shifted to the prevention of localized nuclear conflicts resulting from nuclear terrorism.

During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945.These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date. For six months before the atomic bombings, the United States intensely fire- bombed 67 Japanese cities.
 * __ History __**

Together with the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of Japan in the Potsdam Declaration issued July 26, 1945. The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum. By executive order of President Harry S. Truman, the U.S. employed the uranium-type nuclear weapon code named "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945 followed three days later by the detonation of the plutonium-type weapon code named "Fat Man" over the city of Nagasaki on August 9.

Within the first two to four months after the bombings, acute effects killed 90,000– 166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring in the first 24 hours. The Hiroshima prefectural health department estimates that - of the people who died on the day of the detonation - 60% died from flash or flame burns, 30% from falling or flying debris, and 10% from other causes. During the following months, large numbers died from the chronic effects of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illnesses. In a U.S. estimate of the total immediate and short-term causes of death, 15–20% died from radiation sickness, 20–30% from flash burns, and 50–60% from other injuries, compounded by illnesses. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians.

Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki, on August 15, 1945, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, signing the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945, officially ending the Pacific War and, there for, World War II, as Germany had already signed its Instrument of Surrender on May 7, 1945, ending the war of Europe. The two atomic bombings led, in part, to post-war Japan's adopting of the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which forbade the nation from developing nuclear armaments. The role of the bombings in the surrender of Japan, the ethical justification of the US for using them, as well as their strategic importance, is  still hotly debated...   **__ Source sited __** ** Thinkquest.org ** library.thinkquest.org/3471/**nuclear****_war_**body.html ** www.cddc.vt.e ** du    www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/nukeffct/index.html