Ok, it’s time for an angry thread about this bullshit.
Let’s start with how this “administration” has in its public comments generally taken a “diplomacy is for faggots” stance and trace that back historically & cultrally, shall we?
since at least a decade pre-WWII (when my area of focus begins), State Department (& oft diplomacy in general) in US has oft been criticized in gendered terms:
effeminate & weak “cookie pushers in striped pants” contrasted to the violent & forceful “hard men of history”
3/n
look to 1950s & on Red Scare we see 2 fucked up things:
1) many more “perverts” (queer folk) were purged & denied employment than real or suspected Communists.
2) Lavender Scare started with, & could, State in sig part b/c of gendered critique of diplo as queer & unmanly
14,000-20,000+ nuclear weapon pits stored in those bunkers at Pantex.
That is A LOT (a shit ton) of presumably very well guarded fissile material.
I’m sure the contractor responsible is focused on patriotism & security, not profits.
Nuclear Weapon Dismantlement Workflow:
notice that after dismantlement the pit seems to just kind of hang around in storage forever until you end up with literally ten or twenty+ thousand of them hanging out.
New (as described in 2014) B83 work stands means not having to move weapon between work stands which is nice.
The more you handle and move them the more likely you are to have an oopsie.
All the fins are off in pic on left, two off in pic on right. Not sure if meaningful.
No, nuking Japan was neither necessary nor sufficient to end WWII in the pacific (unless you’re from the US in which case THIS IS AN ARTICLE OF FAITH).
Allow me to suggest some readings that I have compiled FOR JUST THIS OCCASION: A Thread!
I appreciate that Ward's work asks reader to consider atomic bombings in relation to a summer of city bombings/destruction.
3/n
2nd up: Kirby's Five Volume Official UK History of World War II. Pape (1993: 157) was kind enough to highlight one of the more relevant portions from Volume Five (1969) about the Japanese Surrender for us: