Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Summer 2024 Intern Articles

WORLD WAR 4: Life After Nuclear War

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“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,

but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” – Albert Einstein

World War III was supposed to be the end of all wars. For five billion people, it was. Within minutes, the mushroom clouds engulfed major metropolitan areas around the world: Beijing, Berlin, Chicago, Delhi, Karachi, Kyiv, London, Moscow, New York, Paris, Pyongyang, San Francisco, Shanghai, St. Petersburg, and Washington D.C.. The purported mutual security of possessing the bomb became a mutual sentence to death. Within an hour, hundreds of millions were dead. New York was not hit by one bomb but five, each hitting a borough. Within a year, the nuclear fallout, disease, and nuclear winter had killed billions. Agriculture production was cratered, and food around the globe was contaminated with radiation; slowly killing those left on Earth. Even with rationing, the world is certain to starve.

Now, there is us. The billion remaining survivors living in the corners and crevices of the globe that escaped World War III. For two years, there was peace. Peace was necessary for survival. However, the peace has decayed as resources have become more scarce. Somewhere along the line, the question of our hunger became: what will I steal, and who do I have to kill in order to survive?

World War IV is not a grandiose battle of state power. Most states disappeared underground during the war. Instead, World War IV is a battle of human against human. Every human is in the Hobbesian state of nature—in anarchy.

…

To get ready for the day, I break off the icicles on my gas mask and reapply the scotch tape to the crack in the middle of the mask. Hoping that it will prevent the radiation from permeating my skin, I wrap my body in lead. My father was a radiologist before the war, which meant that he knew where to find the necessary gear to survive the nuclear radiation after the bombs dropped. Even with this knowledge, his body succumbed to cancer just ten months after the bomb. Since then, I have been alone. After layering up, I open the barn door to face the frigid world.

Covering my face, the wind pelts me with dark gray sediment as I trudge to the pick-up truck to drive into town. It snowed again last night. Reaching down to the ground, I dig through the powdered snow until I can feel the Oklahoman soil. It is coarse. Once again, there will be no harvest at the end of Summer.

After filling the tank of my truck with stolen gas, I place my hunting gun in the passenger seat of the car. The drive to Oklahoma City— or what is left of it—is an hour on pot-holed freeways. If my car were to break down on the highway, I would run the risk of freezing to death or encountering a past foe. Still, the drive into the city is much safer than the drive back. No one will go out of their way to attack me until I have something for them to steal.

The drive is familiar. Life after nuclear war is still— frozen in time. The billboards on the interstate remain unchanged. The roads slowly decay. The towns, even those left untouched by nuclear holocaust, are largely deserted. Oklahoma City is empty as I speed into town. Everyone imagines nuclear war as one or more big mushroom clouds, never daring to think about what happens underneath. We learned that humanity itself is not destroyed only by the bomb, but also what comes after. Empty tents line the streets. Most tents have human bodies, but no life.

There is a misconception of nuclear war that the bomb would only impact places where it was dropped. Instead, the effects are truly worldwide. The disruption of production created by nuclear war has destroyed supply chains, which decimated economies around the world. Even countries that did not experience the bomb itself were impacted. Switzerland, for instance, which remained neutral in the conflict, was downwind of the European nuclear attacks. Its government fell after inefficiently distributing aid for those affected by nuclear radiation. Elsewhere, goods became too expensive. Leaders were assassinated. Civil wars broke out throughout South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. No government was safe from World War III.

Now, no one is safe in World War IV.

The first time I came to the city, I made the mistake of leaving my car in a parking garage. A few shattered windows and bullet holes later, I now recognize the importance of being able to accelerate straight as fast as I can out of the city. I park my truck downtown in the middle of the street. Outside of the car, my boots crunch the tundra of the inner city. Every block, individuals lay on the sidewalk, starving or starved. Those that withstood hunger did not survive the cold. No matter how many times I see it, it chills my bones.

One man shrieks out to me from the sidewalk. “Please,” he pleads, “Kill me, I will tell you where my canned goods are.” The man is dying a slow death, wounded from what I can only presume was a robbery earlier. “They took everything I have,” he says. “Kill me before the cold does.”

I nod, then respond, “You said you have canned goods?”

Gingerly, the man reaches into the inside pocket of his blood-stained coat to find a small note. He hands it to me. It’s a map with a red X mark 30 minutes north. He watches me read it, “Please,” he utters once more.

I respect his request. The bomb changed what it meant to be human in a way that is inexplicable. Oppenheimer’s toy has destroyed life as we knew it.

With this note, the trip to the city is short today. I walk back to my truck, wearily checking my surroundings for any source of life…. There is none. I take one last look down the street before getting into my truck. Something catches my eye.

I approach it slowly.

In the middle of the street, breaking out of the gravel and snow, there is a stem and a leaf. Bending down, I reach out to touch the life sprouting out of the deserted downtown road.

I return to my truck, and begin driving north, away from the future and back to the present. Survival is not just about living another day. It is about finding meaning and purpose, even in the most dire of circumstances. The world is broken, but perhaps not beyond repair. And as long as there is life, there is hope.

Tomorrow, I will set out again. Not just to survive, but to find others; to rebuild; to nurture the small signs of life that persist in the shadows of our former world.

“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Statement from Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev (1985)

See more about the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons here.

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August 19, 2024
Beyond Oppenheimer: Every Scientist a Modern Prometheus

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The story told about the birth of the atomic age in Los Alamos is, at best, one of zealous overconfidence in progress and misguided dreams of global peace. At worst, it is a story of abdication of responsibility and callous indifference. Regardless of the frame of discourse, the common perception is that scientists were on a hamster wheel, unable to get off until seeing the bomb’s completion through, as depicted strikingly in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. However, not everyone stayed.

Joseph Rotblat, a Polish and British physicist whose work on fast neutron fission earned him the “privilege” of working at Los Alamos, was the most famous deserter of the Manhattan Project. He had only agreed to develop the bomb for fear that Hitler might acquire nuclear weapons. When General Leslie Groves let slip the purpose of the bomb was to “subdue the Soviets,” Rotblat seriously began to question his role at Los Alamos. Shortly afterward, upon learning that the Nazis had abandoned their nuclear program, Rotblat left the Manhattan Project, although not without the government attempting to paint him as a Soviet informant.

Rotblat’s story highlights the choice all weapons-research scientists can and should make. He identified three reasons why other conscientious physicists stayed: (1) “pure and simple” scientific curiosity; (2) trying to save American lives, coupled with the resolution to ensure the bomb would never again be used after the war; and (3) worrying about their careers. But according to Rotblat, those with a “social conscience” were a minority—most were content with others deciding how to use their research. In war, most people’s mindsets hardened, and the unthinkable during peacetime became a matter of course. But Rotblat was not the only physicist from the Manhattan Project to reject the atomic bomb. For example, Leo Szilard drafted the Szilard petition, advocating for the bomb to be demonstrated rather than detonated in an attack on a city, and I.I. Rabi, who refused to join the Manhattan Project, dedicated much of his life to promoting peace and the limitation of nuclear weapons. However, the US government was largely indifferent to their efforts, at least in part due to a lack of a unified front.

A common view is that scientists cannot be held responsible for the weapons they develop, if military leaders are the ones calling the shots. Indeed, a disregard for the political ramifications of research was on display in the covertly taped Farm Hill discussions between eight German scientists, including Werner Heisenberg, as they reacted to the news of the Hiroshima bombing. The physicists, despite nearly unanimously rejecting the principles of the Nazi regime, had worked tirelessly for the Nazi nuclear project largely in the name of pushing science forward. Thus, their first reaction to the news from Hiroshima was to ask questions of how the Amerians had succeeded where they had failed. Only afterwards did morality enter the conversation. But in reality, scientific work benefitting a political regime is inherently political. One cannot hide from accountability under the guise of progress.

A sociological study of the physicists at Lawrence Livermore, a federal nuclear research laboratory, found similar perspectives. Although employees are heterogeneous in religion, politics, and ideology, the laboratory subtly resocializes nuclear weapons researchers to become consequentialists with a deep confidence in deterrence. Moreover, the ethics of nuclear research are largely undiscussed, leaving physicists to weigh the morality of their research in private. Beyond ethical considerations, Livermore is an attractive destination for physicists due to the intellectual and research freedom it affords its employees, mirroring the best parts of graduate school for many. The icing on top? Salaries are substantial, without the competitive nature of a university. This is a reality all those serious about physics must face. Even as a lowly undergraduate, I learned the truth of grant applications in universities, the supposedly “pure” research centers. While working at a quantum gasses lab, my supervisor ruefully remarked that the best way to receive funding was to mention his research’s potential to be used in future weapons systems.

So what can scientists do today? In reality, even fundamental research may someday find an application. Thus, scientists have a duty to steer the applications of their work toward humanity’s betterment, not its annihilation. Moreover, both historically and technically, physicists have had a unique relationship with nuclear weapons. As experts they still have influence, particularly with the general public, and they serve as key researchers in the military-industrial complex. However, some senior scientists believe that engaging in either public outreach or policy and advocacy signals that one is not a serious scientist. That perception, coupled with Americans’ declining trust in scientists following the Covid-19 pandemic, necessitates that physicists take a different approach. To fight for disarmament, they must create a unified front through grassroots organizations, take responsibility for the weapons they create, and engage with the concerns of the public to rebuild trust.

Rotblat’s impassioned plea to scientists in his 1995 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech puts it best: when the “destiny of the whole of mankind may hinge on the results of scientific research,” scientists must remember their “responsibility to humanity.” Rotblat rejected the ivory tower mentality, because scientific neutrality was annihilated in Hiroshima. Today, inventors have a responsibility for their creations to do no harm. Nuclear weapons have only the potential for catastrophe.

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August 19, 2024
Nuclear Weapons and American Urban Planning in Postwar America: ‘Bombed Out’ Cities

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The threat of nuclear weapons is planetary. No city, country, or region would be spared in the event of a nuclear war. Although they have the potential to destroy anywhere and everywhere, urban centers are particularly susceptible to nuclear attacks due to their population and infrastructure density. Suburban and rural areas would still experience the effects of a nuclear war, including nuclear winter, but most urban areas would be completely decimated. The vulnerability of cities to nuclear weapons has been widely acknowledged, and acted upon. Take the Clark Art Institute, which is located in rural Williamstown, MA. The institute was founded by the Clark family, who wanted to house their private art collection away from potential nuclear weapon targets. In addition to personal decisions, existing urban landscapes have undergone noticeable changes due to the threat of nuclear weapons. From the construction of freeways into distant suburbs to different patterns of ‘defensive’ dispersal and sprawl, the logic of civil defense was inserted into the American built environment. The idea was to make a new city that could better withstand a nuclear attack.

Although the threat of nuclear weapons was certainly a factor at play in postwar American urban planning, it was not the only factor. The automotive industry, with powerful lobbying efforts and government connections, also pushed for sprawling suburban development and freeway construction to create car dependency, and thus sell more cars. The defensive logic behind these changes, however, does not hold up to the reality of the potential consequences of using nuclear weapons for various reasons. Additionally, dense cities are more sustainable than dispersed forms of land use, meaning that nuclear weapons have negatively altered urban landscapes. Things must change to secure a safer, more sustainable future.

Urban Planning and Nuclear Weapons Since World War II

The postwar American urban landscape is easy to visualize: miles of freeways running from cities to suburbs and beyond, sprawling new developments outside of cities with separated business and residential zones, and decrease in the density of cities. More difficult to discern, especially due to converging factors such as the auto industry’s influence, is the extent to which the threat of nuclear weapons influenced the direction of nuclear-age urban planning. Military and government officials all saw the danger of nuclear weapons to urban areas, and thus pursued a strategy of sprawl and dispersal “as a form of spatial self-defense.” Ranging from the creation of suburbs to smaller urban centers on the peripheries of major cities, these changes were meant to make cities less appealing targets to nuclear attack. The final piece, highways, were created with an explicit military goal to enable evacuation from cities, and also connect the newly dispersed society. Although all of these changes are ostensibly geared towards making cities safer from nuclear weapons, they do very little to contribute to that goal in reality. With only 30 minutes between launch and strike, there is not enough time to evacuate city centers using cars and highways. The expected road traffic and the distance required to evade a modern hydrogen bomb make it next to impossible to execute a mass evacuation (try out Alex Wellerstein’s Nukemap). Thus, although other factors went into postwar highway construction, the ‘defense’ aspect of the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act was limited, while the impact of urban freeway construction on urban communities was devastating.

Furthermore, today’s nuclear weapons can be launched from intercontinental ballistic missiles or submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which can contain anywhere from 2 to 14 warheads capable of striking different targets. Although strategies of dispersal and sprawl may have spread urban populations away from the single target of downtown, these powerful delivery vehicles which can strike multiple targets in a metropolitan area, would also render these planning changes ineffective in the event of a nuclear attack. Ultimately, there is no effective humanitarian response to a nuclear attack on a city, regardless of its spatial layout (again, see Nukemap). The only way to prevent harm from nuclear attacks is not to change how cities are built, but to prevent nuclear weapons from ever being used.

Why Urban Density is Important and the Catastrophe of Nuclear Age Planning

Since the beginning of the nuclear age, cities have undeniably changed in response to the threats posed by nuclear weapons, even if the usefulness of those changes to resisting a nuclear attack is questionable at best. Sprawl, dispersal, and freeway construction beyond being failures of civil defense, are detrimental to creating a world that is sustainable and does not fall prey to climate change. Dense city living has been demonstrated to be a more sustainable way of living than sprawling suburban development. Manhattan, for example, consumes energy at a per capita rate comparable to the US in the 1920s, making it the lowest out of any US state if it were a state. Contrary to the belief that dense cities are an environmental catastrophe, urban density is one of the best ways to implement sustainable development. It promises to decrease energy use, increase the efficiency of the land that humans are using, and has the potential to improve well-being.

Conclusion: the TPNW

Urban planning and nuclear weapons are not two concepts that are frequently linked. However, their historical connections in the post-World War II era are undeniable and have contributed to the inefficient and environmentally destructive patterns of American urban development. In addition to building denser, more sustainable cities to achieve Sustainable Development Goal #11 among others, people should be free from existential threats when living in urban areas. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, whose goal is the total elimination of all nuclear weapons, can help ensure that no city planners will ever have to think about instant annihilation ever again.

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August 19, 2024
Art’s Critical Role in the Fight for Nuclear Disarmament

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In the weeks following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both trained and untrained artists began creating pieces that reflected their fascination with the newest scientific discovery of atomic energy as well as the dangers that nuclear technology poses. In 1948, in Livorno, Italy, artist Voltolino Fontani co-founded the Eaismo movement alongside poet Guido Favati and artists Marcello Landi, Angelo Sirio Pellegrini, and Aldo Neri.

The Manifesto Dell’Eaismo highlighted their mission to forge an art movement that could respond to the current age: “Eaismo wants to bring art back to redraw its supreme values…It therefore aims to free artistic expression from the cerebralisms in which it has been entangled in the last fifty years and to bring it back to …the problems that urgently affect us as men rather than as stylists.” One of Fontani’s most notable paintings from this time, Grafo Dinamica, represents his belief that this atomic era demanded a reconsideration of classical art techniques. Although Grafo Dinamica does not explicitly depict nuclear warfare, the background resembles a map, one that has been painted over by dark purple shapes that can be viewed as resembling radiation wavelengths as a result of nuclear fallout. Grafo Dinamica asks its viewers to consider an artistic approach that addresses nuclear warfare without literal representation.

Voltolino Fontani, Grafo Dinamica (1948)

As Eaismo faded towards the end of the 1950s, a new Nuclear Art movement had already begun to take shape. Enrico Baj, an Italian artist based in Milan, co-founded the Movimento D’arte Nucleare with artists Sergio D’angelo and Gianni Dova in 1951. At the time, Milan was an international art hub, which paved the way for D’arte Nucleare’s place in the mainstream. The primary difference between Eaismo and the Movimento D’arte Nucleare was the extent to which Fontani and Baj focused on terror and fascination. The Movimento D’arte Nucleare highlighted the risk of apocalypse, attempting to reflect the fear of a potential nuclear war as technology quickly developed. The movement included pieces that were much more explicit in their message than Fontani. Baj painted the Manifesto Bum in 1952, which features a black and gray mushroom cloud head shape set behind a washed-out yellow background. Baj also included atomic formulas in the negative space. In the cloud, Baj writes, “People’s heads are charged with explosives. Every atom is about to explode. The blind, which is to say the non-nuclears, ignore the situation.” By inscribing these words in the head-cloud shape, Baj inextricably connects humans with nuclear weapons as well as the destruction they cause. He argues it is our responsibility to manage our own creations.

Manifesto Bum, Enrico Baj (1952)

Another one of his most famous paintings, Two Children in the Nuclear Night (1956), shows two distorted child-like figures set against a yellow-orange background splattered with black paint. Baj hopes to induce horror in his viewers and confront them with a night sky no longer lit by the moon or the stars but by explosions.

Enrico Baj, Two Children in the Nuclear Night (1956)

In 1953, Gianni Dova, co-founder of the Movimento D’arte Nucleare created Explosion. Dova utilizes abstraction as well as an unlikely combination of bright colors to create an indiscernible image. Explosion depicts the unfathomable: the moment in which our world might be destroyed as a result of nuclear warfare. Nonetheless, Dova manages to capture the chaos that we would be forced to confront. The background is split into two colors – black at the top and a mild blue at the bottom, representing the galaxy and the earth, respectively. Yet Dova’s colors know no boundaries. A nuclear explosion would break the boundaries of the world we know.

Gianni Dova, Explosion, (1953)

Both Fontani and Baj were responsible for establishing a culture of nuclear disarmament that still remains today, not only in Italy but all around the world. Nuclear art has also been transformed since the years of Fontani and Baj. Contemporary artists have made use of modern technology to create electronic art and animation to advocate their anti-nuclear weapon messages.

In an effort to engage youth in nuclear disarmament efforts, it is critical to understand the value of art as a form of both communication and advocacy. Art is a means to cope with the reality of our world: nuclear weapons exist and are here to stay unless we act. To manage this reality means to create a world in which we can understand and live in. In the Manifesto Dell’ Eaismo, Fontani explains the way Eaismo provides us with a lens through which to view the atomic age: “Eaismo will express the tragedy of the 20th century inspired by…the meaning of man as he is immersed in living in it, nourished in it… and translate the broken balance of the man-world equation into works. And this will happen necessarily: not only because art… has always, in every time, expressed the sense of the age in which it flourished.”

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August 19, 2024
The Forgotten Fallout: The Unacknowledged Costs Faced by Downwinders of the Nevada Test Site

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On June 7th, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) expired. The Senate passed an expanded version of the act earlier this year, but the Speaker of the US House of Representatives failed to bring it to a vote. This failure marked a critical shift in the US’s outlook towards shouldering responsibility for the harms of the nuclear age, including from atomic testing in New Mexico and Nevada from 1945 to 1992. By not extending RECA, the US Government underscored a glaring shortcoming in the nation’s acknowledgment and assistance for the long-term impacts of nuclear testing. This decision provides an impetus for discussions of the broader consequences of nuclear testing conducted in the US, which have left irreversible scars on the land and its people.

According to a 1997 press release from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), testing at the Nevada National Security Site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site, exposed American children to 15-70 times more radiation than what the government had previously reported. This finding reflects the exponentially larger scale at which downwind communities, both near and far, were impacted by these tests on US soil. The radiation exposure resulted in a significant increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer, particularly in children, due to their higher consumption of milk. Cows grazed in radiation-contaminated pastures and as a result, their milk contained high concentrations of iodine-131 and strontium-90, radioactive isotopes that accumulate in the thyroid. This is one of many examples of how radiation fallout impacted those downwind from the tests.

The health consequences of radiation exposure experienced by the downwind communities, either during the tests or due to environmental contamination over time, left lasting scars on entire communities that continue to affect individual’s well-being today. Many individuals witnessed multiple family members across different generations develop deadly cancers such as thyroid and lymphoma. In an interview for the KAWC in 2021, Laura Hanley, an attorney who processed RECA claims, despondently referred to the widespread cases of medical complications due to radiation exposure as “death mile.” Hanley was referring to the devastation of whole families and neighborhood communities.

In acknowledging the extreme physical and emotional burden of the health consequences of radiation exposure, it is important to recognize that these consequences have also led to adverse and less understood impacts on the economic well-being of these regions. While it is understood that the treatment of individuals in these regions furthered the financial insecurity of families who underwent treatment; what is less studied is how this impacted workforce capacity and thus the resulting economic vitality in these regions. In establishing a closer study of these economic consequences, progress can be made toward better acknowledging and more comprehensively shouldering the economic burden affected families face.

It is important to note that any effort to study and effectively respond to the economic burden affected families face must also better acknowledge the mounting burden of direct financial costs associated with necessary medical treatment, which was unmatched by any financial coverage provided through RECA. Under RECA, individuals in certain counties downwind from the Nevada National Security Site were eligible for a one-time, lump sum of $50,000. However, beyond the fact that RECA is no longer in effect, its coverage did not shoulder most of the cost of healthcare treatments, especially for those who do not have health insurance.

Principal Investigator of the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program (RESEP) Dr. Laura Shaw is one of many calling out this shortcoming of RECA and underscoring the need for more expansive coverage. In particular, Dr. Shaw highlights that the true costs of treatment for cancers developed as a result of radiation exposure amount to around $150,000. Her remarks are backed by the National Cancer Institute, which additionally notes that this cost only pertains to the treatment of one type of cancer when, in reality, many can face more than one cancer over their lifetimes.

The economic fallout from nuclear testing conducted in the US reflects the additional long-term financial strains imposed on downwinders, in addition to the physical and emotional detriment caused by radiation exposure. Establishing a comprehensive study of these socioeconomic impacts will provide an essential tool in forwarding a readoption and expansion of RECA to address the gaps in its coverage and the indirect long-term costs posed to affected communities.

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August 19, 2024
Expendable Lands and Colonial Legacies: Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands

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Nuclear colonialism refers to the practice whereby colonial powers choose territories inhabited by marginalized and indigenous populations to conduct nuclear testing with little regard for the effects on the local populations. The term encapsulates the colonialist view of Indigenous peoples and their territories as expendable. This attitude of expendability is foundational to colonialism and its legacies; nuclear colonialism represents one particularly dramatic phase in a lengthy, destructive history and its perpetuating legacy.

Beginning in 1945 and throughout the Cold War, over two thousand nuclear tests were conducted in various territories by various states, with the U.S. responsible for the majority of these tests. The U.S. Government’s process of selecting the Marshall Islands for nuclear testing reveals the colonialist attitudes that informed its decision. The search criteria required that the territory be remote, away from U.S. populations, and under U.S. control. When testifying to Congress, officials brazenly said of the site, “Above all, it had to be away from population centers of U.S. … and yet in an area controlled by the U.S.” The Marshall Islands fulfilled every criterion: a remote island archipelago in the Pacific Ocean under U.S. occupation since 1944, following two years in which the U.S. military transformed the territory into a battlefield while driving out the Japanese military administration. The U.S. wasted no time in using the already ravaged islands for military ends: on July 1, 1946—less than a year after the devastating nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the first peacetime nuclear test was conducted on Bikini Atoll. Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. conducted 66 additional nuclear tests on the islands concentrated on two atolls, but the fallout blanketed many of the other 27 atolls that make up the Marshall Islands.

In 1947, the United Nations officially placed the Marshall Islands under the trusteeship of the U.S. The stipulations of this agreement included paradoxical obligations, spelled out in Articles 5 and 6 of the document. Article 5 obligated the U.S. to ensure the trust territory contributed to “the maintenance of international peace and security,” thus validating its use for military ends. Article 6, conversely, sets forth the obligations of the governing state to ensure and promote the governed territory’s independence, protection, and security. It explicitly states the obligation to “protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources.” While the agreement lacked explicit permission to use the territories for nuclear testing, both the broad administrative and military control it granted the U.S. and the narrative that the tests were imperative to national security justified the testing that took place. The known effects of nuclear testing meant that any nuclear explosions on the islands rendered the obligation from Article 6 impossible to uphold; in fact, any testing directly ensured the violation of the obligation. Not only have the Marshallese experienced devastating health consequences—including higher incidences of cancer—but significant radiological contamination remains on the islands, including in the locally grown foods, rendering parts of the Marshall Islands uninhabitable. This contamination robs displaced Marshallese people of the opportunity to safely inhabit their native lands and live according to their culture and tradition. Although certain compensation schemes have been set up over the last few decades, they remain egregiously inadequate to address the scale of the problem, including the devastating health impacts and the ongoing environmental challenges.

The Broader Context of U.S. Colonial Exploitation

The willingness of the U.S. to exploit the Marshall Islands under nuclear colonialism is only one piece of a vast colonial legacy. Since the 19th century, the U.S. has continuously annexed territories under conditions that sanction their exploitation, as evidenced by the U.S.’s acquisition of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines following the conclusion of the Spanish-American war in 1898. Shortly following the annexation of these territories, U.S. senator Albert Beveridge remarked “that God ‘has made us the master organizers of the world…that we may administer…among savages and senile peoples.’” After acquiring these territories, the Supreme Court ruled that they would remain under U.S. control as unincorporated territories in the Insular Cases. This served to prevent the full realization of constitutional rights for the citizens of these territories. In keeping the territories unincorporated, the U.S. retained plenary power over these regions, enabling them to implement policies and decisions without the consent of the governed. The strategic classification of the territories as constitutional exceptions was informed by the settler colonization of Native American peoples and territories and made on the basis that the inhabitants—like Native Americans—were “unfit for automatic citizenship or for territorial sovereignty.” The colonialist attitudes that informed the decision to deprive these territories of constitutional protections paved the avenue for their exploitation. Like all other colonized territories, Puerto Rico draws remarkable parallels to the Marshall Islands. Puerto Ricans posed minimal resistance to U.S. control in 1898 under the impression that U.S. occupation would facilitate their independence. However, U.S. interest in Puerto Rico was strategic, fueled by the compelling economic and military value the territory would provide. The region was ideal for expanding U.S. commercial and military reach.

In pursuit of these military and economic ends, the U.S. displaced Puerto Ricans, exploited their lands, and disrupted their ways of life. These actions have resulted in significant environmental damage and health issues, such as contamination of land and water sources, increased cancer rates, and other chronic illnesses among the local population. Today, the Marshall Islands and Puerto Rico remain hindered by their history of occupation. Both territories struggle to realize economic independence due to the systemic exploitation of their resources and people by colonial powers. Their ongoing economic challenges and public health crises result directly from the policies and actions of the U.S. and its failure to compensate the territories adequately.

This history of exploitation and disregard for Indigenous and marginalized populations underscores the broader patterns of colonialism that persist in various forms. Nuclear colonialism, as illustrated by the U.S. actions in the Marshall Islands, is a stark reminder of how colonial legacies continue to inflict harm and maintain inequities. Nuclear testing is extraordinary in the novelty and nature of the weapons and their effects but very typical in terms of how former colonial powers treat smaller populations and territories under their control—as expendable.

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August 19, 2024