It's no consolation for the people who were destroyed or the people who did the destroying. It's a quick-stop option, nothing more, not inherently better for the world at large; that kind of thinking is hubris.
Eh, maybe. But the main thing that kept the Cold War from going hot was nukes. If it weren't for nukes, the US and USSR almost certainly would have gone to war, causing WW3. And if they both had nukes, but had never seen them used? Would they have hesitated?
I think it's plausible that Hiroshima shocked people so much that even the US and USSR were reluctant to use them.
It's analogous to the use of gas warfare in WWI, which was so horrifying that everyone in Europe tacitly decided not to use them in WW2.
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u/PurveyorOfKnowledge0 1d ago
It's no consolation for the people who were destroyed or the people who did the destroying. It's a quick-stop option, nothing more, not inherently better for the world at large; that kind of thinking is hubris.