In a New York Times op-ed published on Aug. 6, Dr. Terumi Tanaka raised the important question of the existential danger of nuclear war, and stressed the need for mankind to move beyond the reliance on them. Dr. Tanaka is a survivor of the Nagasaki nuclear attack in 1945, and co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese organization of nuclear bomb survivors which has led efforts to prevent their use ever again and which last year won the Nobel Peace Prize.
After briefly describing his experience in 1945, Dr. Tanaka declared: “Today, the nuclear taboo is on the verge of collapse. The current wars in Europe and the Middle East involving nuclear-armed states, in which there are strong grounds for believing international law is being violated on a regular basis, and threats by the belligerents to use nuclear weapons are weakening the taboo over deploying them.” The recent fighting between India and Pakistan “reminded us how wars between nuclear powers can happen.” Tanaka was also clear that those countries behaving irresponsibly in this regard includes Japan and its Western allies.
