Oppenheimer and the opponents of his invention

Audiences are flocking to the cinema to watch this film depicting the drama surrounding the development of the atomic bomb during the Second World War. Although Oppenheimer was obviously proud of the scientific achievement made by him and his team in the Manhattan Project, he was also deeply affected by the dilemma posed by the new weapon and its enormous destructive power. How many were going to die? What would the Soviet Union's response be? What would a world with nuclear weapons look like? 

On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. Three days later,a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. In total, over 200,000 people were killed. It remains the last atomic bomb to be detonated in war.

The nuclear threat has naturally also featured in the Nobel Peace Prize's history after the Second World War. From 1959 to the present day, a total of 11 prizes have had the fight against nuclear weapons as part of the justification for their awarding. The most famous are perhaps Andrej Sakharov, Alva Myrdahl, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons(ICAN). Almost all Nobel Peace Prize laureates in the period 1960-1990 mentioned the nuclear threat in their Nobel lectures. 

Nuclear weapons have not been used in war since those fateful days in August 1945, but the world has come close on several occasions. The Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 remains the most terrifying example of how rivalry between superpowers can bring the world to the brink of nuclear war. A mutual rearmament carried out by the United States and the Soviet Union came close to ending in disaster. In Norway, too, we have witnessed a situation that could have triggered a nuclear disaster, when a research rocket launched from Andøya was interpreted as an American nuclear rocket by Russian radar operators in 1995.

These events remind us of the constant, threatening presence of nuclear weapons. Human or technological failure can have fatal consequences. During the Cold War, the threat of nuclear weapons was a significant factor. Oppenheimer's worries were then shared by millions who feared the consequences of nuclear conflict.

Reagan and Gorbachev's breakthrough

In the film about Oppenheimer, we are presented with his thoughts about a dialogue with the Soviet Union ahead of the Hiroshima bombing to prevent an arms race. This dialogue never actually happened. We also hear his thoughts about the need for an international organisation that can take responsibility for preventing the use of nuclear weapons. In October 1945, the United Nations was established, with nuclear disarmament as an important part of its work for international peace and security.

There have been many attempts to gain control over nation states' use of nuclear weapons. The two most important agreements on the regulation of nuclear weapons are the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty from 1963 and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons from 1968. The latter entered into force in 1970 and was seen as a real breakthrough, but had little effect in practice. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty(INF) of 1987, negotiated with President Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev at the helm, produced greater optimism and results. It committed the United States and the Soviet Union to eliminate their ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles and prohibited them from acquiring new ones. The agreement was perceived as a real breakthrough in the negotiations between East and West. In 1991, abilateral agreement,the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-I), was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union.

With the danger of the Cold War no longer hanging over us and a significant reductionin the number of nuclear weapons, many people probably thought that the nuclear threat was about to disappear. Public engagement in nuclear disarmament waned — until Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. Then we discovered that the danger was not over at all. In fact, some experts say we have never been closer to nuclear war than we are today.

The paradox is that while the number of nuclear weapons has decreased since the Cold War, the potential destructive effect of each weapon has increased significantly. The two atomic bombs used in 1945 killed over 200,000 people. Today, a single nuclear warhead dropped on a major city has the potential to kill several million people. 

Is there a solution? 

The reason why the world has not found a solution to the nuclear threatis, of course, its complicated geopolitical nature. The balance of power in world politics is shaped by the principles of “mutual deterrence” or “balance of terror”. They theorise that as long as all major powers possess weapons of mass destruction, no one will dare to use them for fear of mutual annihilation. Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize, had a similar idea. He imagined that weapons would one day become so destructive that the very phenomenon of war would disappear. Todayit may seem that he was thoroughly mistaken.

There are more than enough weapons in the world to wipe out all life several times over. Yet war remains a reality in many parts of the world, and the shadow of nuclear weapons still threatens our existence.

In 2017, ICAN received the Nobel Peace Prize for its work in highlighting the danger of nuclear weapons and promoting an international ban. It is credited with having 122 countries adopt a UN ban on nuclear weapons, which declared weapons of mass destruction obsolete and illegitimate. Setsuko Thurlow, who survived Hiroshima, spoke heartbreakingly on behalf of ICAN during the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo City Hall. Many remember her vivid descriptions of a city in flames and ruins. Her plea to the world was crystal clear: Ban these weapons, choose freedom over fear, and prioritize disarmament over destruction.

In this Nobel Lecture, Thurlow's call was summed up by ICAN's director Beatrice Fihn:

“The story of nuclear weapons will have an ending. It is up to us to decide what that ending will be. An end to nuclear weapons or an end to us.” 

Let us hope that the Oppenheimer film leads to a renewed commitment to nuclear disarmament and increased pressure on the major powers to sign the UN treaty banning them.