.

With the release of Oppenheimer, the debate, one that will never be resolved, over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have once again become more active.

Pondering these issues for an uncounted time it struck me that these bombings and the decision to proceed with them are a real-world example of the famous philosophical ‘the Trolley Problem.’

The Trolley Problem posits an out-of-control streetcar hurtling down a track. The car cannot be stopped and without any action taken will strike and kill five pedestrians. However, if a switch is thrown it will go onto a different track where it will kill ‘only’ one person. The unresolvable question is which is more ethical to do nothing and allow five to die or to take an action with intent that will kill one?

World War II in the Pacific is the out-of-control trolley. It will kill people until it is ended. The course of the war prior to August 1945 supports the assumption that an invasion of the home island will result in massive loss of life for both the invading allied armies and the Japanese population. One can argue that a demonstrate display of the atomic bomb might have prompted an unconditional surrender, but a counter-factual cannot be proven and even after two cities had been struck with the terrible weapons the militarist faction wanted to continue the war. One can also argue that the requirement that the surrender be unconditional could have been dropped to end the war, however the United States was not the sole combatant allied against the Empire and it is doubtful that the Chinese would have settled for a conditional surrender. These other histories remain counter-factual.

On the other side it can be argued that the Invasion of the home islands may not have caused such horrific casualties as the level of starvation already striking the populace would have prompted a total collapse. Again, a counter-factual cannot be proved and the actions shown earlier in the war displayed an almost unimaginable resolve by both the armed forces of Japan and its people.

The conclusions debating if the bombings were justified, if they were an evil, if they saved more lives than they cost, all depend on the counter-factuals accepted as given and the ones rejected as unsupported rendering the debate not only unresolved but unresolvable. Not matter where you stand on the issue just be aware that you stand on counter-factual interpretations of the war, and no one has a lock on the ‘truth’ of what would have happened had events proceeded differently.

First off let me make clear there are numerous reasons why the Russian aggression in Eastern Europe must be repelled and repelled without Russia gaining material benefits from invaded its neighbor.

Aggressive wars of conquest must have consequences and that must be uniformly negative, or we invite other nations to follow in that profitable lead.

The horrors that have been visited upon the Ukrainians, which echo the history of the 20th century, must be answered. Ukraine was forcibly integrated into the communist empire by the Russian Bolsheviks and suffered greatly as subjects of the evil soviet empire as well as Nazi atrocities during the second world war. By both malice, such as the Holodomor when the Soviets starved millions of Ukrainians to death, or by incompetence such as when lies and budgetary short cuts instigated the greatest civilian nuclear disaster in history with Chernobyl the Ukrainians have suffered at the hands of the Russian and they deserve their freedom.

But there is another reason the Ukrainians must win, and it is a reason that matters to every person on this blue-green planet.

In 1991, when Ukraine declared its independence which shattered the USSR it took with it a massive collection of nuclear weapons, the third largest armory of these in the world, along with the technological ability to design and create more. The world stood on the precipice of a rapidly expanding number of nuclear armed states.

1994 Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal and committed itself to non-proliferation. As part of that commitment Ukraine received security assurances that most importantly the UK, the USA, and ironically Russian would provide assistance should Ukraine be subject to an act of aggression. They walked away from nuclear weapon on our promises.

If Russia topples the Ukrainian government or seizes large elements of its territory the lesson heard around the globe will be clear. Those without nuclear weapons can be subjugated by those with them. A lesson made crystal clear by Iraq and Tunisia and now if true for the second largest nation in Europe one that cannot but inspire a scramble for the only safeguard against the superpowers of the world, your own nuclear weapons. A world where Ukraine falls or loses great swaths of land may very well lead to world where more and more nations armed themselves with nuclear devices. And the world becomes a powder keg that endangers us all.