On August 6, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on the people of Hiroshima. Late on the morning of August 9, the US dropped a second atomic bomb, this time on the people of Nagasaki, without so much as a second thought.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are poignant reminders of what havoc weapons of mass destruction in the hands of men, overcome and obsessed with power, can wreak upon human civilisation. American scholarship has, over many years now, indulged in a very critical introspection of whether it was at all necessary to atom bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most opine that it was not.

The compulsions that drove the US leadership to drop the two atom bombs, strangely named "Little Boy" and "Fat Man." was anything but strategic. Many analysts have drilled holes into the arguments, which President Truman and his administration offered to the US public and the world, that it had saved a million allied soldiers' lives. The bombings have been castigated, as they deserve to be, both on strategic and moral counts.

There is a stark similarity in the position taken to justify the barbaric acts, which the bombings of August 6 and 9 were, and all subsequent US intervention since then, right up to the invasion of Iraq; a position propped up by lies, falsehood, deceit, and exploitation of the fear of the enemy who were painted as demons and barbarians. While the majority of the Americans accepted the arguments then about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as they have the invasion of Iraq now, there were many dissenting voices then, including top US military commanders in Europe and the Pacific, as there are now on the invasion of Iraq. The New York Times had this to say on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: "We are the inheritors to the mantle of Genghis Khan and of all those in history who have justified the use of utter ruthlessness in war." Norman Thomas, a six-time presidential candidate, called Nagasaki "the greatest single atrocity of a very cruel war."

Regrettably, the atomic bomb was used not as a means of last resort but as a weapon of first option. Even if one were to accept the argument that Hiroshima was bombed to force a Japanese surrender because invasion of the Japanese mainland would have imposed exceedingly high premium on the US forces, how does one explain the bombing of Nagasaki? In any event, the projected casualty figure in the event of the mainland invasion was highly speculative.

As for a Japanese surrender, it is well known that by June 1945, Japan was everything but a military power, hardly able to conduct any offensive against the allies, it being abundantly clear to its leaders, after the capitulation of Germany, that the end was near. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was preceded by the devastation of Tokyo through conventional bombings of the capital on three occasions. One of the raids, in May was the greatest air raid of the Pacific War, when 520 giant B-29 bombers dropped 4,500 tons of incendiary bombs on the heart of a city. Two days later, a second strike of 502 planes dropped some 4,000 tons of explosives over Tokyo.

By then Japanese overtures for peace, and there were five separate surrender overtures from Japanese officials at high-level, were already being conveyed through third countries, and the only reason that these were not entertained by the US was Japan's unwillingness to consider an "unconditional" surrender. The irony is that the eventual Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945 was not unconditional since the emperor continued to remain in the exalted position that the Japanese had wanted to see him in. It was not Hiroshima and Nagasaki but, as admitted by former Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye, "Fundamentally, the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s."

President Truman's steadfast defence of the bombings has a similar tone to President Bush's rationalisation of the Iraq war. In August 1945 the US president claimed that, "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians." This claim is as preposterous as that which asserted that Iraq possessed WMD and was capable of launching an attack in 45 minutes. In fact, almost all of the victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilians, and the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, issued in 1946, stated: "Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population."

This abundantly illustrates the fact that while military capability transforms but with the attendant dynamics of natural constraint, intentions and interest can change overnight. Hiroshima and Nagasaki must therefore compel us to take a more serious look at the NPT regime and how it can be fully opertionalised to ensure that never there will be another such catastrophe.

Unfortunately, the five yearly Non-Proliferation Review Conference, held in May 2005, has ended inconclusively. This has led many to apprehend that the thirty-year nuclear non-proliferation regimen, crucial to our common survival, is in danger of disintegrating due to divergent perspectives. More so when we see the double standards of the nuclear states in dealing with the newly emerged nuclear powers. Contradictions in policy reflect only the levity of certain countries in addressing the non-proliferation issue, not that the NPT itself is free of contradiction. And many unstable states are in possession of nuclear warheads.

Only recently has India been accorded the status of a nuclear power, something experts believe might weaken nuclear weapons control. Pakistan has expressed its intention to conduct several more tactical missile tests and according to one report, "the greater danger to the world community, virtually unknown among the general public, consists of 4,000 US and Russian strategic nuclear warheads that are maintained on a hair-trigger alert." Even more disconcerting is the prospect of further proliferation that might ensue following the US declaration of its intent to develop and produce new nuclear weapons.

The current international flux raises the apprehension that not logic but obsession with power and a parochial and self-serving view of national interest might force the hands of some nuclear weapon states to use their nuclear weapons. That nuclear weapons have not been used in the last sixty years is no guarantee that they will not be used in the future.

One analyst suggested, after visiting the Hiroshima Memorial Museum, that anyone who contemplates using nuclear weapons is history's biggest fool and most dangerous criminal.

The worrisome fact is that the world had never been short of either.

The author is Editor, Defence and Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.