The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War by Fred  Kaplan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodness--sometimes I think it's better that you don't know what you don't know, or haven't been told. The Bomb--nuclear/hydrogen/atomic--has been around for 70+ years now, and it's really a miracle that it hasn't been used since its first two uses over Hiroshima & Nagasaki, which brought WWII to an end. There have been plenty of opportunities for it to be deployed again--and, for sure, after reading this insightful & truly, in some ways, frightening book--plenty of back door nuclear weapons discussions & strategy plans devised/revised for its use.

One's mind is boggled by the actual plans that the US government has had over these years for deploying these weapons of mass destruction. As if these generals and political figures could even comprehend the devastation their deployment--in the numbers they planned for--would have caused; horrific, unspeakable. Yet, they seem to have routinely tossed these numbers of missiles and plans for mass destruction around like talking about dropping off newspapers on a doorstep. This account of the secret history of nuclear war goes right up into the Trump administration of recent days--and the sabre-rattling between the US/Trump & N. Korea/Jonu-un. And it's scary; it's maddening. It's inhumane. It's downright frightening.

The latest high-level US government/military discussions were regarding updating/upgrading the deployment & use of "low yield" Trident II nuclear missiles aboard US subs. These missiles **each** carry a nuclear payload of 8 kilotons...OK, what does that mean? "The conventional bombs that leveled buildings in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the first two decades of the twenty-first century had the explosive power of 2,000 pounds of TNT. The low-yield Trident II warhead would explode with the blast power of 8 kilotons—meaning 8,000 tons, or 16,000,000 pounds—plus the heat, smoke, and radiation that would spread like toxic wildfire." Yes, one of them would release the power/destruction of 16 million pounds of TNT. Unimaginable. That conversations about these kinds of destructive powers have been *routine* up till today--and over the past 75 years--is simply incomprehensible in many ways. Madness and madmen, methinks. The consequences of what President Eisenhower warned would would result from the "military-industrial complex." Each service fighting for its share and influence; each congressman/woman & senator fighting for their part of the pie...

Borrowed from the library; read on my iPad.


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