(RNS) — Eighty years ago, the United States detonated atomic bombs for the first time in history, ushering in a devastating new era of war and threat. The first explosion occurred during the Manhattan Project’s Trinity test in New Mexico in July 1945, followed weeks later by the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and Nagasaki on Aug. 9.
The Trinity test created radiation fallout affecting unprotected communities across the state and beyond. The attacks on civilian populations in Japan killed hundreds of thousands of men, women and children and leveled most of both cities. The testing and the bombings left legacies of disease, mortality and environmental contamination affecting communities for decades to come.
This year, U.S. survivors of nuclear weapons testing — known as “downwinders” — won a major victory in Congress with the expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. The expansion brings long-excluded groups into the program, including those in Utah, New Mexico, Idaho and Arizona — some exposed as early as 1945 at the Trinity Test site. It also covers communities harmed by Manhattan Project waste in parts of Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alaska.
Their advocacy turned grief into action, and action into law.
This is a major milestone, but it’s also bittersweet. Some impacted communities were left out of the expansion because it cost “too much.” These exclusions are unjust and unacceptable. There is still work to do. But this victory was only made possible by decades of grassroots leadership from directly impacted communities. They spoke out, even when no one was listening.
The hibakusha — Japanese survivors of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — have spent decades bearing witness to the horrors of nuclear war. Yet unlike U.S. downwinders, they have received little recognition or recompense from the U.S. government. Many in the U.S. foreign policy establishment continue to justify the deliberate targeting of civilians as a necessary step to end World War II. But such acts are morally indefensible and widely condemned under international law. As history professor Richard Overy of the University of Exeter notes, Japan was already on the brink of surrender due to blockade and urban warfare. An alternative path was possible.
Eighty years later, the devastation of nuclear weapons is still with us, and the threat they pose to human life is greater than ever. In January, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved its “Doomsday Clock,” a symbol created by scientists to illustrate humanity’s proximity to global catastrophe, one second closer to midnight, or 89 seconds away from nuclear holocaust. As tensions between the U.S. and Russia persist and the war in Ukraine drags on, the potential for these indiscriminate weapons being used again — by intention, miscommunication or accident — continue to rise.
For years, faith groups have condemned these weapons as immoral and called for their abolition. Quakers, my own community, have long advocated for a world free of nuclear weapons, though you do not have to be a pacifist to see the danger these weapons pose to us all.
Instead of leading the world to reduce the nuclear threat, the U.S. government is pouring billions more of our tax dollars into building a new generation of nuclear weapons and planning to resume nuclear testing. This is also provoking more nuclear risks and undermining nonproliferation efforts. The Trump administration’s recent bombing of Iranian nuclear sites interrupted renewed diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Iran on a deal to restrain the development of these weapons and ensure international monitoring. The attacks did little to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities and only heightened tensions between Iran’s government, Israel and the U.S.
As the world reflects on the devastation wreaked by nuclear weapons for 80 years, we must continue to imagine and work for a world free of nuclear weapons and the threat they pose to humanity. That world may seem far away right now, but we can keep advocating for it.
Specifically, we can urge our members of Congress to recommit to diplomacy and nuclear nonproliferation.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) remains the last major arms control agreement between the United States and Russia, placing critical, verifiable limits on both countries’ nuclear arsenals. But this treaty is set to expire in 2026, and with it, the transparency and guardrails that have helped prevent catastrophe for more than a decade.
Congress must support efforts like H.Res. 100 and S.Res 61, which call for the U.S. to pursue a follow-on treaty to New START and reaffirm its commitment to nuclear arms control. Such an agreement between the U.S. and Russia — the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals — could lay the groundwork for future multilateral agreements, acting as a powerful first step toward bolder nuclear abolition efforts.
As Terumi Tanaka, survivor of U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki and recent recipient of the 2024 Nobel peace prize, reminds us, “It is the heartfelt desire of the Hibakusha that, rather than depending on the theory of nuclear deterrence, which assumes the possession and use of nuclear weapons, we must not allow the possession of a single nuclear weapon.”
Diplomacy is our best defense against the unimaginable. Preventing a new arms race requires courage, foresight and leadership. Eighty years after the first mushroom cloud rose over New Mexico, we owe it to past and future generations to reject a world governed by fear and to build a future rooted in cooperation, accountability and peace.
(Bridget Moix is the general secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation and leads two other Quaker organizations, Friends Place on Capitol Hill and the FCNL Education Fund. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)
