Nuclear energy can be made available at the most outlandish places. It can be used on the Antarctic continent. It can be made to work on the bottom of the ocean.
The expanding front of industrialization has been called the “revolution of rising expectations.” That nuclear energy should be involved in the current and in the turbulence of this expanding front, is inevitable.
One can say a little more about the effects of scientific and technological discoveries on the relations among the people of the globe. With added discoveries raw materials will no longer be needed with the old urgency. For most substances substitutes are being found. This may make for greater economic independence.
On the other hand, new possibilities will present themselves. We shall learn how to control the air and how to cultivate the oceans. This will call for cooperation and more interdependence.
The dangers from radioactive by-products will act in a similar direction. The radioactive cloud released from a reactor accident may be more dangerous than a nuclear explosion. Such a cloud will not stop at national boundaries. Some proper form of international responsibility will have to be developed.
What effect the existence of nuclear weapons will have upon the coexistence of nations is a question less understood and less explored than any other affecting our future. Most people turn away from it with a feeling of terror. It is not easy to look at the question with calm reason and with little emotion.
A few predictions seem disturbing but are highly probable:
Nuclear secrets will not keep. Knowledge of nuclear weapons will spread among nations—at least as long as independent nations exist.
Prohibition will not work. Laws or agreements which start with the word “don’t” can be broken and will always be broken. If there is hope, it must lie in the direction of agreements which start with the word “do.” The idea of “Atoms for Peace” succeeded because it resulted in concrete action.
An all-out nuclear war between the major powers could occur but we may have good hope that it will not occur if we remain prepared to strike back. No one will want to provoke the devastation of his own country.