Washington’s Cult of the Bomb

Components of a U.S. B83 thermonuclear weapon. Photograph Source: Chuck Hansen – Public Domain

The first of the bombs used against Japan, the one that flattened Hiroshima, produced a blast equivalent to about 15,000 tons of TNT and killed tens of thousands of innocent people in minutes. Fast-forward to the ‘70s: the United States’ B83 bomb “is by far the most destructive weapon in the US nuclear arsenal,” capable of producing an explosion about 80 times stronger than the one used against Hiroshima.