Hi - thanks so much for reading the article and for your comment! For the record, I work a lot with Japanese anti-nuclear activists both inside and outside of the UN, and was not by any means trying to minimize the devastation that the bombings caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor the role of the hibakusha - many of whom I was fortunate to meet, in advocating against the insanity of nuclear arms. What Nikos captured with that quote of "Hiroshima and Nagasaki are fine," is that often, when I speak about the existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to our world, people end up misunderstanding the scale of the devastation then vs. the potential devastation today, and they say or write things like, "then how come Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities today, with far greater populations than before the attacks?"
Here are some of my writings where I talk about the bombings:
I love how this article blatantly ignores the neutering of the Japanese military under American occupation, and for good reason -- fascist governments should not have militaries that are unchecked. (That and other economic domestic and foreign policy that anybody who actually bothered to read a history book would be able to name.) But, let's be factual: anti-war positions are not radical. It is not a new idea for folks across the political ideological spectrum to not like war, not want to be in one, and/or lose confidence in fighting one...even if one agrees with its "mission" to liberate or however the state would style it.
What I find abhorrent (and lazy!) is that this article decides to take Hughes' words at face value that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are "fine", and that there is a horrendous metaphor that Japan's focus at transportation development is just another no-duh policy decision over militarization that the American establishment is incapable of making. There is no horseshoe theory made evident here, just ahistorical analysis.
Japanese activists lead the disarmament movement at the UN, and are deeply integrated into non-nuclear arms work. I find it quite troubling how Hughes, and how the author has little to say in response, names the horrific crisis happening in the current war in Ukraine and still also say that places that have experienced nuclear bombing is fine after a few visits. Sure, the region has recovered from its initial bombing tragedies; but to quote and then pull no other analysis to ameliorate possible missing context from the interview, OR add one's own historical context disregards the 70,000 that died instantaneously post-bombing. Not to mention the egregious death toll climbing over 170,000. Families and individual people were torn apart, annihilated, and disabled for years on end with a national trauma for civilians that are still mourned to this day.
Hi - thanks so much for reading the article and for your comment! For the record, I work a lot with Japanese anti-nuclear activists both inside and outside of the UN, and was not by any means trying to minimize the devastation that the bombings caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor the role of the hibakusha - many of whom I was fortunate to meet, in advocating against the insanity of nuclear arms. What Nikos captured with that quote of "Hiroshima and Nagasaki are fine," is that often, when I speak about the existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to our world, people end up misunderstanding the scale of the devastation then vs. the potential devastation today, and they say or write things like, "then how come Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities today, with far greater populations than before the attacks?"
Here are some of my writings where I talk about the bombings:
I found this piece interesting yet troubling. Not doubting Dr. Hughes expertise, but I would respectfully encourage her to reconcile her views with a few points.
Dr. Hughes’ pro-peace rhetoric regarding Ukraine does not actually mean being pro-peace, it means being pro-war.
What do I mean? There is a good peace settlement in Ukraine––one where the war can end on a foundation that will make it easier to prevent another war––and a bad peace settlement in Ukraine, one that will only produce more bloodshed. Dr. Hughes appears firmly in the latter camp.
President Putin believes Ukraine belongs to Russia; his is a vision of Russian nationalism that sees Russia as an empire spanning the Eurasian landmass. In this view of Russian power, Russia cannot be a great power without Ukraine. For President Putin this means that Ukraine must be politically subjugated and made part––directly or indirectly––of the Russian sphere. In essence, Putin will not stop until he gets what he wants, or until it becomes painfully clear that Russia does not have the capability to get what it wants through military means.
Dr. Hughes wants this conflict to end. That is a legitimate and moral call. The problem is that she values life more than Putin. Putin does not care about Russian soldiers, he does not care about Ukrainian soldiers; he only cares about his vision of an empire in Eastern Europe that has no place for democracy or human rights. In her determination to obtain a peaceful settlement, Dr. Hughes supports a fundamentally misguided approach that puts peace at all costs, crucially ignoring that Putin does not want peace at all costs.
If we come to an agreement where Ukraine ends up losing territory, its army is in shambles, and its political leadership bifurcated––which is what Dr. Hughes and Carlson call for, indirectly––that will not make war less likely but MORE likely, because it will show that the West will tire when the cost of deterring aggression gets high, that changing borders through military force is a legitimate pursuit in international affairs, and that dictators can get away with wars of aggression after so-called pro-peace advocates lobby Western governments to abandon efforts at punishing military aggression. Dr. Hughes’s policy approach, in other words, if followed to its logical conclusion, would make war in the Baltic and between NATO and Russia more likely, would make war across the Taiwan Strait more likely, and it would actually make future war between Russia and Ukraine more likely. This is because it signals weakness, and when countries signal weakness when facing an authoritarian dictator like Putin that wants greater power through land grabs, war becomes more likely.
We should know this: this was exactly the policy that led us to this mess in the first place. The irony of Dr. Hughes’ view is that we pursued a policy of appeasement towards the Kremlin before 2022: we blocked NATO membership for Ukraine, delayed EU membership for Ukraine, and pursued misguided peaceful economic relations with Moscow through Angela Merkel’s economic Ostpolitik with Russia. We also did effectively nothing when President Putin seized Crimea, with our sanctions and limited weapons packages amounting to what was essentially a minor slap on the wrist.
Dr. Hughes does not appear to recognize that we tried her policy of appeasement before Putin invaded in 2022, and it did not work. It will not work out again.
I welcome constructive and engaging discourse on these issues, and Dr. Hughes is entitled to her views on this matter. But let’s approach this perspective from an educated point of view, not pursuing the same old formula that did not work.
Advocating for peace is good, but peace through strength is the answer. If we want to establish a durable and persistent peace that Putin won’t break in two years, we need to arm Ukraine, provide sustainable security guarantees (whether the U.S. should be involved is debatable), and intensify the sanctions. Only until Putin recognizes that he cannot re-establish the Russian Empire through military force at a cost that will not hit the Russian elite will the suffering end, but, until then, there will be no peace. Naivete about President Putin’s willingness to end this war is as unwarranted as it is foolish.
(I will also point out that the example of Japan is a silly play on words that means nothing in substance. Japan is developed today because it has not had to rely on its own security forces to maintain its security, allowing it to focus on economic development. They did so because the United States protected it under its nuclear umbrella. Dr. Hughes' example arguably came out of the extended nuclear deterrence she appears to abhor.)
I thought this was the conservative Columbia student publication. Instead it’s some weird hybrid of The Nation and Al Jazeera. Please cancel my subscription. At least at the Harvard Salient there is a grownup board to step in when the publication veers off track.
Hi Ira—this is not a conservative student publication. While we have many conservative writers, Sundial is a non-partisan, free speech focused publication that hosts writers from across the political spectrum. We seek to be a reflection of the ideological diversity of our student body. If you are looking to read an exclusively “conservative” publication that is only interested in ideological alignment and not diversity of thought, then Sundial is not the publication you are looking for.
SO there are no principles/standards? You going to publish Nazi pieces? Communist pieces? Pro-Hamas? "free speech"? "diversity of thought"? Be like Tucker and have Fuentes on? WHy even have a publication or editors at that point, Sidechat/Facebook/twitter many other open access platforms already exist. I'd take Mike Pompeo and Hillary Clinton over Tucker Carlson and this far leftwinger in a twinkling. Where is the money to fund this stuff coming from? Very troubling.
Hi - thanks so much for reading the article and for your comment! For the record, I work a lot with Japanese anti-nuclear activists both inside and outside of the UN, and was not by any means trying to minimize the devastation that the bombings caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor the role of the hibakusha - many of whom I was fortunate to meet, in advocating against the insanity of nuclear arms. What Nikos captured with that quote of "Hiroshima and Nagasaki are fine," is that often, when I speak about the existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to our world, people end up misunderstanding the scale of the devastation then vs. the potential devastation today, and they say or write things like, "then how come Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities today, with far greater populations than before the attacks?"
Here are some of my writings where I talk about the bombings:
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/cold-war-nuclear-weapons-russia-japan/
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/end-the-nuclear-age
https://thebulletin.org/2023/07/post-oppenheimer-what-we-should-do-to-dismantle-the-nuclear-doomsday-machine/
https://www.wagingpeace.org/dr-hughess-remarks-at-choose-hope-hiroshima/
https://www.wagingpeace.org/my-trip-to-nagasaki/
https://www.wagingpeace.org/dr-hughess-remarks-at-soka-university-choose-hope-panel/
I love how this article blatantly ignores the neutering of the Japanese military under American occupation, and for good reason -- fascist governments should not have militaries that are unchecked. (That and other economic domestic and foreign policy that anybody who actually bothered to read a history book would be able to name.) But, let's be factual: anti-war positions are not radical. It is not a new idea for folks across the political ideological spectrum to not like war, not want to be in one, and/or lose confidence in fighting one...even if one agrees with its "mission" to liberate or however the state would style it.
What I find abhorrent (and lazy!) is that this article decides to take Hughes' words at face value that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are "fine", and that there is a horrendous metaphor that Japan's focus at transportation development is just another no-duh policy decision over militarization that the American establishment is incapable of making. There is no horseshoe theory made evident here, just ahistorical analysis.
Japanese activists lead the disarmament movement at the UN, and are deeply integrated into non-nuclear arms work. I find it quite troubling how Hughes, and how the author has little to say in response, names the horrific crisis happening in the current war in Ukraine and still also say that places that have experienced nuclear bombing is fine after a few visits. Sure, the region has recovered from its initial bombing tragedies; but to quote and then pull no other analysis to ameliorate possible missing context from the interview, OR add one's own historical context disregards the 70,000 that died instantaneously post-bombing. Not to mention the egregious death toll climbing over 170,000. Families and individual people were torn apart, annihilated, and disabled for years on end with a national trauma for civilians that are still mourned to this day.
Let's...put on our thinking caps, please.
Hi - thanks so much for reading the article and for your comment! For the record, I work a lot with Japanese anti-nuclear activists both inside and outside of the UN, and was not by any means trying to minimize the devastation that the bombings caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor the role of the hibakusha - many of whom I was fortunate to meet, in advocating against the insanity of nuclear arms. What Nikos captured with that quote of "Hiroshima and Nagasaki are fine," is that often, when I speak about the existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to our world, people end up misunderstanding the scale of the devastation then vs. the potential devastation today, and they say or write things like, "then how come Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities today, with far greater populations than before the attacks?"
Here are some of my writings where I talk about the bombings:
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/cold-war-nuclear-weapons-russia-japan/
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/end-the-nuclear-age
https://thebulletin.org/2023/07/post-oppenheimer-what-we-should-do-to-dismantle-the-nuclear-doomsday-machine/
https://www.wagingpeace.org/dr-hughess-remarks-at-choose-hope-hiroshima/
https://www.wagingpeace.org/my-trip-to-nagasaki/
https://www.wagingpeace.org/dr-hughess-remarks-at-soka-university-choose-hope-panel/
I found this piece interesting yet troubling. Not doubting Dr. Hughes expertise, but I would respectfully encourage her to reconcile her views with a few points.
Dr. Hughes’ pro-peace rhetoric regarding Ukraine does not actually mean being pro-peace, it means being pro-war.
What do I mean? There is a good peace settlement in Ukraine––one where the war can end on a foundation that will make it easier to prevent another war––and a bad peace settlement in Ukraine, one that will only produce more bloodshed. Dr. Hughes appears firmly in the latter camp.
President Putin believes Ukraine belongs to Russia; his is a vision of Russian nationalism that sees Russia as an empire spanning the Eurasian landmass. In this view of Russian power, Russia cannot be a great power without Ukraine. For President Putin this means that Ukraine must be politically subjugated and made part––directly or indirectly––of the Russian sphere. In essence, Putin will not stop until he gets what he wants, or until it becomes painfully clear that Russia does not have the capability to get what it wants through military means.
Dr. Hughes wants this conflict to end. That is a legitimate and moral call. The problem is that she values life more than Putin. Putin does not care about Russian soldiers, he does not care about Ukrainian soldiers; he only cares about his vision of an empire in Eastern Europe that has no place for democracy or human rights. In her determination to obtain a peaceful settlement, Dr. Hughes supports a fundamentally misguided approach that puts peace at all costs, crucially ignoring that Putin does not want peace at all costs.
If we come to an agreement where Ukraine ends up losing territory, its army is in shambles, and its political leadership bifurcated––which is what Dr. Hughes and Carlson call for, indirectly––that will not make war less likely but MORE likely, because it will show that the West will tire when the cost of deterring aggression gets high, that changing borders through military force is a legitimate pursuit in international affairs, and that dictators can get away with wars of aggression after so-called pro-peace advocates lobby Western governments to abandon efforts at punishing military aggression. Dr. Hughes’s policy approach, in other words, if followed to its logical conclusion, would make war in the Baltic and between NATO and Russia more likely, would make war across the Taiwan Strait more likely, and it would actually make future war between Russia and Ukraine more likely. This is because it signals weakness, and when countries signal weakness when facing an authoritarian dictator like Putin that wants greater power through land grabs, war becomes more likely.
We should know this: this was exactly the policy that led us to this mess in the first place. The irony of Dr. Hughes’ view is that we pursued a policy of appeasement towards the Kremlin before 2022: we blocked NATO membership for Ukraine, delayed EU membership for Ukraine, and pursued misguided peaceful economic relations with Moscow through Angela Merkel’s economic Ostpolitik with Russia. We also did effectively nothing when President Putin seized Crimea, with our sanctions and limited weapons packages amounting to what was essentially a minor slap on the wrist.
Dr. Hughes does not appear to recognize that we tried her policy of appeasement before Putin invaded in 2022, and it did not work. It will not work out again.
I welcome constructive and engaging discourse on these issues, and Dr. Hughes is entitled to her views on this matter. But let’s approach this perspective from an educated point of view, not pursuing the same old formula that did not work.
Advocating for peace is good, but peace through strength is the answer. If we want to establish a durable and persistent peace that Putin won’t break in two years, we need to arm Ukraine, provide sustainable security guarantees (whether the U.S. should be involved is debatable), and intensify the sanctions. Only until Putin recognizes that he cannot re-establish the Russian Empire through military force at a cost that will not hit the Russian elite will the suffering end, but, until then, there will be no peace. Naivete about President Putin’s willingness to end this war is as unwarranted as it is foolish.
(I will also point out that the example of Japan is a silly play on words that means nothing in substance. Japan is developed today because it has not had to rely on its own security forces to maintain its security, allowing it to focus on economic development. They did so because the United States protected it under its nuclear umbrella. Dr. Hughes' example arguably came out of the extended nuclear deterrence she appears to abhor.)
I thought this was the conservative Columbia student publication. Instead it’s some weird hybrid of The Nation and Al Jazeera. Please cancel my subscription. At least at the Harvard Salient there is a grownup board to step in when the publication veers off track.
Hi Ira—this is not a conservative student publication. While we have many conservative writers, Sundial is a non-partisan, free speech focused publication that hosts writers from across the political spectrum. We seek to be a reflection of the ideological diversity of our student body. If you are looking to read an exclusively “conservative” publication that is only interested in ideological alignment and not diversity of thought, then Sundial is not the publication you are looking for.
SO there are no principles/standards? You going to publish Nazi pieces? Communist pieces? Pro-Hamas? "free speech"? "diversity of thought"? Be like Tucker and have Fuentes on? WHy even have a publication or editors at that point, Sidechat/Facebook/twitter many other open access platforms already exist. I'd take Mike Pompeo and Hillary Clinton over Tucker Carlson and this far leftwinger in a twinkling. Where is the money to fund this stuff coming from? Very troubling.