http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444914904577615331538288616.html
For the past 67 years, the United States has been criticized for being the only country to drop atomic bombs on another sovereign nation. But while the anniversaries of Hiroshima (Aug. 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945) rarely pass without comment or controversy, another crucial date is completely ignored: Aug. 29.
Between July 16, 1945, the day the U.S. tested the first atomic device in New Mexico and realized that it actually worked, and Aug. 29, 1949—when the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb—the U.S. held a nuclear monopoly.
No country has ever held a greater strategic advantage over the rest of the world—not Rome under Caesar, France under Napoleon, or Germany under Hitler. Yet between 1945 and 1949, America’s friends and enemies lost very little sleep. Why not? Because the idea of the U.S. using its great advantage to take over the world with nuclear bombs was ludicrous to all but the most irrational minds.
Instead, the U.S. spent the late 1940s focusing on other things. It upgraded its consumer economy, rebuilt its former enemies with the Marshall Plan, and actually downgraded its military.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union took control over all of Eastern Europe and provoked a confrontation with the West when it broke all previous agreements and denied the U.S. access to Berlin. The Chinese Communist Party defeated the Nationalists and Mao Zedong declared the People’s Republic on Oct. 1, 1949. And Kim Il Sung began his preparations to drive his North Korean army across the 38th parallel. Clearly a nuclear U.S. didn’t seem to frighten its enemies from doing whatever they desired.
Similarly, in today’s greatest danger zone—the Middle East—it has been widely speculated that Israel has had a nuclear monopoly over all of its sworn enemies for perhaps half a century. In that same period, much larger Arab armies (the combined militaries of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, with help from the Saudis) have threatened Israel’s very existence in 1967 and again in 1973. That doesn’t include the continued terror attacks across Israel’s borders since the United Nations partitioned the territory in 1948, or the missile attacks now coming from Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. Israel’s response, like that of the U.S., has always been a strong defense with conventional weapons.
Few people lost a wink of sleep over the American nuclear monopoly in the 1940s—and when the Saudis or Syrians or Egyptians have turned off their lights over the past half-century, the last worry on their minds has been being blown to bits by an Israeli nuclear bomb.
