The De Baca nuclear test was part of Operation Hardtack II, a series of thirty-seven Nevada Test Ground blasts squeezed into seven weeks in order to beat a looming deadline—the beginning of a U.S./U.S.S.R. nuclear moratorium. The test ban failed when the Soviets began testing again three years later, a political crisis precipitating that failure, specifically a showdown concerning the status of East Berlin.
The test ban would have failed anyway, though, as all test bans have failed, and all future test bans will fail, because nuclear weapons are seen by weak nations as the ultimate defense against invasion by stronger nations. And of course, they’re right. Since only the year 2000, nuclear-armed nations have invaded non-nuclear nations nine times. Conversely, since the dawn of the nuclear era in 1945, a period comprising nearly seventy military encroachments, no nuclear nation has had its mainland invaded.
That’s the entire uncomplicated why of nuclear weapons. There may be periods of relative inactivity, but as time goes by more nations will build them. Nuclear disaster has no choice but to follow one day. There are two scenarios for survival—either all the nuclear nations agree to reduce and eventually dismantle their nukes, or one nuclear armed nation comes to dominate all the others. Guess what? The second scenario isn’t going to happen. Not ever. The De Baca test occurred today in 1958.
