[twirlip]

I wonder if the horrific aftermath of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan prevented later usage of nuclear weapons.

[comprev]

Have there been any since? I'd say the devastation shocked even those who pulled the trigger

[ubermonkey]

I'm not sure you can differentiate the horror of what actually happened in Japan with the existential threat posed by the proliferation of thermonuclear devices immediately after the war.

If the threat stayed in the small-kiloton range, I think we'd very likely have seen them used again -- especially if one nation had a monopoly on such weapons.

But that's just a supposition; in the real world, we went from "there are two bombs, and we used 'em on Japan" to massive proliferation of weapons orders of magnitude stronger by opposing superpowers in a really really short period of time.

[peyton]

Yeah, it effectively demonstrated to Stalin we’d have no problem dropping it on Moscow and Saint Petersburg.