Alexander Nicoll - Böcker

Like most years in the 50-year history of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), 2008 saw events that could have significant consequences for international relations and global balances of power. These included the election of Barack Obama as US president; the brief war in Georgia, which caused the West to look at Russia with more watchful eyes; and a cataclysmic crisis in the world’s financial markets that seemed to threaten globalisation and even capitalism, and to herald a period of greater economic austerity. Even as these events occurred, the security issues and risks that have been the core focus of the work of the IISS during the past half-century continued to loom large, among them nuclear proliferation and the relations between the major powers. In addition to these perennial themes was another set of issues that has in recent times risen higher on the international security agenda, including the security ramifications of natural disasters and environmental dangers such as climate change. In its anniversary year, the IISS held several high-level conferences around the world. Speeches given at these events addressed all of these issues, and this Adelphi Paper offers a selection of them. The speakers were statesmen, senior military officers, high officials and international security experts. All were concerned first and foremost with the pressing issues of the moment, as their duties required them to be. But the fact that they also addressed recurrent themes testifies to the enduring nature of the strategic challenges faced by policymakers.

At 16.00 hours on 27 July 1944, the Stars and Stripes were raised over the central Pacific island of Guam. The symbolism of this moment was not lost on the officers and men who saluted the raising of Old Glory. This was because the first American flag to be pulled down by the Japanese in the Second World War was in Guam, on 10 December 1941, just three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.Before the war three of the four main Mariana Islands – Saipan, Tinian and Rota – had substantial Japanese populations and were considered part of the Japanese empire. On the other hand, the largest island of the group, Guam, had been under American administration since the end of the nineteenth century, and its inhabitants saw themselves as Americans. Their liberation would be a ‘psychological high point’ in the long war against Imperial Japan for the people of the United States.The re-capture of Guam was more than just the recovery of lost territory. It was an essential element of Operation Forager, the US offensive to take the Mariana and Palau islands with the aim of neutralizing Japanese bases in the central Pacific and supporting the Allied drive to retake the Philippines. There was another factor which possibly was of even more significance. Prototypes of the new Boeing B-29 Superfortress were already being flown. The B-29 had an operational range of 3,500 miles, putting the Japanese Home Islands, and even Tokyo itself, well within striking distance of the Marianas. It would be from the Marianas that the strategic bombing campaign which helped bring Japan to its knees in 1945 would be carried out.The US assault upon the Marianas began with the attacks upon Saipan and Tinian. Then, on 21 July 1944, men of the III Marine Amphibious Corps landed on Guam after the longest preparatory bombardment of the war in the Pacific. For the next twenty days the Marines and the US Army’s 77th Division struggled through dense undergrowth and jungle and over rugged, wooded mountains to eliminate an enemy determined to fight to the death – and die they did. Roasted alive by flamethrowers in dugouts and caves, blasted out of ill-prepared pillboxes by artillery and mowed down by the score in senseless, tactically naïve headlong charges, almost the entire 20,000 strong Japanese garrison was killed.In the savage struggle throughout the island, American casualties were in excess of 6,000 and many hundreds of civilians were also killed in the fighting. But, after more than two-and-a-half years of Japanese occupation, honor was finally restored in the Central Pacific.

At 08.15 hours on 6 August 1945, one of the most seismic events in human history unfolded over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. An atomic bomb, nicknamed _Little Boy_, exploded about 1,500 feet above the city with a force of 15,000 tons of TNT. Around five square miles of the city were destroyed in seconds and tens of thousands of its citizens and soldiers were killed. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was unleased against Nagasaki with similar devastating results. Less than a week later Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s unconditional surrender, bringing the Second World War to an explosive end.The story of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki begins with the Manhattan Project. From its inception in 1939, the Manhattan Project, which at its height involved more than 125,000 individuals and ultimately cost billions of US dollars, is explored in this book, as is the organisation and training of the bomb crews of 393rd Bombardment Squadron of Colonel Paul Tibbets’ 509th Composite Group. For its attacks on Japan, the squadron was equipped with fifteen dazzling silverplate Boeing B-29 Superfortresses, which had been specially adapted to carry nuclear weapons.It is, of course, the dramatic events of 6 and 9 August 1945, which are featured most prominently in this book. Every step of the attacks, from the arming of _Enola Gay_ and _Bockscar_, which famously carried the two nuclear devices, to their take-off from Runway Able on the tiny island of Tinian, to the flights to the targets and the release of the bombs are revealed. Many are the unmistakable images of the detonation and effects of the two nuclear blasts, portrayed here in graphic contemporary photographs.Portraits of the key individuals are shown, as are the test sites, workshops, aircraft and the weapons themselves to provide a wide-ranging, comprehensive visual study of the steps which led to the first and only deployment of nuclear bombs in warfare.

Like most years in the 50-year history of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), 2008 saw events that could have significant consequences for international relations and global balances of power. These included the election of Barack Obama as US president; the brief war in Georgia, which caused the West to look at Russia with more watchful eyes; and a cataclysmic crisis in the worlds financial markets that seemed to threaten globalisation and even capitalism, and to herald a period of greater economic austerity. Even as these events occurred, the security issues and risks that have been the core focus of the work of the IISS during the past half-century continued to loom large, among them nuclear proliferation and the relations between the major powers. In addition to these perennial themes was another set of issues that has in recent times risen higher on the international security agenda, including the security ramifications of natural disasters and environmental dangers such as climate change. In its anniversary year, the IISS held several high-level conferences around the world. Speeches given at these events addressed all of these issues, and this Adelphi Paper offers a selection of them. The speakers were statesmen, senior military officers, high officials and international security experts. All were concerned first and foremost with the pressing issues of the moment, as their duties required them to be. But the fact that they also addressed recurrent themes testifies to the enduring nature of the strategic challenges faced by policymakers.