The Nuclear Age 1945–2011

The Nuclear Age 1945–2011 is one of six Change in the Modern World options in Section IV. Unlike the essay sections (II and III), this section has one question in three or four parts (no choice of alternatives), and one part is worth 10–15 marks. Smaller parts usually ask you to outline, describe or explain, often using a source; the big part asks for a judgement. The syllabus key features are the development and use of the atomic bomb, the arms race and the search for parity, deterrence, the social, political and environmental impact of nuclear weapons, proliferation, and the development of nuclear energy.

• Survey: Truman, Stalin and the Potsdam Conference; the Manhattan Project and the Trinity test.
• First use and deterrence: the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the debate over Truman's decision; the nuclear capacity of the USA and USSR; Mutually Assured Destruction.
• Testing and fear: civilian fears and survival programs in the USA; US and Soviet testing; Maralinga and its impact on Aboriginal people and Australian service personnel; French tests in the Pacific and the Rainbow Warrior.
• Disarmament and proliferation: anti-nuclear movements; the UN; test-ban and non-proliferation treaties; disarmament after the Cold War; proliferation (Israel, India, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea).
• Nuclear energy: benefits (electricity, nuclear medicine) and risks (waste, accidents); Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011); debates about expanding or reducing nuclear power.

The option ends in 2011; later events (such as the end of the INF Treaty in 2019) are outside the course.

• Origins: the discovery of fission (1938); fear of a Nazi bomb; Einstein's letter to Roosevelt (1939); the British MAUD report (1941).
• The Manhattan Project (from 1942): General Leslie Groves; J. Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos; Oak Ridge and Hanford; about $2 billion; well over 100,000 workers.
• Trinity (16 July 1945, New Mexico): the first nuclear explosion, about 20 kilotons.
• Potsdam (July 1945): Truman told Stalin of a powerful new weapon; Stalin already knew through spies. The Potsdam Declaration (26 July) demanded Japan's unconditional surrender.
• Hiroshima (6 August; uranium bomb) and Nagasaki (9 August; plutonium bomb). By the end of 1945 an estimated 140,000 people had died in Hiroshima and about 70,000 in Nagasaki; survivors (hibakusha) suffered radiation illness and discrimination for decades. The USSR declared war on Japan on 8 August; Japan announced its surrender on 15 August.

The debate over Truman's decision

Alternatives debated at the time and later: a demonstration, continued blockade and conventional bombing, waiting for the Soviet declaration of war, or assuring Japan that the Emperor could remain.

Global stockpiles peaked at around 70,000 warheads in the mid-1980s. Other nuclear powers: Britain (1952), France (1960), China (1964).

Deterrence debate: supporters argue nuclear weapons kept the superpowers from fighting each other directly (Gaddis's ‘long peace’); critics point to near misses (Cuba 1962, false alarms, 1983) and the cost and danger of the arms race.

Civilian fear in the USA

• Civil defence: ‘Duck and Cover’ (1951); fallout shelters (especially from 1961); evacuation plans.
• Fallout: Castle Bravo (1954) contaminated Marshall Islanders and the Japanese crew of the Lucky Dragon; strontium-90 found in milk and children's teeth.
• Culture: ‘On the Beach’ (novel 1957, film 1959, set in Melbourne); Godzilla (1954) in Japan.

Testing around the world

More than 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out between 1945 and 1996, over 500 in the atmosphere. The USA tested in Nevada (‘downwinders’) and the Pacific (Bikini, Enewetak); the USSR mainly at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan (about 450 tests, closed 1991) and Novaya Zemlya.

Maralinga and the British tests in Australia

• The Menzies government agreed to British tests at the Montebello Islands (1952, 1956), Emu Field (1953) and Maralinga (major trials 1956–57; ‘minor trials’ to 1963).
• Aboriginal people: Anangu people were moved off their lands; patrols could not keep everyone away. After Totem 1 at Emu Field (October 1953), people at Wallatinna described a ‘black mist’ followed by sickness. Many lost access to country for decades.
• Service personnel: Australian and British servicemen were exposed with little protection; many later sought recognition and compensation.
• Environment: the minor trials spread plutonium; clean-ups in 1967 and the late 1990s.
• The McClelland Royal Commission (1984–85) found the safety of Aboriginal people had been neglected. Title to most Maralinga Tjarutja lands was granted in 1984 (the test site was handed back after the clean-up), and the Maralinga Tjarutja received a $13.5 million settlement (1994).

French testing in the Pacific

• France tested in Algeria, then at Moruroa and Fangataufa in French Polynesia (1966–96); atmospheric tests until 1974.
• The Rainbow Warrior was bombed by French secret service agents in Auckland on 10 July 1985; the photographer Fernando Pereira was killed.
• Regional responses: the Treaty of Rarotonga (South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, 1985); New Zealand's ban on nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered ships (1984); protests across the Pacific and in Australia when France resumed testing in 1995–96.

• Anti-nuclear movements: the Russell–Einstein Manifesto (1955) and Pugwash (1957); CND (1958); Women Strike for Peace (1961); the 1980s European protests and the Nuclear Freeze (about a million people in New York, June 1982); Australian Palm Sunday rallies.
• The UN and the IAEA (1957): inspections of civilian programs; the UN General Assembly's first resolution (1946) concerned atomic energy.
• Treaties: the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963); the Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968; extended indefinitely 1995); SALT I (1972); INF (1987); START I (1991); the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (1996, not in force); New START (signed 2010, in force February 2011).
• After the Cold War: large cuts in US and Russian arsenals; Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan gave up inherited weapons; South Africa dismantled its arsenal (about 1990–91); Libya gave up its program (2003).
• Proliferation: Israel (undeclared, widely believed to have weapons); India (1974, 1998); Pakistan (1998); North Korea (left the NPT in 2003; tests 2006 and 2009); Iran (program revealed 2002; UN sanctions from 2006); the A. Q. Khan network (exposed 2004).

• Benefits: large amounts of low-carbon electricity; nuclear medicine (diagnosis and cancer treatment; Australia's research reactor at Lucas Heights produces medical isotopes); Eisenhower's ‘Atoms for Peace’ (1953).
• Risks: radioactive waste that stays dangerous for thousands of years; cost; links to weapons programs; accidents.
• Three Mile Island (USA, 1979): partial meltdown; little radiation released, but public confidence fell.
• Chernobyl (26 April 1986): explosion and fire at a reactor in Soviet Ukraine; about 30 early deaths; over 100,000 evacuated; an exclusion zone; contamination across Europe; later cancer estimates vary widely; Soviet secrecy, then glasnost.
• Fukushima (11 March 2011): earthquake and tsunami; meltdowns in three reactors; more than 150,000 evacuated.
• Responses: Germany decided in 2011 to phase out nuclear power; Japan shut its reactors for safety checks; China and others kept building. Australia has no nuclear power stations (as of October 2026) and is a major uranium exporter.

Worked example (not a bank question).

• _(a) Outline Eisenhower's ‘Atoms for Peace’ proposal. (4 marks)_ — The 1953 UN speech; sharing peaceful nuclear technology; the creation of the IAEA (1957); its Cold War purposes.
• _(b) Using a source, explain the experience of the hibakusha after 1945. (6 marks)_ — Use the source's details; add own knowledge (radiation sickness, cancers, discrimination in marriage and work, the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, the hibakusha's role in anti-nuclear campaigns).
• _(c) Assess the impact of the Cuban Missile Crisis on nuclear policy. (15 marks)_ — The hotline, the Partial Test Ban Treaty, the move towards arms control and détente, and its limits (the continuing arms build-up, especially by the USSR).

The three parts total 25 marks, the value of Section IV. Spend your time in proportion to the marks: the paper gives 180 minutes for 100 marks, so roughly 1.8 minutes per mark (about 45 minutes for this section).

• Mixing up the test-ban treaties (1963 partial; 1996 comprehensive) and the NPT (1968).
• Confusing atomic (fission) and hydrogen (thermonuclear) bombs.
• Presenting one side of the Truman debate as fact.
• Writing about Maralinga without Aboriginal people's experience, or describing the test areas as empty.
• Forgetting nuclear energy, which is part of the syllabus.

• Use precise terms: fission, fusion, fallout, deterrence, second strike, MAD, parity, proliferation, non-proliferation, arms control, disarmament.
• Show change over time: monopoly (1945–49) → arms race and MAD → arms control (from 1963) → reductions after 1987 → proliferation challenges after 1991.
• In source parts, quote briefly, explain, and add your own knowledge.
• In the 10–15 mark part, make a judgement in your first sentence and return to it at the end of every paragraph.

• Conflict in the Pacific 1937–1951 covers the end of the war against Japan.
• The Cold War 1945–1991 covers the crises and diplomacy of the arms race.
• Australia 1918–1949 and the core provide the background to Australia's alliances.
• Conflict in the Gulf 1980–2011 covers the debates over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.