Overview

• The US government suppressed graphic images and footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims after 1945 to minimize public awareness of atomic war’s human toll.
• Cold War–era Strategic Air Command training films and civil-defense media portrayed nuclear conflict as a technical operation rather than a human catastrophe.
• In June 2025 the US and Israel launched conventional bunker-buster attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, reviving Cold War–style deterrence narratives.
• President Trump compared the Iran operation to the Hiroshima bombing, calling it "the same thing" to bolster modern deterrence arguments.
• Nine nuclear-armed states now control about 12,400 warheads and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set its Doomsday Clock at 89 seconds to midnight.