Eight decades ago, US President Harry S Truman faced a decision that would change the nature of warfare forever.
Japan was still fighting after the surrender of Nazi Germany. The US possessed a weapon unlike anything the world had seen. Truman and his advisers had to decide how best to use America’s overwhelming military power to end the war.
Today, Donald Trump faces a different problem. Iran has suffered substantial military damage, but military success has not translated into the decisive political outcome the US seeks.
Japan in 1945 and Iran today are fundamentally different cases. Nor can the atomic bomb of 1945 simply be compared with today’s sophisticated nuclear arsenals.
Yet, there is a common strategic problem: How does a great power turn military superiority into a political outcome? If Washington were pushed into a corner — by the cost of the conflict, the inability to compel Iran’s submission or pressure to demonstrate that American power can still deliver a decisive result — the temptation to consider previously unacceptable options could arise.
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What would other nuclear powers learn if the nuclear threshold were crossed? The decision-making process surrounding Truman was more complex than the familiar image of a President simply deciding whether to drop the bomb. The views of members of the administration, military leaders and the scientific community were all sought, and they were not identical. The principal US objective was to force Japan to surrender while avoiding the heavy American casualties that an invasion was expected to entail.
{{/usCountry}}What would other nuclear powers learn if the nuclear threshold were crossed? The decision-making process surrounding Truman was more complex than the familiar image of a President simply deciding whether to drop the bomb. The views of members of the administration, military leaders and the scientific community were all sought, and they were not identical. The principal US objective was to force Japan to surrender while avoiding the heavy American casualties that an invasion was expected to entail.
{{/usCountry}}An atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6. Japan did not immediately surrender. Three days later, Nagasaki was struck. Around the same time, the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan. The sequence matters. Even unprecedented destruction does not automatically translate into political capitulation. Japan’s surrender followed a combination of factors. The decision also had consequences beyond Japan. Moscow was watching. At Potsdam, Truman informed Stalin that the US possessed a powerful new weapon. US officials understood that possession and use of the bomb could affect the emerging relationship with the Soviet Union. Some policymakers hoped that America’s nuclear monopoly might strengthen Washington’s position in dealing with Moscow.
It would be wrong to reduce Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a message to Stalin. The historical debate over “atomic diplomacy” remains contested. But it would be equally wrong to assume that the Soviet Union was absent from American strategic calculations.
We cannot know what is being said privately in the White House, nor should we invent positions for advisers whose deliberations are not public. Trump has not publicly advocated the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. But the possibility has nevertheless entered public debate as the conflict has remained unresolved.
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Any American administration confronting an inconclusive conflict with Iran would have to consider not only what further military action might achieve in Iran, but also what its consequences would be elsewhere. Capitals around the world would ask whether an American action demonstrated restraint, established a new threshold or created a precedent. They would examine whether escalation produced political results or merely greater destruction.
The most consequential message may be the precedent that other States believe has been established.
For almost eight decades, nuclear weapons have occupied a peculiar place in international politics: Their paradoxical purpose has been to ensure that they are never used. If that understanding were to change, the consequences would extend far beyond the country against which a weapon was used. Other nuclear powers would examine the circumstances, the justification offered, the international response and, above all, whether nuclear use achieved its political objective. India has its own nuclear doctrine and strategic assumptions. If the circumstances in which nuclear weapons could be contemplated were to change elsewhere, New Delhi would have to examine what that meant for its own security. That would require a serious debate about deterrence, escalation and thresholds.
A great-power action can have several audiences at once. An adversary may see a warning. An ally may see reassurance. A rival may see an opportunity — or a precedent. The meaning of an action is never entirely controlled by the power that takes it. The world of 2026 is also very different from that of 1945. Information travels instantly, and every major use of force is subject to scrutiny by far more actors, each making its own calculations. Military superiority can destroy an adversary’s capacity to fight. It cannot, by itself, determine what comes after the fighting. That is the enduring problem of converting power into political order.
Milinda Moragoda is a former cabinet minister and diplomat from Sri Lanka and founder of the Pathfinder Foundation, a strategic affairs think tank. The views expressed are personal