81 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The U.S. continues to be the main nuclear threat in the world

On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, instantly obliterating the cities and leaving hundreds of thousands dead upon impact. These were cold-blooded experiments in mass murder where the U.S. deliberately targeted these cities, relatively untouched by previous bombings, to test its new weapon's destructive power on a civilian population. It remains one of history's most aggressive acts of war, a stark example of the U.S.'s barbaric imperialist will. Extensive U.S. nuclear tests have also damaged the people's health and environments in many Pacific islands and atolls as well as on and near native American tribal lands, while medical tests in its clandestine laboratories have likewise damaged the health of numerous voluntary and involuntary human test subjects.

81 years after, the greatest driver of nuclear proliferation remains to be the U.S. itself. From the Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union to its current war against Iran and the the build up to war in Asia and the Pacific against China, the U.S. has repeatedly used its nuclear arsenal as a tool of intimidation to suppress adversaries and as a false justification to start wars against them. This strategy has only reinforced the lesson that nuclear deterrence may be the only reliable safeguard against American aggression.

From its continued investment in nuclear weapons to its wars of aggression launched under the guise of preventing adversaries from acquiring nuclear capabilities, it is clear that the U.S. has never been concerned with the devastation these weapons unleash. Instead, it actively promotes proliferation among its allies and uses the specter of it to wage wars that have killed millions.


The Specter of Nuclear Weapons and U.S. Renewed Wars in West Asia

Since the development of nuclear weapons and their use by the U.S., the country has used rhetoric around nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction to create a pretext for war and invasions. In the 2025 and 2026 bombings against Iran, the U.S., in partnership with Israel, repeated the same move it made in 2003 when it falsely claimed that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. The WMD lie of the Bush Administration led to brutal U.S. invasion and occupation that tore the country apart, killed close to 1 million people, devastated infrastructure including hospitals and schools, and left the country's people in political chaos and dependent on U.S. oil and development corporations to this day. The U.S. wanted Iran and its people to suffer the same fate.

Iran was not targeted because it is a threat to the world and is on the path to possess nuclear weapons; Iran was targeted because it was the strongest state in the region standing up to the genocidal expansionism of the Zionist entity and because it is the main roadblock in the way of full U.S.-led domination over West Asia.

The so-called "nuclear talks" between Iran and the U.S. have never been about diplomacy or finding common ground on foreign policy goals between two equal states. Instead, the U.S., one of the largest holders of nuclear weapons in the world and the only state in history to ever use nuclear weapons in warfare, used the talks to manipulate public opinion, obfuscate the facts, and build justification for war with Iran. Trump has said his goals were to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon, but the Islamic Republic has stated throughout its entire political existence that it has no intention to build a nuclear weapon and public inspections by the IAEA have confirmed this reality.

During the war in Iran relentless U.S. and Israeli airstrikes have targeted not only military installations but also essential civilian infrastructure, including power grids, water treatment facilities, hospitals, and food supply chains. More than 600 schools have been demolished or damaged across Iran, with over 1,000 students and teachers killed or injured. In the bombing of the Minab primary school in early March, the U.S. and Israel murdered at least168 children in a single missile attack.


Push for Further Rearmament in Asia and the Pacific

In the Asia and the Pacific, the U.S. continues its incessant build up to war against China. By arming Taiwan to protect its semiconductor supply chain, rapidly expanding military alliances and military infrastructure in Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines, and conducting provocative war games in the South China Sea and the Korean peninsula, Washington is systematically escalating tensions with its chief rival and nuclear power. These actions, from troop deployments to joint drills near China's borders, are not defensive but incendiary, pushing the world towards a potential world war between nuclear powers.

This aggressive posture is now being reinforced to the upcoming new U.S. nuclear strategy. Reports coming out in August 2026 show that the Trump administration is drafting a nuclear strategy that would expand options for using shorter-range nuclear weapons in a regional war with China and Russia. The annual U.S. nuclear posture review , a report on their policy of how and when to use nuclear weapons, comes just six months after New START, the last treaty limiting U.S. and Russian strategic arsenals, expired without renewal, leaving the two largest nuclear powers without binding limits or inspections for the first time in decades. The expansion of the use of short-range nuclear weapons by the U.S. lowers the "acceptable" nuclear threshold and pushes the use of nuclear weapons to an even more inevitable outcome of U.S.-led wars.

As part of its island chain strategy in its build up to war with China, the U.S. has enlisted Japan as a junior imperialist ally. This has led Japan, the target of the U.S. nuclear bombs in 1945, to start revising its peace constitution which currently prohibits Japan from going to war if not for self-defense. Military agreements forged after WWII enable the U.S. to station more troops in Japan than anywhere else in the region. One-fifth of Okinawa’s land is occupied by U.S. bases. Right-wing Japanese governments have pushed for constitutional changes which would allow Japan to re-arm offensively, leading to rising defense spending since 2007 and a doubling of the budget by 2023.

In line with the Pivot to Asia, the U.S. continually rolls out new agreements. The Japan-U.S.-Korea alliance (JAKUS) and Japan-Philippines-U.S. alliance (JAPHUS) expand the U.S. military’s network, formalizing regular war games, enhancing intelligence-sharing and missile integration targeting China, and creating an anti-China economic bloc. These measures amount to an iron web of alliances in preparation for war against China.


The U.S. Spends Billions on Advancing Nuclear Weapons

The United States spent a record $69.2 billion on nuclear weapons in 2025, surpassing all other nuclear-armed nations combined. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) requested $32.80 billion for FY2027, a 29% jump driven by warhead stockpile maintenance, production modernization, and nuclear triad (air, sea and land based nuclear weapons), a three-part military force structure used to deliver nuclear weapons, upgrades. The U.S. is not only "modernizing" its old arsenal but leading in the production and proliferation of new nuclear weapons.

This spending represents the largest among the nine nuclear-armed states, which together spent nearly $119 billion in 2025. The U.S. investment is part of a broader $71 billion effort to upgrade all three legs of its nuclear triad: the B-21 Raider bomber, the Columbia-class submarine, and the LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM. The FY2027 budget also supports seven simultaneous warhead modernization programs, including the B61-13 gravity bomb.

The investments show that the U.S. is planning to go far beyond maintaining an aging arsenal and is instead expanding it drastically. For instance, the NNSA aims to produce 80 new plutonium pits annually by 2030, intended for the production of new nuclear weapons. The companies set to profit from this nuclear buildup are some of the largest weapons and war transnational corporations in the world, which have also been profiting from the war of the genocide against the Palestinian people, the invasion of Venezuela and the current war against Iran. General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls Industries were awarded a joint $76.6 billion contract to build 14 new Virginia- and Columbia-class nuclear submarines. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for the new LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM, a program projected to exceed $141 billion in lifecycle costs, while Bechtel partners with Northrop on the missile's ground infrastructure and silo construction. Other major players include Lockheed Martin, RTX, and Boeing, which are involved in various missile systems and aerospace components across the nuclear triad.


Resist U.S. Nuclear Proliferation, Defeat U.S. Imperialism, and Assert the Right of Peoples to Defend Themselves Against U.S. Barbarism

As we pointed out in our primer "Resisting Imperialist Nuclear Threats":
     "The United States brought nuclear weapons into the world and then decided to arm its allies, attempting to use these weapons to impose its will wherever it pleased. The history of nuclear warfare, from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the current three fronts of U.S.-led conflict, exposes the fundamental contradiction on the issue of nuclear weapons: while imperialist powers use atomic weapons to threaten and dominate, anti-imperialist states have developed them to prevent further war on their own people.

     Meanwhile, thousands have engaged in advocacy efforts to reduce the U.S. nuclear triad, demand cleanup and compensation for damages, and block the U.S. $1.7 trillion nuclear modernization program. Although the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has accumulated 94 signatory states since it entered into force in 2021, making nuclear weapons internationally illegal, the U.S. has no vision in sight toward dismantling its arsenal or joining the treaty.

     The US-led war machine has been at the head of the imperialist system for decades, therefore making it the main perpetrator and provocateur of nuclear proliferation. We must understand that the US refuses to give up its arsenal and, instead, is plowing headfirst into a potential nuclear catastrophe as a result of its imperialist agenda.

     The solution is not to impose disarmament on oppressed nations, but rather the complete dismantling of the U.S. imperialist war machine and its nuclear terror apparatus."