My trawl through todays historical events has thrown up a coincidence. On the 30th August 1146 it is said that European leaders banned the crossbow. I confess that I am yet to find authoritative confirmation of this date. In 1139 the Second Council of the Lateran, under Pope Innocent II, banned the use of bows, slings, and possibly crossbows, but only against Christians.
When writing The Spy who Sank the Armada my research revealed that the wheel lock mechanism for firearms was banned by a pope, or emperor, I can’t remember which. The fact is that neither ban actually prevented mankind from seeking ever more effective weapons. Man is inventive. Is it mad to hope that we will stop striving to invent more effective weapons?
I haven’t yet seen the film Oppenheimer, Claire doesn’t seem keen. Many friends have thoroughly enjoyed it, so I hope to see it some day. This brings me to the coincidence. Also on 30th August, but in 1941, Winston Churchill was the first leader to authorise a nuclear weapon programme, codenamed Tube Alloys. The term atomic bomb had apparently first been used by H.G. Wells in his book, The World Set Free. How often does science fiction later become science fact? I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll use that for a future post.
The Ottawa Treaty of 1997 sought to ban anti-personnel mines. The 2008 Dublin treaty banned cluster munitions. So far the only effective deterrent against the use of the most destructive weapon we can think of, is the certainty that the aggressor will also be annihilated in the process. Mutually Assured Destruction. Yes it’s mad, but so far it’s all we have.
Briefly in the early 1990’s, when Mikhail Gorbachev led Russia, world peace seemed to be an emerging reality. The Berlin Wall came down. Germany was united. It almost seemed too good to be true, and it was, because Vladimir Putin was waiting in the wings. Was Putin mad to think he could annex Ukraine without the West intervening? It would appear so.