Essay Planning - Globalization, Oppenheimer Film, and World War 2

Sources

1. Wikipedia, “Manhattan Project” - Accessed 2024-10-30

Globalization and the Development and Distribution of Nuclear Technology

Advantages

1. Collaborative Research

• A collaborative effort undertaken by the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada during the World War 2 to develop nuclear weapons.
  • Initially, Britain had the lead in nuclear research. As a result, they refused to assist in helping the US develop an atomic bomb. This, however, changed when Britain could not carry out their research due to the lack of resources. Because the United States also needed some British scientists, both nations agreed to collaborate in designing the nuclear bomb.
  • Niels Bohr, a member of a British scientist committee and a former instructor of Oppenheimer, assisted in the development of nuclear bomb design at Los Alamos.
• Research and development was conducted across 30 locations in the US, the UK, and Canada.
  • From 1942 to 1946 Major General Leslie Groves headed the project and appointed J. Robert Oppenheimer as the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory to design a nuclear bomb.

2. Rapid Spread of Information

• On August 1939, Hungarian scientists, Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner, warned the president of the United States (through a letter which was signed by Albert Einstein), Franklin Roosevelt, about Germany potentially developing a new and dangerous type of bomb (atomic bomb).
  • As a result, the United States went to collect uranium to support the research on nuclear chain reactions.
• J Robert Oppenheimer popularized the field of quantum physics to the US after studying in Cambridge, United Kingdom; hence, accelerating the development of nuclear bombs in the United States.

Disadvantages

1. Undermined Security

• Soviet atomic spies were able to illegally share information about the project even with the strict security measures in place.
  • Compartmentalization of knowledge was practiced to prevent any security vulnerabilities. This meant that no one should know beyond what they need for their assigned role. In this regard, scientists were forbidden from satisfying their curiosity and gaining more scientific knowledge.
    • It was so strict that even the vice president, Harry Truman, was unaware of the nuclear project details.
  • It was suspected that spies such as Klaus Fuchs, a British physicist that was involved in designing the implosion bomb at Los Alamos, contributed and revealed confidential information to the Soviet’s atomic bomb project.

Essay Structure

Thesis Statement

Was globalization good or bad for the development of the nuclear bomb during World War 2

• It was a positive force with respect to the development of the nuclear bomb despite some flaws.
  • It facilitated the collaboration between multiple states, thereby accelerating its development.
  • It resulted in the rapid spread of information.
  • The rapid spread of information undermined the security and confidentiality of the project.

Introduction

1. Oppenheimer was a movie documenting the development of nuclear bombs from the perspective of the physicist J Robert Oppenheimer.
2. The movie highlights the advantages of globalization and also the challenges that it poses.
3. Thesis statement.

Body

1. Advantages
2. Disadvantages

Conclusion

1. Globalization leads to collaborative efforts that facilitates mutual progress for multiple parties
2. This collaboration leads to the rapid spread of information that drove innovation
3. Nevertheless, it introduces security and privacy vulnerabilities
4. Implication
   1. Although globalization is mostly positive, it is important to enforce strict rules and regulations to ensure that the problems it introduces are controlled and mitigated.
   2. In a modern world where technology is developing at a very high speed, a greater need to reexamine and improve policies arises. It is crucial for preventing bad actors from exploiting the flaws of globalization.