Hiroshima Anniversary: Grace Now, But for How Long?

Today marks the 67th anniversary of the first use of an atomic bomb over a human population: Hiroshima, in western Japan.  The American president then, Harry Truman, having been recently informed of this super-weapon's development and successful testing, saw it as a means to shorten the war against Japan and render a possibly disastrous invasion of the island nation unnecessary.  In his thinking, it would sacrifice lives with its dropping but would ultimately save manifold more by quickly ending this horrendous war.  Apparently, though, the response to Hiroshima by Japan wasn't fast enough as a second bomb was dropped over Nagasaki three days later.

I think everyone concerned was taken aback, not at the actual physical destruction these bombs wrought (bad enough), but rather at the horrible radiation sickness that spread through the exposed population.  By all accounts, war or no war, these bombings were an abomination, an ultimate violation of human rights.  But looking back on it from the convenient vantage point of an outsider's hindsight safely after World War II, instead of within that conflict as someone who, like Truman, was charged with deciding which course of action would save the most lives, isn't exactly fair, either.

Thankfully, no more nuclear bombs have been dropped on people since 1945 (at least not deliberately, I suppose), something few futurists or science fiction writers could have imagined in their wildest dreams. But how long will this grace period last with all of the bombs and the means to manufacture and deliver them proliferating across the world and potentially falling into the hands of despotic regimes ruled by paranoids with scores to settle against their enemies or terrorists hell-bent on sacrificing anyone and everyone for their high and holy causes?