>I'm not sure this is news to anyone, but it's significance
>might lie in the fact that NewScientist published it.
>(as a reminder to scientists, perhaps?)
Probably the latter. It's not news to anyone who studied US/USSR relations and history. After the Soviets kept going west in Germany after Berlin in the Spring of '45 there was a perceived need to send a very clear 'don't fuck with us anymore' message, related to Europe and Asia. The message of the second bomb was equally clear to the Soviets and the Japanese; 'We have more of these, wanna try your luck?'. The balance of how much it was a decisive strike to end the war with Japan and how much it was a message to the Soviets will probably never be settled, IMHO the balance is irrelevant, it was designed to do both, although arguably the Nagasaki bomb broadcast the latter message more clearly.
It's too bad they didn't explore the logical ethical issue; the use of the science of war being out of the control of scientists, no matter how much they may rationalize what they do and why. SDI anyone? In the past I've talked with computer types who were involved in developing elements of SDI, their rationalization is that 'it will keep everyone safe' is scary as well as stupid in that they don't see what a nuclear armed power that can act with impunity behind a 'shield' might do.
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