@chjara@mk.absturztau.be there are actually humanitarian justifications for the weaponization of nuclear fission. not good ones, but they do exist. also iirc one of the manhattan project people was fiercely nationalistic and wanted US military superiority, it wasn't a "do this or go to jail" sort of thing.
@chjara@mk.absturztau.be it was von neumann, actually!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
> During a Senate committee hearing he described his political ideology as "violently anti-communist, and much more militaristic than the norm". He was quoted in 1950 remarking, "If you say why not bomb [the Soviets] tomorrow, I say, why not today? If you say today at five o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?"