{"id":2433,"date":"2026-04-03T15:03:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=2433"},"modified":"2026-04-03T15:03:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:03:48","slug":"new-gingrich-nuclear-bomb-strait-hormuz-panama-suez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=2433","title":{"rendered":"Newt Gingrich wants to drop a nuke on the Strait of Hormuz. America actually looked at the same thing in 1977 in Latin America"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Dwight D. Eisenhower\u2019s administration had already begun promoting atomic energy to generate electricity<\/a> and to power submarines<\/a>. After the Suez crisis, the U.S. government expanded plans to harness \u201catoms for peace<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

To kick-start the program, Teller wanted to create an instant harbor<\/a> by burying, and then detonating, five thermonuclear bombs in an Indigenous village in coastal northwestern Alaska. The plan, known as Project Chariot<\/a>, generated intense debate, as well as a pioneering environmental study<\/a> of Arctic food webs.<\/p>\n

Teller and the Livermore physicists also worked with the Army Corps of Engineers<\/a> to study the possibility of using nuclear explosions to build another waterway in Panama. Fearing that the aging Panama Canal and its narrow locks would soon be rendered obsolete, U.S. officials had called for building a wider, deeper channel<\/a> that wouldn\u2019t require any locks to raise and lower the ships along its route.<\/p>\n

A sea-level canal would not only fit bigger vessels; it would also be simpler to operate than the lock-based system, which required thousands of employees. Since the early 1900s, U.S. canal workers and their families had lived in the Canal Zone<\/a>, a large strip of land surrounding the waterway. Panamanians increasingly resented having their country split in two by the racially segregated, colony-like zone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Building the Panama Canal involved backbreaking manual labor. Bettmann via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption>

Crossing Central America<\/h2>\n

Nuclear explosions appeared to make a new sea-level canal financially feasible. The greatest impetus for the so-called Panatomic Canal<\/a> occurred in January 1964, when violent anti-U.S. protests erupted in Panama. President Lyndon B. Johnson responded to the crisis<\/a> by agreeing to negotiate new political agreements with Panama<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Johnson appointed the Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission<\/a> to determine the best site to use nuclear explosions to blast a seaway between the two oceans. Funded by a $17.5 million congressional appropriation \u2013 the equivalent of around $185 million today \u2013 the five civilian commissioners focused on two routes: one in eastern Panama<\/a> and the other in western Colombia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Panamanian route spanned forested river valleys of the Dari\u00e9n isthmus<\/a> and reached 1,100 feet above sea level. To excavate this landscape, engineers proposed<\/a> setting off 294 nuclear explosives along the route, in 14 separate detonations, using the explosive equivalent of 166.4 million tons of TNT.<\/p>\n

This was a mind-blowing amount of energy: The most powerful nuclear weapon ever tested, the Soviet \u201cTsar Bomba\u201d blast<\/a> in 1961, released the energy equivalent to 50 million tons of TNT.<\/p>\n

To avoid the radioactivity and ground shocks, planners estimated that approximately 30,000 people, half of them Indigenous, would have to be evacuated and resettled. The canal commission considered this a formidable but not impossible obstacle, writing in its final report, \u201cThe problems of public acceptance of nuclear canal excavation<\/a> probably could be solved through diplomacy, public education, and compensating payments.\u201d https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YtCTzbh4mNQ?wmode=transparent&start=0 In 2020, the Russian government declassified this footage of the \u201cTsar Bomba\u201d test blast from 1961.<\/p>\n

A not-so-hot idea, in retrospect<\/h2>\n

As explored in my book, marine and evolutionary biologists of the late 1960s sought to study the project\u2019s less obvious environmental effects. Among other potential catastrophes, scientists warned that a sea-level canal could unleash \u201cmutual invasions of Atlantic and Pacific organisms<\/a>\u201d by joining the oceans on either side of the isthmus for the first time in 3 million years.<\/p>\n

Plans for the nuclear waterway ended by the early 1970s, not over concerns about marine invasive species but rather due to other complex issues. These included the difficulties of testing nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes without violating the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty<\/a> of 1963 and the huge budget deficits<\/a> caused by the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

Despite the geopolitical and financial constraints, the sea-level canal studies<\/a> employed hundreds of researchers who increased knowledge of the isthmus and its human and nonhuman inhabitants. Ironically, the studies revealed that wet clay shale rocks along the Dari\u00e9n route<\/a> meant nuclear explosives might not work well there.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The cover of the final report of a commission that studied blasting a canal across Central America with \u2018peaceful nuclear explosions.\u2019 Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission via University of Florida<\/a><\/figcaption>

But for Project Plowshare\u2019s biggest proponents, atomic excavation remained a worthwhile goal. In 1970, in their final report, the canal commissioners predicted that \u201csomeday nuclear explosions will be used<\/a> in a wide variety of massive earth-moving projects.\u201d Teller shared their commitment, as he explained near the end of his life in the 2000 documentary \u201cNuclear Dynamite<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, given widespread awareness of the severe environmental and health effects<\/a> of radioactive fallout, it is hard to envision a time when using nuclear bombs to build canals seemed reasonable. Even before Gingrich\u2019s post sparked ridicule, press accounts described Project Plowshare using words like \u201cwacky<\/a>,\u201d \u201cinsane<\/a>\u201d and \u201ccrazy<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, as societies struggle with disruptive new technologies such as generative AI<\/a> and cryptocurrency<\/a>, it is worth remembering that many ideas that ended up discredited once seemed not only sensible but inevitable.<\/p>\n

As historians of science and technology point out, technological and scientific developments cannot be separated from their cultural contexts. Moreover, the technologies that become part of people\u2019s daily lives often do so not because they are inherently superior, but because powerful interests champion them.<\/p>\n

It makes me wonder: Which of the high-tech trends being promoted by influencers today will amuse, shock and horrify our descendants?<\/p>\n

Christine Keiner<\/a>, Chair of the Department of Science, Technology, and Society, Rochester Institute of Technology<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The
\n<\/figurlazyload><\/div>\n

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