People often say that the atomic bomb acts as a deterrent, preventing wars. If that was true, why, exactly, would the USA begin invading country after country after 1945, Korea in the 50s at a time when the Soviet had atomic bombs as well from 1949, the United Kingdom had the atomic bomb in 1952, then the Vietnamese war between 1955-1975, France had the atomic bomb in 1960, Israel in 1960, China in 1964, India in 1974, Pakistan in 1998, the war in Afghanistan in 2001, the war in Iraq in 2003, the war in Syria in 2011.

Was not the atomic bomb meant to force a status quo of not waging wars, because of the overhanging threat of destroying everything and everyone at the press of a button that was widely accessible to many different sovereign states? To me it seems that the Manhattan project is the beginning of these wars, not the end of it, the opposite effect that would be expected from a threat of mass destruction, destroying the entire world. Why is the deterrent not working like the narrative says it would?

Are atomic bombs a myth, or just a deterrent between countries who have them, or, just not a deterrent?

That the atomic bomb would be a deterrent of wars overall, provably, false, an increase in wars, not prevented by the threat of everything being destroyed for everyone forever. That the atomic bomb is a deterrent just between countries who have them, not the narrative that is pushed, unless they all act as a single entity, which, no.

If there actually was an overhanging threat of atomic bombs from all over the world, demonstrated on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, as well as continuously in nuclear tests in the 50s and 60s, why would wars increase after the Manhattan project? In game theory, one reason a deterrent would not work, is if it could not be enforced. If I tell the world I will blow it up with my magical power, no one will care, because it cannot be enforced, I have no magic power that could blow up the world, and so, the deterrent will not shape their behaviour.

The idea that atomic bombs would act as a deterrent in game theory, is not reflected in history from 1945 to the present, 73 years, almost a century.

Does this contend that atomic weapons are a myth?

There are a few ideas, one is that if statism is a religion, then it would have an "image of hell" similar to the Abrahamitic religions, and the nuclear bomb is the most hellish image. Another is that in game theory, the atomic bomb has not worked as a deterrent since 1945 (wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq), and one reason a deterrent would not work is if it is not enforceable (has no force.) There is a science perspective as well, Teslas ideas that gravity is electromagnetic, that Newton is proto-science, have been ignored for a hundred years, the implications of his idea is electrical discharges between planets, and Tunguska was a discharge from the sun, via Mercury, Venus and the moon that were all aligned. Then, there is the John F Kennedy assassination, as well as 9/11, both coups, and the exponential increase in the meme "conspiracy theorist".

Synapses

Nuclear deterrence is a myth. And a lethal one at that - The Guardian

What is the binary opposite of the "flat earth" trend? The myth of the atomic bomb