The Nuclear Question: WW2

Basically this came up on another discussion. Not sure if it was a troll, but can we really justify the annihilation of so many people all at once. Many who were innocent. It also it has to be remembered that while Japan was under rule of Emperor he no longer had reign of his country, the general had basically placed him under house arrest. If we go by idea of revenge or them torturing and hurting POWs. It could be said America reacted similarly with how they treated people of Japanese descent.

I'm not pointing fingers here. But was dropping the nuke on those two thriving cities a mistake or was it needed. Would Japan have surrendered without this?

There only be two nukes dropped on civilized areas in history of man, and these two were enough to show they shouldn't do it so willingly again.

Essentially did the pro's outweigh the cons here?

Japan showed no signs of surrender. Their culture is (was?) highly patriotic, much more patriotic simply by the token that a great deal more Japanese people were willing to die for their country. More people probably would have died if not for the nuclear bombings.

The nuclear attack was just as justified as almost ANY attack: just enough to be highly controversial. It was certainly the right choice coming from the standpoint that American lives should be saved, that is, the American Patriot's standpoint. It was probably the right choice coming from the standpoint that the most lives possible should be saved, that is, the pure utilitarian standpoint. It was certainly wrong coming from the standpoint that Japanese lives should be saved, the Japanese Patriot's standpoint.

Now, the standpoint that the most non-combatants should be saved, a seemingly common one? That's tricky, and impossible to determine.

Surrender is extremely against what the Japanese culture believes in. In fact, I believe the exact feeling is death before surrender. The nuclear attack, while devastating and very harsh, was necessary in order to end the war. Otherwise, we would likely still be fighting even today.

It was not a nice thing to do, but part of the reasoning was that a full scale invasion of the main island simply wasn't possible. The Japanese would fight down to the last cat on the island, not from patriotism, but because in their culture, that was the only option.

Theodore Roosevelt said 'Walk softly, and carry a big stick.' The nuclear bombs were the 'big sticks' necessary to make it so we could walk softly. While the deaths of countless civilians and the horrifying aftermath of radiation sickness is highly regrettable, it was, to be honest, completely necessary in order to end the war.

Before I add my two cents I just wanted to say that the quote is actually "Speak softly and carry a big stick.". I figured it would be best to correct that now and not let it run on to far.

Now my two cents.

First off I do not think that it was absolutely necessary to drop the two nukes. In fact I think we could have still won the war without using them. But the problem is that it sounds like it would have caused a lot more deaths to occur on both sides. If I remember correctly from my history class I think there were already invasion plans drawn up and they were ready to storm the Japanese mainland with the Marines. But they expected a very high casualty rate, higher than they really wanted to have to expend. So the other option would be to use two nuclear bombs and end the war right there.


Now one problem I see with not using nuclear bombs is that if America hadn't used them then during WW2 when would they be used and where? Because I really believe that if the power of the nuclear bomb was not observed during WW2 then some other country would most definitely have used nuclear devices at some point. WE don't know for sure that this would have happened it is all just guesswork and speculation. But there is always the possibility that the outcome could have been much worse. What if someone had used a nuclear weapon against the U.S. it would probably end up with the U.S. using Nuclear weapons against that country and I could only see the conflict ending with two desolate countries.


In the end I don't think we could call using the nuclear weapons on Japan during WW2 the right answer. But it was the best answer we could come up with at the time, and as always there is usually a better option that is discovered later on. But all you can really do is chose the best option of your time and hope it doesn't come back to bite the future generations in the ass.

Thanks for the correction! I think it stands true either way, but I'm glad someone could catch it. Admittedly, I believe just one bomb might have done it, but two certainly did. In fact, you make very valid points. Unfortunately, right now half of everything is speculation. I do know that America wasn't the only country developing nuclear bombs at that point, and that factored into the decision.

It is important to note that the bombs were no dropped simultaneously as part of one major strike. Three days passed between initial bombing of Hiroshima and the subsequent bombing of Nagasaki. The Japanese government, according to history, made no attempt to contact the American government or issue a surrender during those three days.

If we go by idea of revenge or them torturing and hurting POWs. It could be said America reacted similarly with how they treated people of Japanese descent.

No where in any of the American internment camps were Japanese murdered indiscriminately; there were no death marches across upwards of 50 miles where those Japanese that could not continue on were shot and killed like animals, and the Americans never once slaughtered entire villages or even cities. See the Nanking Massacre, one of nearly hundreds of others that occurred over the course of the Japanese invasion of mainland China, and in no American camps were any people of questionable loyalties taken, beaten and then killed because the Americans thought they would aid the Imperial Japanese. Saying that the American government returned the same treatment of systematic genocide and killings is a false statement; many of the Japanese-Americans in the prison camps understood the American government's decision, still racially segregated and biased, and even though they didn't agree with their treatment at the hands of the Americans they recognized their nationality as American instead of Japanese. To the contrary, the Japanese-Americans displayed their patriotism to America instead of Japan; both going into the internment camps and coming out of them. Evidenced by the 442nd Infantry Regiment, an all Japanese-American outfit that received 21 Medals of Honor, some posthumously, during the war.

It is important to note that the bombs were no dropped simultaneously as part of one major strike. Three days passed between initial bombing of Hiroshima and the subsequent bombing of Nagasaki. The Japanese government, according to history, made no attempt to contact the American government or issue a surrender during those three days.

Three days, internal debate and another statement for surrender by the American government passed before the second bomb was dropped; and even when it was, there were several within the American government that wanted to push for more time for the Japanese to surrender.

DemiKara wrote:Theodore Roosevelt said 'Walk softly, and carry a big stick.' The nuclear bombs were the 'big sticks' necessary to make it so we could walk softly. While the deaths of countless civilians and the horrifying aftermath of radiation sickness is highly regrettable, it was, to be honest, completely necessary in order to end the war.

A decimated navy that would crumble beneath an invasion force, Soviet Russia already invading Japanese territory and Japanese forces focused on Kyushu(Most southern part of Japan) in a last ditched effort to scare away the Allies. The atomic bombs were not required. The US sought to test their new weapons after the death of Roosevelt and the committee had long been considering many cities of Japan as targets without warning or announcement of what would be dropped in order to test the full strength of the bombs. The act of bombing Japan twice was not necessary, simply cheaper and a chance for the US to better yet another weapon in their apparent quest for global domination. (see their actions 3 decades prior if you don't believe me.) Might I again state that at this time Roosevelt, who had pushed the Manhattan Project was dead. His doctrine of big stick carrying and whispering sweet nothings in your ear was no longer the only opinion that mattered.

Had the US prepared an invasion fleet supported by bombers and not attacked Japan on the Kyushu beachhead they would have been met with insignificant defenses. When a country has prepared a last ditched suicide charge in effort not to win, but scare the Allies out of their home you've already won. Again I state that Soviet Russia had betrayed the treaty with Japan and invaded. Their forces meshed with that of a relatively fresh navy and air force would have completely annexed Japan in a matter of weeks if not months under proper leadership. Of course I can say all this knowing the plans of Japan at the time, and I suppose there is some merit in saying that had the US not known this there would have been a chance that they fought Japan at the spearhead, but it was evident by their(Japan) own statement to fight to the bitter end, essentially a declaration of defeat where the only hope left was to protect the mainland, that Japan was on its last leg.

Honestly I still think the US was pissed off over Pearl Harbour and dropping two bombs was their method of revenge. I see no reason to kill a couple hundred thousand civilians when a countries army has already been forced back into a defensive stance in order to simply maintain their mainland. That's just my opinion over the whole event though.

A decimated navy that would crumble beneath an invasion force, Soviet Russia already invading Japanese territory and Japanese forces focused on Kyushu(Most southern part of Japan) in a last ditched effort to scare away the Allies. The atomic bombs were not required. The US sought to test their new weapons after the death of Roosevelt and the committee had long been considering many cities of Japan as targets without warning or announcement of what would be dropped in order to test the full strength of the bombs. The act of bombing Japan twice was not necessary, simply cheaper and a chance for the US to better yet another weapon in their apparent quest for global domination. (see their actions 3 decades prior if you don't believe me.) Might I again state that at this time Roosevelt, who had pushed the Manhattan Project was dead. His doctrine of big stick carrying and whispering sweet nothings in your ear was no longer the only opinion that mattered.

The Japanese military, even if outgunned and ill equipped to deal with an invasion, would have still placed a resistance to the Allied invasion (Operation Downfall) at it's top priority; there were plans for the remnants of the Japanese military to resist completely in both Kyushu and locations where any Japanese force could establish itself, and both the invading and defending forces would have taken massive casualties even in the most underpopulated or undefended areas, not in the scale of thousands but millions; more people would have died horrifically in the months of the invasion than had died in a split, painless seconds of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings.

The United States was not the sole aggressor in the Japanese "domination" in the 19th century; many European countries pushed for an end of the Japanese isolation, even threatening with invasion to complete it. Most of the European powers played on the American Navy to force the Japanese. Contrarily, the end of the Japanese isolation actually fastened their industrialization, and created the situation for a Japanese expansion into China and Korea, as well as the entire Pacific. Claiming that the US wanted to "dominate the world" before, during and after World War II is false, once again, the US wanted to end the war, stop the bloodshed and send everyone back to their country.

Honestly I still think the US was pissed off over Pearl Harbour and dropping two bombs was their method of revenge. I see no reason to kill a couple hundred thousand civilians when a countries army has already been forced back into a defensive stance in order to simply maintain their mainland. That's just my opinion over the whole event though.

The Japanese Emperor and government had made it very clear that they would resist, to the death, any attempt to invade the Japanese holdings in Korea and the mainland Home Islands; even taking into account the smaller military, which was still a very capable, well motivated and determined fighting force, the Showa-era Japanese military would never have surrendered to anyone, especially the Americans, when their homeland, country and way of life was at stake. The Soviet invasion was not a "betrayal"; the Japanese had signed a pact of allegiance with Nazi Germany, and had stood ready to deploy into Soviet holdings once they were occupied with the defense of their own homeland in the east, one of the few reasons the Japanese didn't join in the same surprise attack on the Soviets was an agreement for non-aggression, belligerently created by the Soviets, and an increase in conflict in mainland China and it's claims to the Philippines. Suffice to say I think a lot of your evidence is fairly inaccurate, as I've seen, read and discussed with both Military historians and academic specialists that said the Japanese military was nowhere near the point of destruction you might have thought they were. The Japanese Navy was still a force to be reckoned with; not beyond Japanese waters, but within it's own territory. Even without the experience of their air crews, shipmen and pilots, kamikaze attacks and the often suicidal fanaticism of the Japanese military, and large portions of their population, would have claimed lives on both sides that would quickly reach higher than the total number of deaths from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

Azrican one thing you should realize. By this time The Emperor was no longer under control --- in fact Japan had essentially become Military controlled. This actually came to crossing point when in attempt to block the surrender the generals tried a coup to prevent it going out. The Emperor was said to wished to surrendered after the first bomb.

But just to show I'm willing to see both sides, this piece here argues against the main points of a debate like this.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/hamby.htm

These are reasons cited:
But as the link shows this debate isn't so simplistic or black and white.

1. The Japanese government wanted to surrender; its leaders, military as well as civilian, rationally understood that the war was lost. But they had a determined attachment (irrational?) to the emperor. Japan would have surrendered, very possibly as early as June 1945, had its ruling establishment received guarantees of the emperor's personal safety and continuance on the throne. This should have been the first step in an American surrender strategy.

2. Any remaining Japanese reluctance to quit the war would have been quickly overcome by the second step, entry of the Soviet Union in August 1945.

3. American failure to accept and implement this "two-step logic" for an expeditious end to World War II was largely a result of the emerging Cold War and especially American concern over Soviet ambitions in Eastern Europe and northeast Asia.

4. The American public would have accepted some modification of the unconditional surrender policy in order to avoid prolongation of the war. The Washington Post and Time magazine advocated its abandonment; so did some United States senators. Many military leaders and diplomats-British as well as Americanconcurred.

5. President Harry S. Truman seemed inclined to give assurances on the emperor, then pulled back. He did so out of concern with Soviet behavior and with increasingly firm knowledge that the United States would soon have atomic weapons available. Coming to believe that the bomb would be decisive and anxious to keep the Soviet Union out of Manchuria, he dropped modification of unconditional surrender; moreover, he sought to prevent a Soviet declaration of war against Japan by encouraging China not to yield to Soviet demands beyond those granted at Yalta. In so doing, he acted primarily at the urging of James F. Byrnes, the archvillain in the plot.

6. Truman also refused to move on Japanese peace feelers, apparently in the belief that it was necessary to prevent a Japanese surrender before the bomb could be demonstrated to the world, and especially to the Soviet Union. The result was the needless destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - and many allied casualties that need not have happened.

7. In subsequent years, the American decision makers of 1945 devoted considerable energy to the construction of a misleading "myth" that attempted to vindicate the use of the bomb by denying Japanese efforts at peace and by asserting grossly inflated estimates of American casualties that would have been sustained in an invasion of Japan.

Azrican one thing you should realize. By this time The Emperor was no longer under control --- in fact Japan had essentially become Military controlled. This actually came to crossing point when in attempt to block the surrender the generals tried a coup to prevent it going out. The Emperor was said to wished to surrendered after the first bomb.

But just to show I'm willing to see both sides, this piece here argues against the main points of a debate like this.

The government military junta was against the surrender, cited by many of their convictions that the honor, and survival, of both their Emperor and their country was at stake, the junta was more than convinced that either surrendering to the Soviets or the Allies would mean destruction for Japan. Even in 1945, people that were outspoken for peace and surrender were being killed because of their conviction for an end. True, the Emperor was practically under house arrest, and they did enact a coup in order to stall the surrender; this had come at a time when the military's morale dropped with the falling of the nuclear bombs. It was the bombs that caused the surrender, not an Emperor being placed in "protective custody" within Tokyo.

Personally, I voted "No" when I initially saw this thread; dropping a bomb on two of the most populated cities of in Japan was a quick and dirty way to end the war, but the weapons could have been used much more efficiently and with much less casualties. There were many discussions on when, where and how to drop the bombs, and several of the options presented would have resulted in less loss of life; the cities were only decided because the American government wanted to be clear on it's indication that it would accept nothing short of an unconditional, complete surrender. Barely 2,500 were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, a contrast to the hundreds of thousands and later more that would die from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the US could have selected several different locations to drop the nuclear ordinance, locations of military importance like naval bases, air facilities and even the Japanese own nuclear weapons programs.

AzricanRepublic wrote:

Azrican one thing you should realize. By this time The Emperor was no longer under control --- in fact Japan had essentially become Military controlled. This actually came to crossing point when in attempt to block the surrender the generals tried a coup to prevent it going out. The Emperor was said to wished to surrendered after the first bomb.

But just to show I'm willing to see both sides, this piece here argues against the main points of a debate like this.

The government military junta was against the surrender, cited by many of their convictions that the honor of both their Emperor and their country was at stake, the junta was more than convinced that either surrendering to the Soviets or the Allies would mean destruction for Japan. Even in 1945, people that were outspoken for peace and surrender were being killed because of their conviction for an end. True, the Emperor was practically under house arrest, and they did enact a coup in order to stall the surrender; this had come at a time when the military's morale dropped with the falling of the nuclear bombs. It was the bombs that caused the surrender, not an Emperor being placed in "protective custody" within Tokyo.

Personally, I voted "No" when I initially saw this thread; dropping a bomb on two of the most populated cities of in Japan was a quick and dirty way to end the war, but the weapons could have been used much more efficiently and with much less casualties. There were many discussions on when, where and how to drop the bombs, and several of the options presented would have resulted in less loss of life; the cities were only decided because the American government wanted to be clear on it's indication that it would accept nothing short of an unconditional, complete surrender. Barely 2,500 were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, a contrast to the hundreds of thousands and later more that would die from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the US could have selected several different locations to drop the nuclear ordinance, locations of military importance like naval bases, air facilities and even the Japanese own nuclear weapons programs.

I agree with your final point. It was essentially an idea of revenge and not thinking which led to these events. My point on the Emperor was the second bomb wasn't needed for him, after first one he was willing to hang it all up. Unfortunately he didn't have the control or support. I guess it could be called a mistake they chose such populated places and didn't aim for major military points which would have had less effect on the people as a whole.

It was essentially an idea of revenge and not thinking which led to these events.

Nuclear weapons can and always will be a possibility for both immense destruction and quick victory at costs that many leaders and nations will view as "just numbers"; the entire aspect of their existence is for deterrence, and their use completely renounced their creation. The military policies of all nations during the War Years was focused on destruction rather than a quick end to hostilities. A peace could have been negotiated if the Allies were not so drastically bent on a complete victory following the fall of Nazi Germany; this was caused by both the American and Allied victories, and the rapid growth of Soviet belligerence that communism was the only answer after the fall of Berlin.

The bombs were necessary from an American point of view. The bombs were not the only option, however it was the best option to minimize US losses. The alternative was to invade and conquer the Japanese mainland through another grueling land campaign against suicidal and over zealous Japanese soldiers. Although we never will know, the collateral damage from such an invasion would surely meet or exceed the damage and death caused by the bombs.

Does this make the deaths of thousands of civilians right? No, but the Japanese government saw it as acceptable, considering it took a second bomb for them to even consider surrender.

I'd like to point out the trivial amount of damage done by those two bombs when compared to the firebombing campaign waged beforehand.

http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html

67 of Japans largest cities were burned to ash before a nuclear bomb was ever dropped.


I think the bombs were a necessary evil. Lose two cities (again, small when compared to the conventional bombing campaign) and stop a war which would've meant the death of thousands more in the fighting had the surrender never been secured.

AzricanRepublic wrote:...and the rapid growth of Soviet belligerence that communism was the only answer after the fall of Berlin.

Just to touch a little on history; Communism started in 1917 -- that pulled Russia out of WW1 and allowed for the the German push towards the West and their ultimate victory that is until they were sold out by German politicians that were lied to by the British and American governments...Concessions were made in the form of the Versailles Treaty. Germany was butt-hurt and decided to continue WW1 now called WW2...anyway.
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The nuclear programme was the shining apex that started with the industrial revolution, it was an inevitable conclusion. Everyone started planning and it so happened, with a cadre of liberated German scientists, America did it. And with that weapon thus started the Military Industrial Complex Eisenhower warned against. Originally planned for Germany, but taken off the table since the fall of Nazism, the nuclear target was switched to Japan. Bottom line Germany still had secrets to steal; rocketry, the jet engine and a whole heap of Nazi gold. Japan had paper houses and geisha ran bath houses. Japan might as well been a million miles away there was no desire to do anything with Japan but turn it into a parking lot and send a clear message to Russia and the rest of the world: You mess with us, we drop the hammer. Sure there were empires before, but never a superpower; the dropping of the atomic bomb ushered in the modern world.

Was it wrong? Of course, but much like America couldn't go back to the days of Victorian isolationism, they couldn't un-invent the technology. No one should have that much power...but I mean one could postulate that if America didn't drop it, Russia would have or if Hitler wasn't such a kook and ostracised all the Jewish scientists Germany would have been putting wee nukes on V2's and lobbing them over to England in '44. It happened and whether good or bad, it made it so the world would never see another war. Take comfort in that.