Autonomy and Responsibility The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bombs on Japan

President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the direct cause for the end of World War II in the Pacific. The United States felt it was necessary to drop the atomic bombs on these two cities or it would suffer more casualties. Not only could the lives of many soldiers have been taken, but possibly the lives of many innocent Americans. The United States will always try to avoid the loss of American civilians at all costs, even if that means taking lives of another countries innocent civilians.

Had he chosen a different alternative , the world as we know it today might not have been the same and the balance of powers of the world would be extremely different. “The losses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki assuredly were horrific, but they pale when compared to the estimates of 17 to 24 million deaths attributed to the Japanese during their rampage from Manchuria to New Guinea. The historian Gavan Daws accurately described "Asia under the Japanese" as "a charnel house of atrocities." During the months of war following the attack on Pearl Harbor, reliable estimates establish that between 200,000 to 300,000 people died each month either directly or indirectly at Japanese hands. The historian Robert Newman tellingly reveals that "the last months were in many ways the worst; starvation and disease aggravated the usual beatings, beheadings and battle deaths. It is plausible to hold that upwards of 250,000 people, mostly Asian but some Westerners, would have died each month the Japanese Empire struggled in its death throes beyond July 1945." (Yes: Truman’s Simple Decision). It was clear that the Japanese war machine had to be stopped, the atomic bomb was the fastest way to draw the war to a close and prevent the deaths of thousands of Americans. While the instantaneous destruction of entire cities and their occupants is without a doubt horrendous, It was the by far the best of a multitude of other

1945 began as a year of increasing tensions between countries as the war extended onto its sixth year. Military groups of the various countries involved were now beginning to seriously consider the conclusion of the war in terms of how the global ceasefire would be carried out and frankly, who would win. After the defeat of the Axis Powers in Europe, the focus had been turned towards the war in Asia and the Pacific Regions in which the Allied Forces of Great Britain, Australia and the USA were in conflict with the Axis power of Japan and her partners. Following the urge to end the war, the ‘Big Three’ made up of the three leaders of the major Allied Forces; Churchill, Stalin and

This thought brings me to my next motive of why Truman might have dropped the bomb. I do not think Truman was unaware of the lasting effects of the atom bomb, but by the time these facts were presented to him, piled upon facts about the actual bomb and the projects supporting them, it was to late to change his decision. He needed to save face for America (which brings me to the next motive of pressure) even if it public opinion was not his main concern. Truman did not want to look soft upon the Japanese, something further consideration and negation of the plan to bomb would have caused in some officials eye's. Also, Truman and much of the rest of the nation did not like seeing the U.S. as moral failures like many other nations. Who knows what the reaction to the President's decision would have been like if he had decided to let an invasion with hundreds and thousands of our men involved take place.

“Truman stated that his decision to drop the bomb was purely military. Truman believed that the bombs saved Japanese lives as well. Prolonging the war was not an option for the President,” (ushistory.org 1). President Truman and the United States government made a fair decision by dropping the atomic bomb on the Japanese citizens in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during 1945. The bomb allowed the United States to appear more powerful and led to them influencing the rest of the world. The dropping of the atomic bomb was also a just response to the previous atrocities committed by Japan to other countries including the United States. In the long run, the bomb saved more lives that would have been lost in the war, since the bombs caused the

On December 7, 1941 Japan launched a surprise attack on a U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii with the possibility of forcing the U.S. to join World War II. About 2,400 Americans were dead, 21 ships had been sunk, and 188 aircrafts were destroyed. On August 6 and 9 of 1945, the U.S. retaliated and dropped two atomic bombs called Fat Man and Little Boy on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The U.S. was not justified in dropping the atomic bombs on Japan because of the locations that were bombed, the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and the lack of previous bomb testing.

"Should we drop the weapon of mass destruction capable of taking out entire civilizations? At this point, you're probably thinking that we shouldn't. Let's set the stage on we should, the Japanese dropped many regular bombs on us when we weren't ready or expecting the attack, Now if you've taken your history classes this is known as The Sneak Attack. Following the dropping of the bombs we entered one of the bloodiest wars ever, World War II, hundreds of thousands of people were dying and according to Tom Nichols, Professor of National Security Affairs, "The fact of the matter is that Japan was not preparing to surrender; it was preparing to fight to the death." So this war was not going to be over anytime soon. As far as Truman, the president at the time could tell this war was not going to be over anytime soon. This is why the bomb should have been dropped.

During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted the atomic bombings of the

In 1945, the U.S. captured Iwo Jima and Okinawa in the war in the Pacific. These victories gave the U.S. an advantage, but the victories came with many casualties. Truman feared more casualties if they invaded Japan, so he needed a way to end the war in the Pacific. At the time, a new atomic bomb had been created; Truman had to decide if they would use the bombs on Japan. In the end, he dropped the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war in the Pacific. I think that Truman shouldn’t have dropped the atomic bombs on Japan because of the major destruction it caused.

President Truman stated that the bomb was dropped to avoid a full scale invasion of Japan which would have costed up to a million US lives as well as countless Japanese. However, it is probable that eventually the Japanese would have surrendered without the nuke or the invasion as they had already been more or less defeated. Many Japanese military officials have since gone on the record to say that the Japanese would have been forced to surrender under the conditions that they were in. While ending the war was a real concern of Truman, the main reason that the bombs were dropped probably had more to do with the fact that they had spent 2 billion dollars creating it, and Russia had declared war on Japan. Truman described the production of the atomic bomb as one of the biggest gambles in US history that they had won as the Germans nuclear bomb program had failed. This being said, there was little chance that the bomb was not going to be used. In addition, four days prior to the dropping of the bomb, the Potsdam conference between Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin had ended badly with relations between the US and soviets quickly deteriorating. After the Russians declared war on Japan the US saw it necessary to demonstrate their immense power in order to impress the Russians and hopefully to use the nuclear supremacy as leverage in negotiations. Despite being urged by countless military officials, including Dwight Eisenhower; most of the scientists responsible for creating the bomb, and officials from the UK, Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb for political gain and a show of power to the rest of the world. Killing tens of thousands of innocent people and completely destroying two cities in return for political leverage is wrong and the US was completely unjustified

This all happened when Germany invaded Poland. After that Britain and France immediately declared war on Germany to try and ruin Hitler’s plan of invading the whole of Europe. In only twelve months the war reached the USA and Japan. Japan happily signed an alliance with hitler because like the Nazis, Japan wanted to take over the world. When all these harsh events took place, every country wanted to create the nuclear technology so they would have the strongest

The United States was completely unjustified in dropping the atomic bomb because it was used so we could have a sense of “power” over the rest of the world. President Harry Truman had paid no heed to his prior statements as to the intended use of the bomb; and not only had it violated the Hague Convention, but it also caused lifelong repercussions for Japan’s land and people.

At about eight A.M on August sixth, 1945 the Japanese city Hiroshima was destroyed by the deployment of the first nuclear weapon, nicknamed “Little Boy.” Soon after, at about eleven A.M the following day, a second bomb was dropped, called “Fat Man” on Nagasaki. Together, these bombings caused massive destruction. The death total was well near 220, 000. Only portions of these deaths were from the days of the bombings, with an equal number occurring later in the year from exposure to radiation. More have died since from leukemia.

Under the presidency of Harry Truman, he had a choice on whether or not he should have dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, however, he chose to use the first atomic bomb ever used in history to end the destructive war known was World War II. This has been a widely discussed topic on why Truman should have dropped the atomic bomb and if it was necessary. I believe that Truman should have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because Japan was the first to attack the United States, more lives would have been lost for Americans, Japanese, and more nationalities, and Japan was issued a warning known as “prompt and and utter destruction.”

The development of the Atomic bomb started in 1939 after the renowned physicist Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt stating that “recent work had made it possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium by which vast amounts of power ... would be generated by which, my dear Mr. President, it might be possible to unleash an immense destructive force” . He was driven to write this letter because two European physicists, one in America, were exchanging information on what was going on in Europe. In 1939 when Germany banned the export of Uranium ore from Czechoslovakia, which this caught the European scientists’ attention they collaborated to contact Albert about this possible issue, toying with the idea that the Germans might be doing research of their own. Though priority and funding to organize the project was not given until the US entered the war in 1941, where the operation was designated Project Manhattan.