Nuclear Weapon: Necessary Or Justified?

One of the most controversial and heavily scrutinized issue of the twentieth century was President Harry S. Truman’s decision to unleash atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The motives behind Truman’s actions are shrouded in controversy as top military officials publicly denounced the use of such a disastrous weapon. There is overwhelming evidence supporting both sides of the decision, as historians are split in opinion. The United States had been using conventional bombing to try to push Japan over the edge to surrender, but with countless Japanese civilians loyal to their country, invading Japan proved to be more problematic than first thought. Harry S. Truman made the ultimate decision of dropping the atomic bomb in hopes that it would end the war, but the amount of casualties caused by it has historians questioning if it was morally right, “The bomb was unfortunate, but it was the only means to bring Japan to a surrender,” historian Sadao Asada states (Bomb 9). Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justifiable because they would ultimately lead to the end of the war and would demonstrate U.S. supremacy.

The necessity of the atomic bombs have long been debated in America. Although they did contribute to stopping the war, Americans still wonder if murdering Japanese civilians was a necessary means to an end, or if it could have been avoided. Some people believe that the war would have ended without using the bombs. Others believe they were the sole purpose that the war finally ended. Many people were involved with bringing the bombs to fruition, such as the scientists, the government and military leaders, and the very teams that flew them to their targets. Then the President addressed the situation and American citizens spoke their minds. All of these people had their own thoughts on whether the bombs were needed. In this essay, the opinions on the atomic bomb’s necessity will be reviewed by presenting both the pros and cons from a variety of sources.

The pressing question still lingers: Was the United States justified in using the Atomic Bomb against Japan during WWII? World War II stands as the bloodiest and deadliest war of all time. It involved more than thirty countries and resulted in over fifty million civilian and military deaths. It lasted six years, beginning with Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939. As the Allied Powers (mainly the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union) and the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) were in direct conflict with each other, many wonder if the cost of victory was too extreme. In late 1941, the process of creating the world’s first, most deadly weapon began. The production of the first atomic bomb was code named “the Manhattan Project.” After months of production, August 6, 1945, America dropped the “Little Boy” bomb on Hiroshima, wiping out ninety percent of the city. August 9, 1945, just three days after the devastation of the first bomb, America dropped the “Fat Man” bomb on Nagasaki. Dropping the atomic bomb on Japan was not necessary, nor justified in ending World War II. Due to the fact that America targeted heavily civilian populated cities (with limited military value), that Japan was in a position of surrender before the bomb was dropped, and the fact that the U.S. did not give enough time for Japan to process the devastation of the first bomb before the second in Nagasaki shows that America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb was entirely unjustified.

On May 1945, a long-awaited V-E Day finally came and brought an end to the war in Europe. But, the war in the Pacific was still continuing against Japan since they are being reluctant to surrender despite the continuous indiscriminate bombardments The United States began to consider about using the atomic bombs as the only way to end the war immediately. On the other hand, many argued that Japan’s staggering losses were enough to force Japan’s surrender. In the end, President Harry S. Truman didn’t hesitate to use this nuclear weapon and bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with only three days interval between the two bombing. As a result, Japan has surrendered, but if I were to make a decision, I haven’t used atomic bombs because it was unnecessary since Japan has virtually lost already.

World War II was fought between two main opposing forces, the Allies and the Axis forces. The Axis powers consisted of Germany, Italy, and Japan being the most dominant. On the other hand, some of the countries in the Allied powers were Great Britain, the United States, France, Australia, New Zealand, India, the Soviet Union, Canada, and Greece.

It has been just over seven decades since the destructive atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. These bombs were the first of its kind-weapons of mass destruction. There are many points-of-view or opinions about whether or not the bombs should have been used. As always there are two sides to each story; those who are for a cause and those who are against. In this paper, I will discuss the two opposing points-of-view, as well as my own opinion on which argument I find most compelling.

The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 was a definite turning point in the Pacific War of World War II. Earlier that year, Germany had been defeated and the world then turned its attention to the Pacific war. Most history books state the argument that the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan was necessary to stop the war in order to save thousands of lives of American troops that were planning to invade Japan. "Had the bombs not been employed (so the "wisdom" goes), an enormous number of American troops would have perished in an inevitable amphibious operation against the Japanese mainland."(McManus 1) This paper will demonstrate that Japan was willing to

World War 2 was a notorious war fought between the Axis and Allied nations, during the period of 1939 to 1945. The Axis nations mainly included Germany, Japan and Italy, while the Allied nations were led by the United States of America (USA), the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and Britain (Source D). The war was kindled after a Nazi German invasion of Poland in 1939, which resulted in Britain and France declaring war on Germany. As Germany was determined to carry on their invasions, their allies (the Axis nations) and Britain’s allies (the Allied nations) and colonies were dragged into the war, causing it to become a major world war.

“The chief assumption about the enemy, was that the Japanese would continue the war to the utmost extent of their capabilities and defend the main islands of Japan with every means available to them.” (Skates, 1993, p.3) “The consensus is that the Japanese would have fought as fanatically as they had on Saipan, Peleiu, Luzon, Iwo Jima and Okinawa and they would have preferred death to surrender.” (Skates, 1994, p. 6) “The earlier fanatical and suicidal, yet hopeless Japanese defenses created a psychology that the normal conventions of war did not apply against a nation of potential kamikazes.” (Skates, 1993, p. 82) Secretary of war, Henry Stimson, believed that an invasion of Japan would solidify the hold that the militarists held on the country. (Skates, 1993, p. 238) He also felt that an invasion may not even induce surrender. (Baker (Ed.), 1968, p. 16) It would seem that although Japan was defeated militarily, they were far from being defeated psychology. (Batchlder, 1961, p. 72)

World War 2 started 1939 and ended 1945 and during the war there were two groups fighting each other the allies and the axis powers. The allies included Britain, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, the Soviet Union, China and the United States of America. The axis powers included Germany, Italy and Japan (“World War II 1939–1945).

To fully examine the factors that led to the United States to drop an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, one can look at the event as a result of two major decisions. The first decision concerned the use of newly developed nuclear weapons in lieu of other military techniques to secure a timely Japanese surrender. The second decision was to use several of these weapons instead of only one. Although the Truman administration displayed little hesitation or ambivalence over the decision to use atomic weapons (Walker, 51), it is important to examine what factors contributed to these swift actions.

America made a plan in efforts to minimize the possible causalities of U.S soldiers and to achieve the most immediate surrender from Japan. After warning Japan of ‘total destruction’, Japan still choose to reject the unconditional surrender that was

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States was justified. The japanese attacked the U.S. unfairly at Pearl Harbor so they dropped bombs and would have kept dropping bombs until they surrendered. The Japanese wanted to destroy the United States naval base so the Japanese would not be attacked while they travel to Southeast Asia for military plans. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor they did not warn the U.S. or have a declaration of war and that is considered a war

On August 6, 1945 when President Truman decided to bomb Hiroshima with the bomb nicknamed “little boy” causing over 6 percent of the city to be leveled out and causing 70,000 civilians casualties. But the real question was if this act was necessary. The evidence points out that yes it was a necessity to stop another war from beginning. The united stated targeted two major military and industrial cities (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) to stop an invasion of Japan. Which Truman knew would cause “Okinawa from one end or japan to the other” and his assumptions were very legitimate. The Japanese took the initiative to try and start a new war with the united states with the bombing of the Pearl Harbor, to try and destroy the military and air forces, but while doing that in a short time five of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor were sunk or sinking,

Conservative estimates have said that a million lives could have been lost had the US launched a full assault on the Japanese home islands. Strictly looking at the numbers, dropping the atomic bombs saved nearly a million lives. Also, Imperial Japanese forces controlled hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Indonesian people in 1945. On average, about 10,000 civilians and POWs under Japanese rule were killed every week the war continued. Not only were the bombs dropped to save the lives of those American soldiers that were invading the Japanese homeland, but it also saved the lives of innocent civilians in mainland Asia who were suffering under Japanese rule. In addition to these innocent civilians, by the end of the war, Japanese military leaders were training civilians to fight. It was the Japanese belief that despite the lack of military training, these civilians, often women, would overcome American soldiers with their “Japanese spirit”. These soldiers would have stood no chance against a well trained American Marine, especially a Marine who had just fought at Peleliu and Okinawa. Marines who had fought in these previous battles would have been so mentally and physically fatigued that the difference between civilian and soldier would have been indistinguishable. These “trained” Japanese civilians would have been annihilated by US soldiers. The mental effects