The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed millions of people, left families with nothing, and leveled cities. The war would have gone on for a couple more years if we had not dropped the bombs and sent troops to Japan instead. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified. This is one of the pros for the atomic bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One of the pros for dropping the atom bombs is that the Japanese would have not surrendered.
This is a really hard argument because if you attack the enemy army which is attacking you, you have to think about the deaths of your own men. Since bombings where so unaccurate they might have missed and hit themselfs. But if you do attack factories you can slow down the production of weapons. The attack on Japan was not acceptable. The U.S did not have to kill millions of innocent civillians just to make Japan surreneder.
In fact, the debates behind using the atomic bombs against Japan began even before the decision was made. Many of the scientists such as Leo Szilard and Dr. James Franck, who made great contributions towards the creation of the bomb, campaigned against its use. President Truman said “We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Amercicans”. It is completely understandable that President Truman’s aim was always to save the lives as many American people, but was it necessary to do it by dropping the atomic bombs on Japan? And was the reason behind the decision to drop the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki purely to ‘save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans’?
I disagree that the Japanese in WW2 were defeated more because of their weakness rather than the strength of the Allied forces. The Japanese weaknesses included their incapability in managing the empire they took on. The strengths of the allied powers included their intelligent military strategies, an example was the "Island Hopping Strategy of Attack" used by America. Also, the dropping of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had an impact on Japan which caused them to surrender. The term "defeated more" refers to the factor which had the greatest impact on Japan, causing them to be drove to a state of devastation and have no other way than surrender unconditionally.
The historians who support Truman, sometimes called the traditionalists, agree that Japan had been defeated but argue that Japan was not ready to surrender and was, in fact, preparing for one last great battle that would have cost millions of lives. Popular opinion tends to side with the revisionists, but I will argue that Truman made the right decision, not only for the United States but also for Japan; in fact, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved Japan. Revisionists argue that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima after Japan’s armed forces and over sixty of its major cities had been already been destroyed. Moreover, historians such as Howard Zinn argue that Truman knew that the Japanese were trying to surrender but that he ignored them because he wanted to use the Bomb (23). Gar Alperovitz, another revisionist, says that Truman’s main purpose in dropping the bombs was to demonstrate its power in order to intimidate the Russians (127).
Discuss the decision made to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. By August 1945 the Second World War was as its final stages. Only one last victory was need for the Allies in order to win the war, a victory over Japan. Ending the war with Japan during World War 2 was both difficult and problematic for the Americans. The decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had many influential factors effecting the decision.
There are many statements and arguments that suggest that the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima was necessary to end World War II. Such as the Japanese were not surrendering, they still had fighting power as they had sunk U.S. Naval Ship Indianapolis only two days before the bombing Many of this argument can be counted as the only reason the Japanese weren’t surrendering is because they didn’t want to give up there emperor to the “unconditional surrender”, they practically had nothing left. They were sending their battleships and pilots out on suicide missions as they were desperate. Necessity of the bomb lies with the amount of people that would have been killed in a land invasion, although it was vastly exaggerated.
An invasion of Japan could have caused tens of thousands of Allied casualties, while the bombs could be carried over and dropped by planes. Since Japan is an island nation, in order to invade it, the Allies would have to storm the beaches. When troops are all running in the same direction from one point, like from the beaches onto the land, they are basically running into the line of fire with no protection. In regards to a diplomatic solution to end the war, Arthur Compton, the co-creator of the atomic bomb said that “Though the possibility of a demonstration that would [end that war and] not destroy human lives was attractive, no one could suggest a way in which it could be made so convincing that it would be likely to stop the war.” (Alperovitz
The entire world changed after the dropping of the atomic bomb on the Japanese islands of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It created a mass hysteria considering that now the world could be destroyed from the use of these awesome bombs. As the United States gradually slipped into the Cold War with the Soviet Union, people hoped that some ethical codes instilled within us all would prevent the obliteration of the earth by use of atomic bombs. Though the power of the atomic bomb has not been unleashed upon another civilization since Nagasaki, the hope that an ethical code can regulate interactions throughout all regions, states, and nations is erroneous. Blackburn, in his short introduction to ethics through the book “Being Good”, gives seven threats to ethics that denounces the ability to regulate interactions ethically.
On August 5, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb in military history on Hiroshima. Three days later, they dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki before Japan could respond to the extent of the devastation. This played a key role in ending World War II, but resulted in the killings of over 200,000 Japanese civilians (eHistory). This historical event is still a decision that is often debated on moral grounds today. However, there are some philosophies and schools of thought which, when applied to the issue, are more likely to lead one to gain a more thorough understanding of why the action was unethical and should not have been committed.