Model Essay Student’s Name Section Number Why the Atomic Bombs Saved Japan. The decision to use nuclear weapons to stop the War in the Pacific by President Harry S. Truman in August, 1945 remains controversial to this day. Most of Truman’s critics, the so-called revisionist historians, argue that Japan wanted to surrender and had already been defeated, making the use of atomic bombs unnecessary. They say the bombs were used mainly to demonstrate America’s power to intimidate the Soviet Union. 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.
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.
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’? “We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.” One of the biggest arguments in the debate on the necessity of dropping the atomic bombs is the argument that it saved American lives, which would have otherwise been lost in the proposed alternative: a land invasion of Japan. It was necessary to ‘completely destroy Japan’s power to make war’, and the best way to do this, to save American lives, was to drop the bombs. “Operation
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.
One of the pros for dropping the atom bombs is that the Japanese would have not surrendered. The Japanese believed in the old samurai way called bushido. Bushido meant loyalty, honor, and self sacrifice to the Japanese, so surrendering was not an option for them. That was one of the pros for dropping of the atom bombs. This another pro for dropping the atom bombs.
Option two is that the United States should drop an atomic bomb on a deserted island so that the whole world can see what power we have. If the Japanese see what the atomic bomb can do then maybe they will surrender so that we don’t drop an atomic bomb on them. If they don’t surrender then we will drop an atomic bomb on Japanese civilians and we will not feel guilty because we warned them and they still continued to fight. With this option we hope to scare japan into surrendering and change the post war world we will be entering. Some risks with this option is that the atomic bomb has only been tested once before and if the demonstration does not do what we hope it will do then japan will continue to fight and the United States will lose stature
The decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had many influential factors effecting the decision. There certainly was the possibility of success for an invasion, but the decision not to invade far outweighed the decision to invade. Conventional bombing and Blockade were considered in the effort to force Japan into surrender. But, the fact that the Japanese military were controlling the Government and were in a state of mind of absolute refusal to surrender, meant that this was not a reasonable option. Political factors were greatly influential of Truman’s final decision to drop the bomb and the threat of Russian military who were soon to advance in the region had its impact.
Necessity of the bomb lies with the amount of people that would have been killed in a land invasion, although it was vastly exaggerated. If next generation were raised on the path the Japanese were taking, they would grow up to become monsters. it saved many American Soldiers lives by stopping a land invasion of Japan and prisoners of war were being abused. But the Atomic bomb used against Japan was not necessary to end the war considering the numbers of American lives saved was vastly exaggerated, They were sending their battleships and pilots out on suicide missions as they were desperate, there was a vengeance for pearl harbour and racism towards the Japanese people, many victims of the bomb were civilians that had nothing to do with the war, the only reason Japanese weren’t surrendering is because they didn’t want to give up there emperor to the “unconditional surrender” and to demonstrate their power over the world. The bombing of Hiroshima was necessary to end the war as it would save many lives as suggests in source A “should adopt a position that rather than throw to this bomb we should have sacrificed a million American and a quarter of a million British live”.
Although he did approve of the bomb, Roosevelt was unconcerned about actually dropping the bomb on Japan. Instead he supported the idea that since Germany was possibly looking into the same type of destructive weapon, the U.S. needed to advance in the field in order to prevent detrimental attacks against them. He had the Great Depression on his hands as well and was less motivated during his time to destroy Japan to end the war more efficiently. On the other hand, Truman saw his opportunity of bringing the United States to the end of the war in a quick manner by releasing the bombs since Japan had no intentions of taking an easy surrender. To prevent going through an invasion, Truman made a hasty decision to drop the bombs.
Global Essay The main focus of the United States when it dropped the atomic bombs on Japan was to force Japans unconditional surrender in order to save American lives. Many documents in government history support that this was the main focus. In 1947 Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson had in his memoirs that he believed that the Japanese would fight to the death and very end. This meant putting more American lives at risk in the war. Although the U.S. would’ve defeated Japan in the war eventually, the bombs made it so that they would surrender quicker so lives would be saved.