Question

Were the United States' atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified? Explain why or why not, and consider whether the atomic bombs were necessary to end the war.

Answer 1

Yes, it was. As the rest of the planet, the US was soldiering on at the end of a bleak time in human history that had seen the single most costly battle (in terms of life) in history, and they decided to follow a strategy that appeared to reduce the number of casualties in the war by shortening it dramatically with the use of nuclear weapons.

Having endured the loss of more than 418,000 lives, both military and civilian, it was definitely a fair view for the USA to take. The 135,000 death toll was worth it to the top level of the US military to avoid the "invading Japan will kill many thousands of American troops" – a perception credited to the president himself.

To be sure, the US used the atom bomb to hold the USSR in line, and it served its function for that. The Soviets may not have avoided building their own nuclear weapon, but that's not what it was supposed to do. It was used as a barrier to preserve the (sometimes uncomfortable) peace between the US and the USSR, and that is what it accomplished. There are no instances of a direct, all-out war between the US and the Soviets that can be traced to the atomic weapons' potentially destructive effects.

Certainly, the atomic bombs created U.S. hegemony immediately after the Second World War – the destructive power it possessed ensured that it remained unquestioned as the greatest force in the world until the Soviets produced their own arms, four years after the Nagasaki deployment. It's definitely true that Stalin and the Soviets attempted to challenge U.S. hegemony, but ultimately the U.S. came out on top well into the 1960s.