The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings represent the only incidences that nuclear bombs were ever used in the history of humanity. The devastation, death, and destruction that followed resulted to the surrendering of Japan and thus brought the Second World War to an end. Over the years that followed, the magnitude of the impacts of the nuclear bombs resulted in the debate regarding the justification, or lack thereof regarding the bombing of Japan by the United States. Essentially, the United States had no justification in dropping the bombs in Japan. To a great deal, the justification for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have to be the testing of a weapon that had cost a lot of resourcing in developing. The war with Japan presented the opportunity for the United States to test their expensive weapons.
According to American Secretary of War Henry Lewis, the bombs were unnecessary as brought out in the quote; “Japan had no allies; its navy was almost destroyed; its islands were under a naval blockade; and its cities were undergoing concentrated air attacks” (Was the US Justified in Dropping Atomic Bombs par. 5). The signing of the Geneva Convention by the League of Nation in the 1920s was instrumental in ending the use of chemical weapons that had been utilized in the First World War. The radiation poisoning that affected millions of Japanese people after the bombings were a direct violation of the agreement of the convention. Not only were the bombings unnecessary they were also illegal in every way.
The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. (I Was There, pg. 441)
The moral and legal dynamics of the use of weapons of mass destruction were not a new affair. The United States had done numerous tests in the course of developing the nuclear bombs, which meant that they already understood the magnitude that would accrue from their action. The decision by Japan to surrender was not impacted and influenced in any way by the bombing since; they had already been economically and socially devastated by the war even before America dropped the bombs.
The Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs. (Judgment at the Smithsonian, pg. 142)
Existing documents from top-ranking military officials from Japan showcase that the decision to surrender was not as a result of the bombing but rather because of the Soviet Union’s declaration of war against Japan on the 8th of August 1945. The concept of fighting on two fronts was an impossible feat for the Japanese government, which had already stretched its resources beyond limits. Japan surrendered because the Soviet Union entered the war. The myth of the victory of the nuclear bomb by America presented a less embarrassing option for a country that was ready to surrender without conditions. The use of the atomic bomb was primary to avenge the deaths of the American soldiers who had lost their lives in the bloody battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. The second reason behind the bombing would be the need to keep the Soviet Union in check in the European continent. This meant that the civilians who lost their lives did not matter within the strategy that had been developed by the United States. However, nuclear bombs failed to avert the cold war, between the United States and Russia, who had only been a few years from the development of their atomic bomb. Looking at the price of revenge and the need to keep the Soviet Union in check, the Japanese had to pay steeply. Despite the 200,000 death toll and the radiation poisoning that ensured, America failed to reign in on the Russians. In as much as the Japanese may have disappeared from the global scene, the actions of the United States only enhanced and motivated the Russians towards the development of similar weapon as a way of retaliation in case it would be used again.
For many critics, proponents, however, the bombings were not only necessary but also justified in the sense that they ensured that the war was shortened instead of running a longer course. This line of thought fails to consider the fact that Japan had expressed their interest in relation to ending the war. Right before the dropping of the first bomb at Nagasaki, Japan had realized the impossibility of fighting against two countries. Japan had made clear overtures to the pursuit of peace; however, the major impediment was the cultural difference that made it impossible for the country to accept the unconditional terms of the United States. At the very heart of the decision to bomb Japan, lay the desire to assert political dominance and superiority in the world through the demonstration of devastation and destruction that the United States could cause. While the nuclear bomb had been intended for the defense of citizens and the upholding of peace, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings formed the background of an arms race among various nations. The power that had been exhibited became a goal for every nation. Secondly, the argument that the bombing was justified is flawed based on the fact that the fist bomb resulted in the death of over a hundred thousand people, and ideally, Japan had already surrendered yet the united states went on to drop the second one, raising the question of the reason behind the second bombing. The seconding bombing of Nagasaki was major because of the assumption that Japan could not be cowed by a single bombing. In an actual sense, only honor and desperation stood between Japan and its surrender to the unconditional demands by the United States.
Work Cited
Leahy, William D. I Was There. New York: Arno Press, 1979. Print.
Nobile, Philip. Judgment at the Smithsonian. New York: Marlowe & Co, 1995. Print.
Wainstock, Dennis D. The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki: August 1945. New York: Enigma Books, 2010. Internet resource.
"Was the US Justified in Dropping Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War? You Debate." History Extra. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 May 2016. <http://www.historyextra.com/feature/second-world-war/was-us-justified-dropping-atomic-bombs-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-during-second>.
