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Why did America get away with bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

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Reply 40
Because it was such a shock, and the United Nations was powerless. But in a way that really kick started the Soviet rivalry, but apart from the USSR challenge they got off.
Reply 41
There was a thread on this a while back http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1357246;

The argument presented by Asada and Frank that the atomic bombs rather than Soviet entry into the war had a more decisive effect on Japan’s decision to surrender cannot be supported. The Hiroshima bomb, although it heightened the sense of urgency to seek the termination of the war, did not prompt the Japanese government to take any immediate action that repudiated the previous policy of seeking Moscow’s mediation. Contrary to the contention advanced by Asada and Frank, there is no evidence to show that the Hiroshima bomb led either Togo or the emperor to accept the Potsdam terms. On the contrary, Togo’s urgent telegram to Sato on August 7 indicates that, despite the Hiroshima bomb, they continued to stay the previous course. The effect of the Nagasaki bomb was negligible. It did not change the political alignment one way or the other. Even Anami’s fantastic suggestion that the United States had more than 100 atomic bombs and planned to bomb Tokyo next did not change the opinions of either the peace party or the war party at all.

Rather, what decisively changed the views of the Japanese ruling elite was the Soviet entry into the war. It catapulted the Japanese government into taking immediate action. For the first time, it forced the government squarely to confront the issue of whether it should accept the Potsdam terms. In the tortuous discussions from August 9 through August 14, the peace party, motivated by a profound sense of betrayal, fear of Soviet influence on occupation policy, and above all by a desperate desire to preserve the imperial house, finally staged a conspiracy to impose the “emperor’s sacred decision” and accept the Potsdam terms, believing that under the circumstances surrendering to the United States would best assure the preservation of the imperial house and save the emperor.

This is, of course, not to deny completely the effect of the atomic bomb on Japan’s policymakers. It certainly injected a sense of urgency in finding an acceptable end to the war. Kido stated that while the peace party and the war party had previously been equally balanced in the scale, the atomic bomb helped to tip the balance in favor of the peace party. It would be more accurate to say that the Soviet entry into the war, adding to that tipped scale, then completely toppled the scale itself.


Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The Atomic Bombs and the Soviet Invasion: What Drove Japan’s Decision to Surrender? Tsuyoshi Hasegawa

Leo Szilard, Interview: President Truman Did Not Understand

Bombing of Tokyo in World War II

Was the Atomic Bombing of Japan Necessary?

The bomb didn't win it


Let me say only this much to the moral issue involved: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?


Freemason Dyson

The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in Light of Hiroshima (PDF)

This article reexamines the widely held presumption that nuclear weapons played a decisive role in winning the war in the Pacific. Based on new research from Japanese, Soviet, and U.S. archives, it concludes that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, played virtually no role in this outcome. A comparison of the responses of high-level Japanese officials to the bombing and the Soviet invasion on August 9 makes clear that the Soviet intervention touched off a crisis, while the bombing of Hiroshima did not. The article examines the evidence that, to save face, Japanese leaders blamed the bomb for losing the war. Finally, it sketches the profound impact this reappraisal may have on how nuclear weapons will be viewed in the future.


H I R O S H I M A : WAS IT NECESSARY?
HIROSHIMA : WHO DISAGREED WITH THE ATOMIC BOMBING?
(edited 13 years ago)
Pearl Harbour wasn't the reason for the use of nuclear weapons as has been said already, and as far as I'm aware Japan wasn't in the process of surrender as was suggested by a previous poster. The USA used nuclear weapons to end the war quickly and allow American forces to take control of the Japanese mainland under Macarthur. They needed this to happen to avoid the USSR taking control of the islands (after the Manchuria campaign they had huge troop numbers in the region ready for an invasion) which the USA was very keen should become a base for a US sphere of influence in the Pacific close to the Soviet Union. They justified it at the time as the less costly of two appallingly costly alternatives for both sides and we can't know whether this would have been proved true or not.

As has been said again and again history is written by the victors and numerous people and groups escaped serious reprisals for their role played in the war from the US using nuclear weapons to Japanese scientists and death marches and German scientists who later contributed enormously to the American space program. People are not always held accountable for their actions.
Original post by rich2606
Why single out Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the carpet bombing of cities was a strategy widely used by both sides during the war?

Nukes are RADIOACTIVE nuff said
Reply 44
Millions of lives were saved by using the Nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ordinary citizens would have been fighting the US Army until either most of the Japanese population were dead.
Original post by Glowy Amoeba
2,402 personnel killed versus hundreds of thousands of civilians vaporized or left to die of radiation sickness by the bombs.


At teh time, unlike now, collateral damage was seen as an acceptable loss. Now we wouldn't consider Nuclear weapons as a viable option for the simple reason they are an indiscriminate way of acheiving the desired outcome.

Also as stated a land invasion would have been horrific for both sides. You only need to look at the casualty rates for the battle of Iwo Jima too see the fanatacism that the Japanes soldiers fought with.
Reply 46
It was an act of war.
Reply 47
Original post by Bubbles*de*Milo
LOL that's such a lie. (Not your lie, a lie the USA has propagated for the last 70 odd years to legitimise their actions).


Much as I do not want to admit it various evidence such as Jap Diplomatic cables say that Japan were willing to surrender.

Tbh a better course of action and one that was considered was to detonate the bomb on an uninhabited island this would show the soviets the power of the bomb which arguably the main reason for the use of the atomic bomb.
Original post by Sani-Insanity
But seriously the long term effects of it meant even people who survived the effect of the actual blast would die from the radiation and black rain. I realise in war you need to be quite ruthless at times but the bombings were so extreme it wasn't even considered as a war crime?

It just really angers me at how easily they got away with it. Because of America we know have the most lethal weapon known to man. Great!!


Ah, it was always gonna happen. Someone was going to get it, at least we were allied with those who got it and far away from those who got bombed.
My post from the older thread:

Inb4 "they had to do it to force the Japanese to surrender" which is completely false. The Japanese were already negotiating their surrender before the atom bombs dropped. The main reasons for doing it were so the US could illustrate its own military power and stamp its authority on the world in the post WW2 world and it'd finally answer the doubt that many countries had (importantly the Soviet Union) as to whether the US would ever actually use its nuclear weapons on a country. Back then it was the only country to have such weapons so it could kill thousands of innocents and deter future military threats by showing it was willing to drop nuclear bombs on cities.



Surprised no-one has said this yet.
Reply 50
Original post by Aj12

Tbh a better course of action and one that was considered was to detonate the bomb on an uninhabited island this would show the soviets the power of the bomb which arguably the main reason for the use of the atomic bomb.


Agreed. It would of showed what they had the power to do IF JApan still refused to surrender. But obviously they couldn't just do that
Original post by Sani-Insanity
Just wondering
The same way we got away with bombing civilian cities in Germany and murdering hundreds of thousands?
Reply 52
Original post by Kagutsuchi
Because it was war and war justifies atrocities - as warped as that may be.


Therefore by your reasoning..... The Holocaust is justified.
Reply 53
To ask a different question, why didn't they target a government building or key military building? Why did they have to murder so many civilians?
Reply 54
Original post by Komakino
To ask a different question, why didn't they target a government building or key military building? Why did they have to murder so many civilians?


This isn't really the point, but when the weapon obliterates everything in 15+ sq. miles civ casualties are inevitable, especially in Japan at that time owing to their construction techniques [same would have been true with conventional weapons, too].
the Japanese were just as bad as the Nazi Germans. if the Americans had bombed Nazi Germany instead do you think American would be in the same position today?
Original post by shmuxel
Therefore by your reasoning..... The Holocaust is justified.


No, of course not. The Jews had nothing to do with WW2. The allies didn't fight Germany because of the latter's persecution of the Jews but the bombing of Hiro and Naga were steps in the process of war.
Reply 57
a classic case of "to the victor, the spoils"
The Usa may not have "won" ww2 but they certanly came out on top, Nation numero Uno, top dog. britain had to sell half of what we owned to the americans, (partly due to churchill being a stupidly pro american @#*£!) they got most of the world and with t the ability to dictate what was right and wrong. ( not that i'm anti-american, but we did give them the design for computers, destroyng our own so they got all the credit and also our supersonic aircraft designs, along wth various bits and bobs which would have proved very useful)
Reply 58
Original post by Drewski
This isn't really the point, but when the weapon obliterates everything in 15+ sq. miles civ casualties are inevitable, especially in Japan at that time owing to their construction techniques [same would have been true with conventional weapons, too].


I'm obviously questioning whether the use of a nuke or a full invasion were the only feasible options.
Reply 59
I wonder if America could get away with bombing some majorly terrorist infested nation...

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