Why dropping the atomic bomb was justified

By Van Jackson. In a little under three decades, nuclear weapons have gone from center stage to a sideshow in U. Since the s, the United States has drastically reduced By Elbridge Colby.

By Mira Rapp-Hooper. Were the atomic bomb attacks on Japan in August justifiable? How should we judge whether the strikes against Japan were justifiable? The least problematic way to undertake this inherently fraught and contestable exercise seems through some variant of just war theory, which attempts to conduct moral theorizing about the use of violence through structured rationality. This approach takes myriad forms, but often clusters around an emphasis that, to be morally legitimate, actions in a conflict must be reasonably seen to meaningfully contribute to achieving defensible aims in a war that is itself just, and must involve or be accompanied by steps to alleviate the human cost of this effort, especially the cost to those most deserving of protection.

In light of this framework, the question of whether the atomic bomb attacks were justified really has two parts. First, was the general employment of such horrifying weapons excusable? And second, were the specific ways the two bombs were used defensible? While the United States initially sought to use precision bombing techniques against key Japanese industries to hobble the Imperial war effort, as the 8th Air Force was seeking largely to do against Germany in Europe, frustration with the modest results in the Far East — in part due to the complex weather patterns over Japan — led the United States to switch to the general use of incendiary weapons against wooden cities, dropped without real pretense of precision.

Estimates vary widely but it is thought that upwards of , Japanese, and perhaps closer to a million, were killed in this horrifying campaign, with many more wounded or rendered homeless.

Indeed, the largest incendiary raids were probably more destructive than the atomic bomb attacks, which represented a dramatic intensification of the campaign — its coup de grace — rather than something wholly unprecedented.

The March air assault on Tokyo, for instance, is thought to have killed nearly , people, more than those lost in either the Hiroshima or Nagasaki attacks. So harsh was this campaign that one of its architects, 20th Air Force commander General Curtis Lemay, remarked that he expected to be treated as a war criminal if Japan prevailed. Was such a ferocious effort, of which the atomic bombings were only the most exceptional instances, justified? This question must be approached with the greatest care and even trepidation given the indescribable suffering involved and the grave implications that follow from such a judgment.

But the answer seems to be yes. This past August marked the 75 th anniversary of the most ethically controversial decisions in the history of warfare. On the 6 th of August , and then again on the 9 th of August, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At least , civilians were immediately killed, and more would later die. But on August 15 th , and arguably because of these bombs, the Japanese regime surrendered unconditionally, thus ending the Second World War.

An undeniably good consequence. All the Midshipmen have learned from their favorite course, NE, the in bello principles of discrimination and proportionality. Discrimination requires that rights-bearing noncombatants never be intentionally targeted as ends or means. Proportionality requires that the innocent lives saved by the use of force against a legitimate military target be greater than the innocent lives lost as unavoidable collateral damage.

Since , public opinion about the ethics of the two bombs has shifted. A bloody invasion and round the clock conventional bombing would have led to a far higher death toll and so the atomic weapons actually saved thousands of American and millions of Japanese lives.

The bombs were the best means to bring about unconditional surrender, which is what the US leaders wanted. Only this would enable the Allies to occupy Japan and root out the institutions that led to war in the first place. The experience with Germany after the First World War had persuaded them that a mere armistice would constitute a betrayal of future generations if an even larger war occurred 20 years down the line.

It is true that the radiation effects of the atomic bomb provided a grisly dividend, which the US leaders did not anticipate.

I believe that it was a mistake and a tragedy that the atomic bombs were used. Those bombings had little to do with the Japanese decision to surrender.

The evidence has become overwhelming that it was the entry of the Soviet Union on 8 August into the war against Japan that forced surrender but, understandably, this view is very difficult for Americans to accept.

Once the USSR entered the war, the Japanese military not only had no arguments for continuation left, but it also feared the Soviet Union would occupy significant parts of northern Japan. Truman could have simply waited for the Soviet Union to enter the war but he did not want the USSR to have a claim to participate in the occupation of Japan. Another option which could have ended the war before August was to clarify that the emperor would not be held accountable for the war under the policy of unconditional surrender.

US secretary of war Stimson recommended this, but secretary of state James Byrnes, who was much closer to Truman, vetoed it. By dropping the atomic bombs instead, the United States signalled to the world that it considered nuclear weapons to be legitimate weapons of war.

Those bombings precipitated the nuclear arms race and they are the source of all nuclear proliferation. Dropping the bombs was morally preferable to any other choices available. One of the biggest problems we have is that we can talk about Dresden and the bombing of Hamburg and we all know what the context is: Nazi Germany and what Nazi Germany did.

Bear in mind that for every Japanese non-combatant who died during the war, 17 or 18 died across Asia-Pacific. Yet you very seldom find references to this and virtually nothing that vivifies it in the way that the suffering at Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been.

For example, in the food situation would have become catastrophic and there would have been stupendous civilian deaths. It was only because Japan surrendered when it still had a serviceable administrative system — plus American food aid — that saved the country from famine.

Another thing to bear in mind is that while just over , people were killed in total by the atomic bombs, it is estimated that ,—, Japanese people many of whom were civilians died or disappeared in Soviet captivity.

Had the war continued, that number would have been much higher. Critics talk about changing the demand for unconditional surrender , but the Japanese government had never put forth a set of terms on which they were prepared to end the war prior to Hiroshima. The inner cabinet ruling the country never devised such terms. When foreign minister Shigenori Togo was told that the best terms Japan could obtain were unconditional surrender with the exception of maintaining the imperial system, Togo flatly rejected them in the name of the cabinet.

The fact is that there was no historical record over the past 2, years of Japan ever surrendering, nor any examples of a Japanese unit surrendering during the war. This was where the great American fear lay. Once sympathetic to the argument that the atomic bomb was necessary, the more research I do, the more I am convinced it was one of the gravest war crimes the US has ever committed. American B's made bombing runs over military targets on the Japanese mainland an integral part of their air campaign.

Japan's lack of air power hindered their ability to fight. The imprecision of bombing and the use of devastating city bombing in Europe eventually swayed United States Pacific theater military leaders to authorize bombing of Japanese mainland cities. Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe all were decimated by incendiary and other bombs.

In all, hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in these air strikes meant to deter the resolve of the Japanese people. Yet, Japanese resolve stayed strong and the idea of a bloody "house to house" invasion of the Japanese mainland would produce thousands more American and Allied casualties. The Allies in late July declared at Potsdam that the Japanese must unconditionally surrender.

After Japanese leaders flatly rejected the Potsdam Declaration, President Truman authorized use of the atomic bomb anytime after August 3, On the clear morning of August 6, the first atomic bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, was dropped on the city of Hiroshima.

Leveling over 60 percent of the city, 70, residents died instantaneously in a searing flash of heat. Three days later, on August 9, a second bomb, Fat Man, was dropped on Nagasaki. Over 20, people died instantly. In the successive weeks, thousands more Japanese died from the after effects of the radiation exposure of the blast.

The incendiary bomb was a mixture of thermite and oxidizing agents employed by the Allies and Axis powers after Sometimes incorporating napalm, these bombs were responsible for burning over Unconditional surrender is a term used by victors in war to describe the type of settlement they wish to extoll from the vanquished.

The settlement demands that the loser make no demands during surrender proceedings. Discuss the human costs of the war, with particular attention to the civilian and military losses in Russia, Germany, Britain, the United States, China, and Japan.

Compare the economic and military power shifts caused by the war, including the Yalta Pact, the development of nuclear weapons, Soviet control over Eastern European nations, and the economic recoveries of Germany and Japan.

Grade 11 Examine the origins of American involvement in the war, with an emphasis on the events that precipitated the attack on Pearl Harbor. Describe major developments in aviation, weaponry, communication, and medicine and the war's impact on the location of American industry and use of resources. Discuss the decision to drop atomic bombs and the consequences of the decision Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Read the press release from President Truman on August 6, following the dropping of the atomic bomb noting important details about its production and the rhetoric used.

Distribute copies of the document to each student to read. Ask students to answer the following questions:. Divide the class into five groups, giving each group one of the reasons. Ask them to explain them in their own words. Do they agree or disagree with President Truman's thinking?