January 10, 2006

• Yeah, these are good pieces to read. The two thoughts that stood out for me: 1. Why didn't they drop the bomb on some non-civilian target rather than on a city? (assuming the idea was to scare Japan into surrendering?) 2. It is easy for us to second-guess a decision aloofly sixty-years after the fact.
• Maybe the question should be rephrased for our modern times: a nuclear attack has just killed 300,000 Americans. The enemy country has been identified. Would you drop the bomb? And if so how many civilian deaths would you consider payback?
• Thanks cog_nate. This is a debate that's rumbled on ever since and these perspectives are interesting given their provenance. I tend to look to historians to inform my opinion on such things, in the sense that I'm as much interested in what the actors at the time genuinely believed when they took their decisions as I am in second-guessing them in the light of what we later came to know. That was what made "The Fog of War" such an amazing film. Hmm. I've just deleted a rambling splurge where I failed to marshal my arguments or sources, but for now I'll say that, no, I wouldn't have dropped the bomb. In the meantime, here's an interesting piece from the LRB:

  The moral and political reflections came later, if they came at all. Oppenheimer agonised publicly more than anyone else: the physicists, he famously confessed, 'have known sin; and this is a knowledge they cannot lose'. Against some opposition from his scientific colleagues, he had insisted that the bomb be used on a Japanese civilian target, but, several months after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he said to President Truman: 'I feel we have blood on our hands.' 'Never mind,' Truman replied, 'it'll all come out in the wash,' whereupon the President instructed his lieutenants: 'Don't let that crybaby in here again.'

• Kim Stanley Robinson wrote a short story dealing with just this topic. I think it's called "A Sensitive Dependance on Inititial Conditions" and it appears in a compilation of other short story's. (my google fu is too crap to find any excerpts) ____ StoreyBored - I don't think your example is in the same mindset as the real event. Sure Japan had, by that time, killed very, very large numbers of Americans, I believe the majority of casualties were military personell (I'm probably wrong). Killing military personell with convential weapons, torturing and executing POW's does not equate, in my view, to an indiscriminate radiological attack on civilian populations. ______ I believe the US intentionally dropping of the bomb on a populated area was disproportionate to previous levels of activity. I think dropping it on a less populous area or close enough to demonstrate the catastrophe would have achieved similar results. Maybe the question should be, The US armed services have just been decimated by a sneak attack. To protect the territories of the USA would you use nuclear weapons?. Also remember, there are a few different types of nuke, with different types of long lasting effects. With modern warfare equipment relying so heavily on electronics, a few air-burst nukes 20km above the target would disable most things, but keep casualties low. ___ If I was a USian and someone just nuked my hometown, I would not go for an immediate retaliatory nuke strike. I think that a nuke on the US would make the UN actually do something usefull and the culprit/s could be 'punished' via converntional means. Another nuke strike would reap immense ecological damage. It wouldn't be long before the US was breathing radio-active air from their own nuke. If there is a 3rd nuke strike, it would most certainly put enough radioactive material in the the atmosphere to be a problem for everyone, not just the 2 nuked countries. I try to think about consequences in the 10 to 50 year time span.
• 1. Why didn't they drop the bomb on some non-civilian target rather than on a city? Both were claimed, after the war, to be strategically important sites with munitions factories and supply ports. Nagasaki had the largest naval dock in the country. Hiroshima was the largest city aside from Kyoto unhit by conventional bombing. It was the HQ of the 2nd General Army which was marshalled to protect Southern Japan from invasion and had a large number of troops to citizen ratio. It had few or no POW camps. Even so, the numbers of troops destroyed in the attack were less than 1% of the population, if what I read is true. Both these cities were truthfully very large targets, made strategically important for attack due to projected invasion plans. But their actual military importance was nowhere near as high as was claimed defensively by the US after the war. Atomic weapons had never been used and were not fully understood by the military who were targeting them. There were not many different yields of nukes, and they were utterly primitive - dropped out of the bottom of a plane. Some sources have the brass targeting the city centers because they were unsure of accuracy, and didn't want to waste the power of the weapons (!). They did not comprehend the destructive power of the devices at all. It is true that bombers were not accurate, could not precisely hit targets, and were affected by weather and strength of anti-aircraft defenses at the target. Even so, I'm sure the military planners did not give too much of a shit about the civilians, and imho pyschological impact on the Japanese populace was one of the major criteria for target choice. See: Dresden. It has to be said, tho', that Nagasaki was a secondary target. Cloud cover prevented the primary, Kokura, from being attacked, and the bomber diverted to Nagasaki (correct me if I'm wrong here). So it wasn't just craven evil at work, it was stupidity, technological limitations and chance that led to the horrendous civilian death tolls, too. Revisionists argue that it wasn't necessary to use atomic weapons on Japan, and that they were a warning to the USSR. This seems to have a high likelihood, to me, but it cannot have been the whole motivation; see above. Apologists argue that more civilians would have died in the coming months from conventional bombing than from the atomic weapons. I'm not sure whether this can be proven. I've heard it said that Japan was already broken and would have surrendered anyway, before November. I have no idea as to the veracity of this.
• Sure Japan had, by that time, killed very, very large numbers of Americans, I believe the majority of casualties were military personell (I'm probably wrong). The argument I'm more susceptible to is the benefit of the swift surrender of the Imperial Army in China and elsewhere in the Asian mainland and SE Asia, where they had slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians and Unit 731 was still in existence. Also the likely fate of prisoners of war in a more drawn out Japanese defeat.
• There's a very interesting article on january's Harper's, 'Under the God Gun', about training grounds on the U.S. were battle exercises are staged in utmost detail, down to actors playing explosion victims and media and propaganda on the 'iraqi' town. All to prepare the troops to what lies ahead of them in the real battleground. A paragraph that really made my guts shrink: ...We talked plainly about how things were going overseas, JRTC's (U.S. Army's Joint readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana) lavish mission-rehearsal exercises notwithstanding, the public affairs officer didn't seem to feel our present course was going to do much to hasten the war's end. What it would probably take to get the credits rolling, he told me, was the unleashing of an atom bomb. "I know we're a kindler, gentler country and all that," he said (P.A. officer Jim Beinkemper). But how did we end World War II?". Oh shit. I know that's just one person's opinion, but... weirder stuff has been happening...
• I wonder about the claims that the scientists of that era (not just on Manhattan) didn't really reflect on the moral implications of what they were doing. Funny coincidence, actually, as I just now put down a cultural history of mad science and just finished a passage about left-leaning criticisms of science in the thirties and forties, that it was completely amoral and without reflection upon its possible ramifications. But for fuck's sake, you're making something that will kill a hundred thousand people with the press of a button. Short of monomania, how do you not think about that?
• In considering this debate in the past, one point has occurred to me. If the United States had not dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima to end the war with Japan then, given human nature, it would have been dropped at some other point in the future by some atomic nation. There is no way human beings would have accepted the horror of nuclear warfare without an atomic bomb actually being used, at some point. It is simply not our nature, unfortunately. That 'alternate history' might easily have involved the first atomic bombing occurring in circumstances that lead into widespread nuclear conflict, destroying the entire planet. The Cold War was a terrifyingly tense period of human history, during which we teetered on the brink of worldwide destruction. However, the fact that humanity was already familiar with the horrors of atomic warfare allowed us to sidle carefully and fearfully up to that brink, rather than rushing at it headlong and almost inevitably falling over into the abyss. Now of course this point, as it is based entirely on hindsight, is almost entirely irrelevant to the debate itself. However, I think it is a point worth keeping to keep in mind.
• Unit 731 *shudder* I suppose the only saving grace was that they never got a chance to launch those weapons after testing, but that's cold comfort in the face of, what, over 100,000 dead.
• They dropped those bombs on those people because they looked and acted differently.
• Hear hear Nal. (and bananas to you lot for not turning this in to a troll fest)
• Justification for using nukes has been that we were desperate. When you are that desperate, and you have a winning strategy, you don't abandon it. But after dropping the first bomb (uranium) and saw how effective it was, they switched strategies, and went with the plutonium bomb for the second drop. You switch like that when you are experimenting to see what happens. You don't do that when you are desperate.
• From the essay by Pervez Hoodbhoy in the above link.. Hiroshima signaled a failure of humankind, not just that of America. The growth of technology has far outstripped our ability to use it wisely. Like a quarrelling group of monkeys on a leaky boat, armed with sticks of dynamite, we are now embarked on an uncertain journey. I concur.
• In answer to the question posed by the thread title: I would have dropped the F Bomb.
• If I knew then what I know now: No. Trying to make horrible monsters of the people responsible for the bomb just doesn't work. They were working from theory and no one knew exactly what would happen. Sometimes you have to carry through with your plans just to see what lies on the other side. It's what you do with that knowledge that is important.
• Well, in order for it to even be a possibility, I need someone to set me up the bomb.
• They dropped those bombs on those people because they looked and acted differently. Precisely. Why aren't you working for the State Department? We could use a few guys like you around... I just read about the Enola Gay dropping the bomb. The mission details were kept secret from the entire crew except the pilot Paul Tibbetts. When he finally told the crew just after takeoff, there was silence. The enormity of what they were about to do wasn't completely known to them, but they were told it would be completely unbelievable when it happened. Tibbetts offered cyanide pills to the men in case something went wrong during the mission. Tibbetts on dropping the bomb: "I never lost a night (of sleep) over that deal. I thought I was doing the right thing, and I still think I did the right thing. I've had thousands of enlisted men and officers come by and say 'You saved my butt.' That's what I wanted to do, and I'm damn glad." Not that it makes it right or wrong, but there seems to be consensus in the military that it certainly did save a lot of lives in the long run. More people died in the firebombing of Tokyo than in Nagasaki. But it's the Bomb that is a nexus of philosophies regarding warfare.
• Talking about the Enola Gay crew's feelings is totally a deceptive area to go into. Those men had nothing to do with the moral choices involved, nor could they have done anything about it even if they *had* known in advance. They were no more part of the decision than the Japanese at ground zero, really, and in fact they were expendable to the people who made the decision to deploy the weapon. Even if they had refused to fly the mission, somebody else would have, and they would have either been courtmartialed or (depending on the law at the time) worse. They could have dropped the bomb in the sea, and that definitely would have led to being shot, I should imagine. A Buddhist monk at the monastery up here expressed his feelings to me, he said that in war, the troops don't get the karma for what they are forced to do, it's the leaders and generals who get the karma. The evil is committed by those who have power, not by their pawns.
• Not everything I write on here is to convince, Chy. This is simply an observation of the facts, since I find it interesting (and I just happened to read about it Sunday, which made it seem kind of applicable. I don't think this wasn't a "deceptive area" to go into at all.
• The bombs were dropped for USSR's benefit, as is mentioned above, in my opinion.
• The Japanese were sending balloons made of rice paper and rice glue carrying payloads of incendiaries hoping they could set fire to one of our cities in California or Alaska. Dropping a nuclear bomb on a military target surrounded by civilians is different only in terms of effectiveness; the intent is exactly the same. They are both acts of open warfare, with no regard for civilian mortality. A firestorm in Las Angeles could very well rival a nuclear attack. Furthermore, Truman's responsibility was to bring the war to an end with the minimum American casualties, not to protect the Japanese civilian population. The Japanese wouldn't have hesitated had they been in the position to take the U.S. out of the war. Also, at this point in the war, there weren't many pure military targets left to choose. So how many conscripted American soldiers would you have to know would not be killed before you WOULD drop the bomb? Are 100,000 soldiers worth a Nagasaki? 1,000? 1? Are you willing to lose the war and be subjugated under a God-Emperor before unleashing nuclear hellfire? I think that because we made it clear that open warfare could result in carnage of this magnitude is the reason we haven't had a war on the scale of WWII since. Everybody knows that if pressed hard enough, people with the bomb might use it.
• A Buddhist monk at the monastery up here expressed his feelings to me, he said that in war, the troops don't get the karma for what they are forced to do, it's the leaders and generals who get the karma. The evil is committed by those who have power, not by their pawns. I've just been reading about the massacre at Mai Lai, and I'm not entirely sure I agree with that sentiment, Chy. Obviously morality becomes a blurred subject during times of war, but I think there are borders of morality that exist even during those times; and it's not enough to say, "Those were my orders, someone else is responsible." Anyone with a semi-automatic weapon and an abundance of ammunition is a person with power, when women and children are being murdered.
• So how many conscripted American soldiers would you have to know would not be killed before you WOULD drop the bomb? Are 100,000 soldiers worth a Nagasaki? 1,000? 1? Are you willing to lose the war and be subjugated under a God-Emperor before unleashing nuclear hellfire? I'm curious about this statement, and the following is a serious question. Let's for a moment imagine that it was Japan who had the bomb, and not the US. Let's say it was NYC, Chicago, LA, or San Francisco that was bombed, instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Would you be able to accept an argument that the Japanese military leadership was primarily concerned with the lives of Japanese soldiers as an acceptable rationale for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in American cities? I'm not looking for an, "If they'd had it, they'd have used it" reponse, since that's a copout - I'm asking for whether or not you would be able to accept that as a moral usage of nuclear weaponry during a time of war? Waiting with interest.
• Oh, look, when the individuals take action outside of their orders, that's a different matter. But the whole of the US army can't be tarred spiritually or morally by the actions of the bastards at Mai Lai, or other war crimes enacted by individuals. Obviously, if individuals shed their humanity and chose to take inhuman actions, they are operating outside the normality of what we were talking about, and that's exactly what this guy I was talking to went on to express, but you know, limited space here stops me from paraphrasing everything he said. Not that he even knew what he was talking about, I mean, who fucking knows? He was bald and had a safron robe, what kind of authority, etc? But it made sense to me. More so than the Bible, say.
• Consider the following hypothetical: Iraq is able to drop some sort of bomb on the US and kill ten thousand US citizens. The intent behind this action is to have the US pull out of Iraq, thus leading to far fewer deaths for Iraq, and fewer deaths overall for the two countries combined. How would that situation and the defense of the bombing be different from Japan?
• I strongly believe that dropping the bombs on Japan actually saved Japanese lives. The war was taking a terrible toll on the population, not just because of conventional bombings, but also due to the shortage of food, fuel, medicine, etc. In addition, people were being taught to defend their homeland just as in Okinawa. There, the stories told are horrible, and resulted in a great loss of civilian lives. The revisionists have not convinced me that there was significant support for surrender prior to the dropping of the bombs. Instead, the plans were to defend the honor of the Emperor, at any cost. Projections were that an invasion would cost one million Allied lives, mostly American. An alternative was to blocade the islands and starve the Japanese into submission. The Bomb seems almost humane in comparison.
• I disagree most strongly with dropping it when and where we did. That said, I'd heard the argument about it "saving lives" and that's no doubt true in some way. But this article (discussed here) spelled it out in a totally different way to me. In the broader context of WWII, there was a break after the Normandy invasion in which it was clear the Axis had lost. And yet the war dragged on, in the Pacific mostly, for another year, and seemed to go longer. The Axis was not going to ever quit - ever. And war-weary Allied countries were happy to have a giant end-all weapon to force their hand. (And a warning to the Russians didn't hurt the rationalization.) If you get time to read the article, please do. If you don't have time, see if you can just look at the last few pages. It goes without saying "we don't know" but I've allowed some context into my moral/ethical absolutism because of it - although it was still the height of wrongheaded humanity, IMMO. This was the deepest shock of the war: just how all-encompassingly destructive the new weapon really was. Hersey probably didn't know it when he wrote--it wasn't publically disclosed for years afterward--but the Manhattan scientists had warned their superiors that they weren't absolutely sure what would happen when they set off the first bomb. They were reasonably confident of their predicted yield, but there was a chance--not a big chance, but it couldn't be ruled out--that the reaction could grow hot enough to ignite the atmosphere. If that happened, then every living thing on earth would die in a single globe-encompassing firestorm. As it happened, of course, they were right about the odds: the fission bomb was nowhere near hot enough to trigger the runaway combustion of the atmosphere. But the basic issue remains unsettled to this day--and the impulse to push to the outer boundaries of destructiveness is as much with us now as it ever was. If a fission bomb wouldn't do the trick, what about an exponentially more powerful fusion bomb? What about thousands of fusion bombs going off all at once? Would that finally be enough to unmake the foundations of the world?
• The situation at the time was grim. The war was progressing fairly well for the US, but even the best-case scenario was continued bombing of Tokyo, followed by a D-Day style invasion of Japan and intense ground fighting. Years more of war and casualties were inevitable. Everyone believed, rightly or wrongly, that Japan would never surrender. The bomb changed all that. Using it to force a surrender was deemed to be the cleanest solution - definitely for American lives, and probably for Japanese lives, too. Because of the Japanese commitment to never surrender, simply showing them a test detonation was ruled out as ineffective. If revenge and bloodlust were the prime motivators, as some have suggested above, the obvious target would have been the centre of Tokyo. I don't doubt that many of the decision makers favoured this target. For whatever reason - military effectiveness, industrial capacity, Japanese morale - Hiroshima was chosen, and the bomb was dropped. The fact that this wasn't enough to force a Japanese surrender should put an end to claims that just telling them about the bomb and showing them a test would have been a viable alternative. It's unfortunate that the Emperor and his Generals waited until after the second bombing to finally surrender, but at least they didn't wait longer. I believe that given the situation he was facing, Truman made the right choice. Nuclear weapons were inevitable as soon as the scientists theorized them. Truman's choice was to end the war with a bang, or allow it to be drawn out and messy. After almost four years of all-out war and faced with an opportunity to end it, I'd have made the same decision.
• There's been a couple attempts to defend the bombing by saying it's human nature, someone was going to do it. Baloney. It's not human nature to drop nukes. Human nature is to squint in bright light, breathe hard after running, and to close your eyes when you sneeze. Just because it's possible for a human to behave in a certain way does not mean it's our nature to behave that way. Saying it's human nature is the laziest of cop-outs. It sounds like it's answering something it isn't, and it's only ever used apologetically to justify some shittiness that wasn't necessary. Everybody who wants to do something shitty can always use this kind of reasoning to justify it. Osama can use it: "Well, somebody was bound to destroy those buildings. That's just human nature." Ted Bundy can use it: "Well, somebody was bound to do it. It's human nature." Human nature is a hindsight excuse to apologize for something that wouldn't have happened. When you say that somebody was bound to drop the bomb, it's human nature, it sounds just like those last examples. It's only human nature to those who believe that's human nature. To those that don't, it's pretty offensive for them to have that nature ascribed to them. There may be good reasons for killing 50,000 people, but the human nature excuse is the worst possible reason.
• The fact that this wasn't enough to force a Japanese surrender should put an end to claims that just telling them about the bomb and showing them a test would have been a viable alternative. I disagree in that it was only a one day difference (8/6/45 and 8/8/45), which was not enough time for all the devastation to be accurately (or, perhaps more importantly, forcefully) relayed. Consider the above passage where it states that even the bomb's designers didn't really know what it was going to do.
• Derail ...the obvious target would have been the centre of Tokyo If you don't have time to read the link, Tokyo had already been destroyed by firebombing. Also, see this Atlantic article regarding the common conviction that an invasion would cost 1,000,000 lives. /Derail
• Oh, look, when the individuals take action outside of their orders, that's a different matter. But the whole of the US army can't be tarred spiritually or morally by the actions of the bastards at Mai Lai, or other war crimes enacted by individuals. I agree, Chy, but with the caveat that all war crimes are ultimately enacted by individuals. At the end of the day, every individual involved, chain-of-command or standing on the ground, is to some extent culpable and responsible. And too often the winning side gets to say, "We only did what was necessary," while the losing side gets branded with having committed war crimes, when an impartial observer might not be able to distinguish the actions of the two, at times. I can't help feeling that if Japan had dropped the bomb on the US, and then lost the war anyway, that history wouldn't think of it as anything other than a horrendous war crime.
• That's how some of us probably think of it anyway. The Nature of an Atomic Explosion
• Terrorism, the deliberate attack of civilian targets, is never justified. Unless the US military does it.
• I can't help feeling that if Japan had dropped the bomb on the US, and then lost the war anyway, that history wouldn't think of it as anything other than a horrendous war crime. Does it make a difference that Japan was the aggressor in that conflict, and the US was defending itself?
• I think it's a different question altogether, since it's posing the idea that Japan dropped the bomb.
• If I knew then what we know now, I certainly would balk at the prospect of dropping a bomb. I've thought a great deal about this issue over the years, and I am certain that if I were in Truman's position, and knew only what they knew then, I would have dropped the bomb. Speculation is all we have, and speculation is really all they had to work with at that time as well. What if the US invaded Japan and the populace truly fought to the last man, woman and child? Surely, the death toll of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be absolutely dwarfed by the "mobilized" civilian casualties of that sort of land invasion. There is also to consider the fact that the Soviet Union was redeploying assets and troops for an invasion of Japan. Truman could see that Stalin was setting up for World War III all through the summer as the Soviets were solidifying their grasp on their occupied areas. These potentialities that were understood at the time showed a clear calculus, both strategically against Imperial Japan and strategically against the Soviets, that fewer lives in toto were lost than would likely have been lost without their use. While the issue is extremely complicated and many other considerations haven't been taken into account in this calculus, I firmly believe that with the best information they had available, fewer died as a result of the nuclear bombings than would have died otherwise.
• "...that history wouldn't think of it as anything other than a horrendous war crime." History is not some guy who marks your papers and his little red biro scrawls decide reality forever, ok? As far as I am concerned, the use of the atomic weapons against the Japanese was an horrendous war crime far, far beyond any strategic necessity. From what I gather, everyone I know seems to regard it with similar repulsion also, for the same kinds of reasons. And because we are all basically rational and compassionate beings, that is how our young will learn to view it, and that is how everyone who grows up in our environment will view it, without the necessity of anyone proselityzing some kind of new age bullshit, but just by looking at the fucking series of events with eyes unclouded by nationalism, patriotism or any other kind of mind-fuck, and so it will go into the future until the only school books, the only encyclopedias, the only documents record it as "an horrendous crime against humanity" and starkly lay bare the events without value judgement, without jingoism, without taint of bias, and the intellects of the young wil gaze upon this data with wide, glistening, open eyes unblinkered. And they will say this was a horror unleashed by madmen. And hopefully we will move beyond it.
• >Does it make a difference that Japan was the aggressor in that conflict, and the US was defending itself? Well, it's one thing to defend yourself against an attacking army, and quite another to defend yourself against a city full of people thousands of miles away who have, themselves, neither the means to attack you nor the means to prevent their government from doing so. If the proposition is that we were justified in using atomic bombs against Japanese cities because Japan was an aggressor in WWII, well... has the US ever acted as an aggressor? And if so, would the targets of our aggression be justified in using nuclear force against civilan populations here? If they thought it would make the war end sooner, I mean. I'm gonna go with LordSludge: "Terrorism, the deliberate attack of civilian targets, is never justified."
• It's not like a really, really big bomb (well, it is) but it's a uniquely violent and abhorrent weapon that should have been demonstrated and packed away forever. The Japanese report the incidence of burns in patients surviving more than a few hours after the explosion, and seeking medical attention, as high as 95%. The total mortalities due to burns alone cannot be estimated with any degree of accuracy. As mentioned already, it is believed that the majority of all the deaths occurred immediately. Of these, the Japanese estimate that 75%, and most of the reports estimate that over 50%, of the deaths were due to burns.
• Stan the Bat: And if so, would the targets of our aggression be justified in using nuclear force against civilan populations here? If they thought it would make the war end sooner, I mean. (Emphasis mine) More specifically, win the war sooner. The argument for dropping the bomb appears to embrace the axiom that ANYTHING is acceptible to ensure victory, which I find pretty disturbing. More disturbing, I dunno that I disagree, and that makes me feel all dirty inside. Don't worry, ladies, the outside is still clean! ;)
• rocket88: Does it make a difference that Japan was the aggressor in that conflict, and the US was defending itself? Would Saddam Hussein have been morally justified in dropping a nuke on NYC -- especially if it had caused the US to back off and not invade? After all, we were the aggressor in that conflict. Not snarking here (honest!), and although the easy answer is "no", it's not as clear-cut as one might initially think. As Americans, I'm sure we would be appalled by such a monstrous action, but I'm not so sure the rest of the world (esp. the Middle East) would see it that way. Scary/paranoid thought: we might get the opportunity to find out for real with Iran...
• Stan the Bat: Consider my comment in the context of the (rhetorical) question it was responding to. If an aggressor nation (Japan) dropped the bomb on a defending (US) city, it would be a horrendous war crime. The other way around, not so much. Chy: The firebombing of Tokyo killed an estimated 100,000 people. What is it about an atomic bomb killing a similar number of people that makes it so much worse? Put another way, if an atomic bombing killing 100,000 could trigger a surrender and prevent conventional bombings estimated to kill 200,000 or more, would it be worth it?
• LordSludge: I don't know if he would have been 'morally justified' (especially since it would have been met with retaliatory strikes x10), but it would not be as bad as an aggreesive use of the weapons.
• Yes, Planethoughtful. If you are at war, you use whatever means at your disposal to win the war. Anything less is to embrace your own destruction. Don't go to war if you don't want to play that way. It hurts more in the long run. No one forced Japan to attack Pearl Harbor or commit the Rape of Nanking. They got back everything they asked for in spades, and it is a good reminder that you must not suffer bad leadership, because its ultimately the civilians that pay the price. I fully expect that Japan, or the terrorists, if they know what is good for them, to use the best and most efficient means at their disposal to defeat us. If Osama bin Laden is smart, the next attack finishes us off, and we'ld best be ready for it.
• This from the first essay at the link: "A victory without spoils": Those of us who fight against the Bomb in Pakistan--and are thus branded agents of America and spied upon by our government--recognize that the horror of Hiroshima is a metaphor that cuts both ways. In a recent and widely watched nationally televised debate between myself and Gen. Hameed Gul--a highly influential pro-nuclear Islamist ideologue and former head of Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency--my opponent snarled at me: Your masters (that is, the Americans) will nuke us Muslims just as they nuked Hiroshima; people like you want to denuclearize and disarm us in the face of a savage beast set to devour the world. I will not burden readers with my reply to this extremist general. But he was making a point that resonates around the globe. The United States has bombed 21 countries since 1948, recently killed thousands of people on the pretext of chasing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and claims to be a force for democracy despite a long history of supporting the bloodiest of dictators. Do Americans have even a clue of the anger that seethes in the hearts of people across the globe? Do they care? They now need to, because two nascent fundamentalisms--that of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden--are heading toward a dreadful collision. The disturbing thought is that there is a significant number of people around the world who would view a nuclear strike on the U.S. as acceptable preemption or "payback" for past transgressions which include (in their view) Hiroshima.
• That is "Japan then, Al-qaida now". Replace with whatever aggressor you like. If you don't go in to win by whatever means necessary, you are sure to lose.
• And as to the moral question, War is fundamentally immoral to begin with. To quibble over weapons and why some deaths are worth more than others is sophistry.
• If Osama bin Laden is smart, the next attack finishes us off, and we'ld best be ready for it. America is totally not ready for the next logical escalation in the war which is a nuclear strike on a major city. Given the mindset of fundamentalist terrorist (and I'm not talking just Muslim ones) groups, the mass of lost/unaccounted-for nuclear materials isn't this inevitable? It's kind of a weird state of denial, isn't it? Basically, let's just wait until several hundred thousand people are incinerated before doing something after the fact. Pre-9/11 mindset all over again.
• a good reminder that you must not suffer bad leadership, because its ultimately the civilians that pay the price. True. Begin the Impeachment proceedings.
• I fully expect that Japan, or the terrorists, if they know what is good for them, to use the best and most efficient means at their disposal to defeat us. If Osama bin Laden is smart, the next attack finishes us off, and we'ld best be ready for it. Well, I'll at least give you the credit of having consistent convictions! I think you're out of your bloody mind, but as Voltaire is alleged to have once said, "I may disagree with what you say, but I will consider you out of your bloody mind for having said it." That Voltaire. He was always saying things.
• If you don't go in to win by whatever means necessary, you are sure to lose. Sound reasoning. That's why we shoul START every war with complete nuclear annihilation of the entire population of the other country and all of their allies. None of this namby-pamby pinko sissy escalation of force. Why dick around?
• Again, you're engaging in a false argument. Is it to our benefit to annhilate everyone who isn't an American? No. Its cheaper for everybody to get along. But you don't sit back and screw around when someone is trying to kill you. You take the quickest, least costly path to victory, and in the case of Japan I am convinced that was the massive show of force those two bombs represented.
• petebest: I agree
• Put another way, if an atomic bombing killing 100,000 could trigger a surrender and prevent conventional bombings estimated to kill 200,000 or more, would it be worth it? Pete, the problem is that you're talking about real dead people versus imaginary ones. What if you flash-fried 100,000 people and it only saved 50,000 from dying from conventional bombing? It's too easy - I can't stress this enough - to simply pick a bigger number and say, "Hey, we probably saved [really big number] of people by nuking that [less big number] of people. We're the good guys. Our motives are pure." Throwing out other options - what if the use of a nuclear weapon in a hypothetical war was a great deal more motivated by political expediency by an administration facing domestic criticism? Bring the war to a sudden end, tens of thousands of dead for the sake of political popularity. Now consider the fact that Nixon proposed using nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Was he motivated by concerns about the safety of American soldiers? Hard to say, since he went on to order a huge escalation of the war directly after, and a great deal many more American soldiers died as a result.
• And anybody who thinks I'm out of my mind should keep in mind that your enemies are probably thinking like I am. You think Kim Jong Il is sane?
• Hang on a minute - are you saying you're just as sane as Kim Jong Il? Whoa.
• planetthoughtful, i don't think that was me . . . in the case of Japan I am convinced that was the massive show of force those two bombs represented. I agree - I just don't think it needed to be dropped on civilians. Again, it's not "just a big bomb" You think Kim Jong Il is sane? Not really - yet another reason our Iraq Adventure (tm) is ill-advised. We might need those 2 trillion dollars for something else.
• Pete, the problem is that you're talking about real dead people versus imaginary ones. What if you flash-fried 100,000 people and it only saved 50,000 from dying from conventional bombing? (That was me, not pete) If your best estimates put the number at 50,000, then it would be the wrong move, obviously. There's nothing I like about war, but when you're in one because another country is trying to destroy yours (as was the case 60 years ago), you have to make decisions that cause real peoples' deaths...and you have to trade known numbers of lives for hypothetical, or estimated, numbers. The decision makers of 1945 made that choice and I believe they acted in the interest of minimizing total lives lost.
• Pete, you are absolute right. Teach me for calling people names at 6 in the morning.
• I'm dropping The Bomb right now !
• I highly recommend using nukes, when one has to fight off the Aztecs or the Zulus, and it just takes too much production away from your cities to send a ship off to Alpha Centauri. Use the nukes, but only if you have settlers on a transport nearby to clean up, preferably with mechs for ground cover.
• Capt. Renault, don't even think about it -- I have fortified phalanx defenses and veteran catapults stationed outside all your major cities...
• One of the scientists involved, I think Louis Alvarez, pointed out that the scale of resources dedicated to building the bomb made it nearly impossible to conceive of not using it to try and end the war. That, plus the possibility of massive casualties in an invasion of Japan, and the enormity of the carnage that conventional munitions could create (see Tokyo, Dresden et al) makes it difficult for me to see how a decision not to use it could have been made. As an aside, I had a chance to flip through some old archives, dating from the 1950s. There was a mindset in certain parts of the military that regarded nukes as the same as conventional explosives, only bigger. So, it didn't really matter if they could achieve the same outcome with one plane as they had before with 1000. I can easily see the same point of view existing in 1945.
• /inserts Gap Band reference here. Goes back to read entire thread.
• So, yes, I think I would have dropped the bomb.
• "There's nothing I like about war, but when you're in one because another country is trying to destroy yours (as was the case 60 years ago)" Who was trying to destroy the US during World War II?
• Uh...Japan?
• Spending warm Summer days indoors Writing frightening verse To a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg
• I have fortified phalanx defenses WTF?!! Another battleship sunk by a stupid, stupid phalanx.
• What portions of the United States of America were attacked, bombed, or occuppied during World War II? Hawaii was a territory at the time. Japan bombed a naval base located on a territory. As far as I know, that was the extent of the fighting that went on in US territories. The actual borders of the country were never attacked. My understanding is that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor not to conquer the United States, but to cripple their Pacific naval fleet to allow the Japanese more freedom to roam about the Pacific.
• Remember Ellwood!
• What portions of the United States of America were attacked, bombed, or occuppied during World War II? Alaska
• Alaska became a state in 1959.
• Axis plans for invasion of The US during WWII
• Q: Would you have dropped the bomb? Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: It was a completely different time, with a completely different set of circumstances than I have ever experienced.
• Alaska became a state in 1959. True, but you did say, As far as I know, that was the extent of the fighting that went on in US territories. This was plainly not the case.
• *We don't get enough of these kinds of threads, IMO.
• Sorry, that sounded snarky. Not my intent.
• rocket88, those "plans" you linked to describe Japan as an ally, then says there were "rumors" of a plan. An "invasion" of Hawai'i (by Japan) is not and would not be an attempt to destroy the US, especially in 1940. And if Japan did invade Hawai'i and succeed, well they have as much right to claim Hawai'i as the US does.
• chimaera notes:

  There is also to consider the fact that the Soviet Union was redeploying assets and troops for an invasion of Japan.

  it's been my understanding for some time that the bombs were considered essential because the u.s. could not conceivably have conquered the japanese mainland before the ussr did. it was not simply a matter of forcing a quick japanese surrender, but forcing a quick japanese surrender to u.s. forces and only u.s. forces, thereby avoiding any need for occupation-sharing with the soviets.
• Yes, Kim Jong Il and I are just as sane! Bwahahahahaha
• Oh, and there was no reason to distrust the axis when they say they have no intent to invade, only to stop American "aggression" in the pacific and create Lebensraum.
• Not to mention that you would have an aggressive expansionary power occupying most of the Pacific. One not too picky about testing biological and chemical weapons.
• Anyway, this is rich, afterwards, we navelgaze and say "well, we really didn't have to, the bomb was overkill, you guys weren't actually all that dangerous, we didn't have to do it, but meh, what the hell" No by God, the Japanese were farging monsters bent on world domination that had to be stopped, they were enslaving people as they expanded across the pacific, had a milito-industrial structure that conventional bombings weren't stopping, and you were arming women and children with spears and telling them that they best kill our marines when they land because every marine had to kill his own parents. Yeeesh. I'll accept that maybe these targets were too civilian, but then those making that claim need to come up with targets that would be as effective both in terms of cutting down on military production and scaring the Japanese administration with the idea that we really had the means to destroy their country. The only question is what was the quickest path to win the war and create a lasting peace. That is the best option, always. If the bombs weren't it, what was? Sacrificing more soldiers in an invasion of the mainland? Giving them Hawaii? What?
• You have another target? A military target? Then name the system.
• I shot the navigator of the Enola Gay, Dutch Van Kirk, a few months ago. He is 84, a little overweight, takes care of his wife who had a disabling stroke years ago (maybe 15) and lets his pedicurist paint his big toes a dark opalescent aqua. He has no remorse at all. He was 24 and it was a different time. But he doesn't want to do it again.
• Um, America was aggressive in the Pacific. And colonial. Ask any Hawaiian, haole.
• No by God, the Japanese were farging monsters bent on world domination that had to be stopped, they were enslaving people as they expanded across the pacific, had a milito-industrial structure that conventional bombings weren't stopping, and you were arming women and children with spears and telling them that they best kill our marines when they land because every marine had to kill his own parents. I don't know what farging means, but you can go fuck yourself.
• the German still have reparations for knowingly slaughtering millions, and we have none for knowingly doing the same.
• bernockle - I was just old enough at the time to keep the memory of big guns being fired at Japanese aircraft flying off the coast near the Los Angeles, CA area. I also remember being caught in a black out when my mother and I were going to attend a movie in Santa Monica. Here's a Wikipedia article on actual attacks and at least one scare, which may have been a weather balloon. The sound of the anti-aircraft guns was quite fightening, but the blacklout was pretty much just an annoying mystery to my young mind. Though the sailor who wandered by and tossed a fake lei. (which he'd probably own in one of the game booths on the pier) over my head seemed quite chraming.
• After reading Losing the War, I see more clearly than I ever did the path to the bombing, and that it most likely was inevitable. A staggering number of variables seem to have gone into the pot. Was it a hard, horrible, gut-wrenching decision for the men who made it? I hope so. Anyone to whom a decision that big could be made lightly, or thought of in terms of black and white, a simple yes-or-no question, or X number of dead people is better than Y number of dead people would be a dangerous person and perhaps even a fool. 2006 has the luxury of hindsight and distance, but I also think that 1945 had the luxury of not really knowing what the long-term consequences of that kind of radiation would be to the survivors or the ecosystem, of believing that the result would be no more complicated than conventional weapons multiplied to a huge degree. That's why I think 2006 probably can't be truly qualified to answer whether we'd have done it or not.
• Of course, without the bomb we'd never have had Gojira or Mothra. What kind of world would that be?
• Pretty bad, what with Ghidra and all. Oh, and Japan knew they were beat. They were just trying to finagle a conditional surrender. Good timeline/overview here.
• What Mr. Knickerbocker? You deny all those aspects of the Japanese war machine? How about those awkward Japanese incursions into China? Why do you take this personally?
• Why do you take this personally? I'm not cool with the racist bullshit you spewed. And yes, it was both racist and bullshit.
• That was the attitude of the time, and it was, I believe, an accurate picture of the Japanese war machine. I am offended, and puzzled that you consider it racist. I'm not drawing popeye cartoons with Mr. Jap in them. Deny the allegations, if they are not factual. Don't attack me. Not *all* Japanese were monsters, but their military was the penultimate, amoral, evil force in the world at the time. I can't describe the Japanese atrocities as anything other than the types of things monsters would do. So as long as we are doing an accurate accounting of sins, and America is being accused of owing people reparations for monstrous acts, lets bring it all out. That is what Japan was at the time, and yes, Japan needed to be stopped.
• Nagasaki was almost empty of people because during the war the Japanese government had told them, "The US Marines are murderers. Before a man is accepted into the Marines, he must kill both his mother and father and eat their flesh."
• pilgrim - it's my impresion that the loser makes reparation and the winner does reconstruction, which we did in Japan and Europe. I thought this was an interesting "compare and contrast" article, especially in view of this recent link from a well known Iraqi blogger talking about reparations. The question the last brings up for me is: since we've been trying to do reconstruction n Iraq, and having a hell of a time doing so because of the continued incursions by the insurgents. So, could we pay off individual Iraqis while spending about what we would in trying to 'tame' the country? And would that really lead to the peace that Raed imagines? And, yeah, oil supplies stand in the way of just backing off and paying folks pretend to love us, but that could be negotiated. I'm not sure what Japan and Germany would have become without reconstruction, but I can't envision that we'll ever be able to reconstruct Iraq using 50 year old tactics in a very different situation. Oops, sorry for taking this off in a very different direction, but WWII did what it did, and our opinions won't change that.
• Not *all* Japanese were monsters, but their military was the penultimate, amoral, evil force in the world at the time. Except for that one country that had all those concentration camps with the jews, and that other country that nuked and firebombed all those civilian targets, while they mailed home japanese skulls as souveniers. I'm not drawing popeye cartoons with Mr. Jap in them. That's funny, because your comment read exactly like it was inspired by that same cartoon.
• Perhaps you've read about the rape of nanking? The treatment of American POWs? America didn't start the war in the Pacific. Japan's military could have stopped it any time. Finally, penultimate means "second-most". Learn to read.
• Finally, penultimate means "second-most". Learn to read. That's why I included two examples that made Japan third-most. Learn not to be a racist shithead.
• I'm sorry, I've had about enough of this. I'm not a racist shithead, I'm unapologetic about the actions my country took in dealing with a foreign aggressor. There's a difference. I don't hold someone's Japanese heritage against them, I hold the actions against the country. That I should have to explain the difference to someone like you just proves why I shouldn't ever bother to argue on the internet.
• Okay Mord and Mr K., take a break before I have to shut down the thread. The thread was great until the personal attacks started and I was enjoying the discourse. Can we get back to a civil conversation, please?
• In my view what distinguished the Second World War from most preceding conflicts was that it was truly a war where one side represented something better than the other, freedom versus fascism. Usually it had just been a case of pick your tribe and have at it. But this bears a closer look. Britain still headed a large empire which had a deal of blood on its hands in the past and had more crimes still to commit as it eventually broke up. Black US GIs were dying in a segregated military for a country that had had some recent neocolonial adventures of its own, built on stolen land. Our other main ally was Stalin. That said, patently at least the first two of these represented something better than the genocide of Hitler or the slaughter that attended the aggressive Japanese 'co-prosperity sphere'. But not by something innate to our nation states against theirs. It was because of what our political systems would and wouldn't countenance in terms of brutality and horror. As I briefly hinted above, we did in fact allow a lot more of that than we now care to remember, and we had declined the opportunity to oppose fascism when it didn't appear to be a direct threat to our interests in Spain. So how we conducted the war, what we wouldn't do to further our ends counts. Whilst not in itself coming close to the systematic evil of the totalitarian empires, the dropping of the atomic bombs was something that fell short of what made us better. I'm sure some of my history is flaky here, but i hope my basic point is clear enough. (It was also. in my view, part of the beginnings of the 'military-industrial complexes' becoming embedded at the heart of US power, to the detriment of the Republic, though perhaps only few saw this at the time.)
• I'm not a racist shithead, I'm unapologetic about the actions my country took in dealing with a foreign aggressor. There's a difference. There is a difference, and you were attacking people' heritage. Unless farging means "not" or some equivelant. You even made sure to point out when you were only talking about their military, and not the people as a whole. So you don't feel as racist as you spoke. Okay. Maybe you didn't mean it how you put it, but what you said was racist garbage. But you're defending it like you mean it, so...
• On postview: sorry tracicle. I should've previewed. I'll take a break from the thread. My apologies.
• I wouldn't hesitate to call the nazi's who ran the death camps or those that were complicit in their operation monsters either. I don't think thats racist. I think thats the truth.
• cog_nate -- You weren't snarky in the least for mentioning Alaska when I said that attacks on the US territories were limited to Hawaii. You educated me. That is a good thing. I was just reminding people that German and Japanese tanks were never rolling through the states. I did that, and I learned a bit more in the process. Most of my World War II knowledge is based on the six book series Churchill wrote about it (okay, really it is based on the first two and half of the series -- but I'm working on it). The selfish bastard seems not to care about the Pacific theatre. Europe, Europe, Europe!!! Can't he just get over it?
• We stopped when we heard the noise Looking to the sky But it was only one bird No one hid Or took cover What damage could one bird do?
• Small and snakey comment - to save the lives of hundreds (yes only hundreds of men) Yes i would have dropped it - have read far too many accounts of POW stories in Japanese internment lately - small and insignificant nation at the bottom of the pacific but by hell start to read the history of what we lost compared to what we endured - no question dropped the first no problems - the second well then...........(NO Way) Hundred more things to say as the threaed seems to be USA bent....
• My father served in the Pacific - like the current terrorism aim it seems to be the only time where 'warriors' where bent on suicide based on glory and the 'God Emperor" or maybe they were just scared kids who knows. Does that level of belief exist amymore anyway? The soldiers he repaired never said die - in fact he said his biggest problem was telling them they could not go back to fight because they were too damaged (yes medical corps and by god i hope never to ever see what he did!) I cannot and will never justify the second bomb though - the first was enough and for those of you in the Pacific North East - this little country had had enough by the time you had the fortitude and were pushed to enter the war - our soldiers had already been fighting in Europe for years!
• According to this CIA monograph on US invasion planning and the decision to drop the bomb, the initial estimates of American casualties ranged from 132,500 to 220,000, depending on the invasion scenario. The National Security Archive has " the most comprehensive on-line collection to date of declassified U.S. government documents on the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific."

  Besides material from the files of the Manhattan Project, this collection includes formerly "Top Secret Ultra" summaries and translations of Japanese diplomatic cable traffic intercepted under the "Magic" program. Moreover, the collection includes for the first time translations from Japanese sources of high level meetings and discussions in Tokyo, including the conferences when Emperor Hirohito authorized the final decision to surrender.

  The Truman Library has a collection of documents on the decision to drop the bomb, as does Atom Bomb: Decision. The darkened area in this aerial photo shows the extent of the damage in Hiroshima; before-and-after photos of Nagasaki. Truman probably didn't put much thought into the decision, considering that he described Hiroshima as "a military base" when he announced the bombing in a radio speech. He also described the bombing of Hiroshima as a warning and advised Japanese civilians "to leave industrial cities immediately, and save themselves from destruction." Nagasaki had been bombed earlier that day. I woud have dropped the bomb, but then I'm a big fan of the Gap Band. Links cribbed from my comments in these MetaFilter threads.
• Thanks for those links!
• I would have dropped the bomb, especially with the knowledge of hindsight. I'd have done it to save hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives, millions of Chinese lives, and tens of thousands of American lives. It really is not a hard question.
• Oh good.
• >It really is not a hard question. Really smart people always add that little dash of condescension to give weight to their opinions. Okay, so let's wrap up the thread; LarryC has revealed the correct answer, which is that the question of whether or not to drop two atomic bombs on two civilian populations *is not hard*. Thank you all for participating.
• This thread sounds like death penalty discussions. If a person is opposed to the death penalty (or use of the Bomb) then there is no case that can be made that will sway them. It is simply not something that they are willing to accept. Trying to do so is just a waste of time. On the other hand, if a person believes that the death penalty (or use of the Bomb) can be justified by the facts that they "know", it is also a waste of time to try to sway them. I enjoyed this thread. Really.
• Everybody's said pretty much all of the basic stuff here already, but I do want to add one thought: I think it unlikely that the Bomb was meant as a warning to the Soviets for a number of reasons. a) As far as I know there's little or no documentary evidence to support this contention. b) The decision to drop the bomb can be satisfactorally explained away without it, vis. - i) They had already crossed the 'mass civilian casualties' Rubicon; - ii) Even if the Bomb was less deadly than firebombing (in terms of numbers of people killed per raid), the unescapability, surprise and sheer power gave it a disproportionatley high psychological impact; - iii) There was a strong possiblity that this psychological impact could shake powerful Japanese leaders into ordering a surrender, thus heading off a terrible invasion with all that that entailed. But mostly, and most importantly, c) In postwar US intelligence estimates we find much discussion of the impact nuclear weapons might be expected to have in a war with the Soviet Union. These estimates are dismissive of the actual impact of the bomb in a war with the USSR. Indeed, it is argued in these estimates that the Soviet Union could probably absorb a few atomic bombings with little actual impact on its warmaking potential. So it seems likely that if the need to create a demonstration for the Soviets had come up during the decision to drop the bomb on Japan, this would have been dismissed as a relatively minor consideration. Sorry for the stilted language. I've been reading postwar US intelligence estimates all day, and it's creeping into my writing style.
• It's interesting that LarryC is a history professor with a focus on American Indians and the American West. I can't think of a way to put this without sounding trollish, but I really am curious, and, I realize that comparisons are tenuous between the treatment of American aborigines and the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but, Larry, how do you feel about the settler US wiping out Indian "civilians?" We certainly did that, with the goal of saving the lives of US civilians. This is not an easy question. I tried to write a brief likening of the US during the Indian wars to Japan during their last attempt at increasing their small territory, but the complexity of the issues made it unintelligible. It isn't an easy question. But, here's the nut: is it really ok to bomb civilians into dust patches on the sidewalk, and to give surviving citizens the doom of radiation disease? I don't think most of the people who died there were combatants - they were pretty much like you and me. They may have been patriots, but is that a reason to cremate them? Would it be ok for our current enemies to take out a US city or two in such a shocking manner because they hate the US stance on the war in Iraq? Watch what you sow, 'cuase you may reap really bad stuff.
• I know that is directed to LarryC, but we're talking philosophy and maybe metaphysics here. Is it okay to who? Who decides? God? Me? You? Is it okay to potentially save my family and friends , colleagues or countrymen if that means killing a stranger? Is the in-group worth more than the out-group. The worse question, the more uncomfortable question is: Is my standard of living worth killing, or allowing someone I don't know to die, to keep? There are no answers to these questions, and the knee-jerk answer "of course not" immediately raises the question, "but then why are you doing it right now?" Buying oil from north Africa, buying conflict diamonds, spending money on entertainment that could be spent feeding the starving, etc... If the question is "would I drop the bomb" the answer is yes. If the question is "is dropping the bomb the right thing?" the answer is "right for who?" The only "ok" thing seems to be let the other side have whatever it wants since they aren't willing to negotiate and ultimately you are forced to choose how you will hurt the innocent (which is never okay) to selfishly keep what you have, your life, your liberties, your stuff.
• Earwax - facts they "know"? Scare quotes? The analogy with the death penalty is interesting too; there are decades (centuries?) of data to show what effect, if any, the death penalty has on crime rates. There is also a lot of research into the causes of crime and the role of deterrence, the documented limitations of the trial process etc etc etc. It's all well documented. So the basis for an informed decision, one way or the other, is there. As an aside, I found this to offer an interesting perspective. With this offering a more military oriented discussion.

• I think it unlikely that the Bomb was meant as a warning to the Soviets for a number of reasons.

  dreadnought, i'm interested in what you mean by warning. do you mean "warn the ussr not to mess with the u.s. because the u.s. now has atomic weapons" or do you mean "warn the ussr to stay out of the war in the pacific"?
• Well, they already knew the Soviets were going to enter the war, and they wanted it this way, and they even had a date set. They were fighting desperately, and Soviet help would have been most welcome in the event of an invasion of the Japanese home islands. As it was, the Bomb speeded up the Soviet entry into the war because they wanted to declare war on Japan before it was all over and, thus, have a seat at the victory table. If I recall corectly, accelerated Soviet entry into the war was seen as a rather crass move by the Americans. It wasn't, however, a disaster. No, the argument is more usually formulated as something along the lines of your first option. The idea is that the Americans thought they could gain the upper hand in postwar negociations, and reign in Soviet expansionism, by showing the Soviets that they were an unstoppable military power unlike any the world had ever seen; they had the Bomb, and they were prepared to use it. I think this argument, intersting as it is, may be in the process of being overturned by recent research.
• thanks dreadnought.
• I apologize for the condescending tone. No bananas for me. I can't see the comparison to American Indians at all. In the case of Japan, the bomb was dropped to end a war that was still, even without an invasion, consuming human lives at a ferocious rate. The bombs ended the war in the quickest way possible, and in so doing freed tens of millions of Asians who were suffering and dying under a brutal Japanese occupation. In the case of American Indians, they were attacked to steal their land. As to the Soviets, weren't they already pushing into Manchuria when the bombs were dropped? Or do I have that wrong?
• In the case of American Indians, they were attacked to steal their land. That was the underlying motive, sure. But that wasn't the justification they gave to themselves. They used that underlying motive to help them concote reasons and justification wiping out the Indians. So they told themselves that the Indians were a threat, too savage to surrender. This doesn't sound different than how the Japanese get described when someone wants to justify the nukes. In the case of the slaughtering Indians, apologists soothed their conscience by saying that the Indians would never stop fighting, and don't understand the concept of surrender. In the case of the nuking Japan, apologists soothe their conscience by saying that the Japanese would never stop fighting, and don't understand the concept of surrender. Not only can I see a comparison, but I can't really even see a substantial difference.
• concote = concoct
• >the Indians would never stop fighting, and don't understand the concept of surrender And even if they HAD surrendered, they'd still have all just been standing around on their our country. No, they left us no choice. There's still no comparison, though. In order to nuke the indians we'd have had to coexist with them for hundreds of years while waiting for nuclear weapons to be invented. Also, you can only nuke people who are living someplace that you don't want to move into.
• Paul Tibbets dead at 92.