The Pros And Cons Of Dropping The Atomic Bomb

During the time President Truman authorized the use of the most devastating weapon ever used against Japan in World War II, the United States was making preparations to seize the Japanese motherland. The defenses that the Japanese military were preparing had shown American strategists that there was still some fight left in a supposedly doomed enemy. High-ranking members of the military and civilians brought forth President Truman a variety of choices on how to force Japan to surrender. These choices included invading Japan, negotiating a peace settlement, bombing Japan through aerial warfare, and compressing the naval blockade. The atomic bomb would become an alternative once the bomb itself became operational.

In recent years, historians

Critics have stated that Truman’s decision was an act of barbarism that brought upon long-term negative ramifications to the United States. A new generation of nuclear terror led to a desperate competition of who has the biggest and baddest nuclear weapon. Some military analysts dictate that Japan was already on the verge of surrendering and the decision to drop the bombs was simply unnecessary (The Decision to Drop the Bomb.). Some even accused the Unites States government of racism on the premise that we would have never used such a terrifying weapon against white civilians. Other critics argue that U.S diplomats had other motives. They believe the bomb was a message to the Soviet Union to back down, since they had just entered the war against Japan. In this respect, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki might of been the beginning of the Cold War (The Decision to Drop the Bomb.). Although the use of the bombs were detrimental to the American victory over Japan in World War II, there were many anti-bomb protesters that argued that the bombings were unethical, illegal, and just plain wrong. Ralph Raico stated that, “The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a war crime worse than any that Japanese generals were executed for in Tokyo and Manila. If Harry Truman was not a war criminal, then

Truman stated that he based his decision on military effectiveness not economically. An amphibious assault invasion like the Normandy Landings would have cost an estimated million casualties. President Truman believed that the bombs saved Japanese lives as well. For Truman, dragging out the war was not an option (The Decision to Drop the Bomb.). The blasts on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would cause 166,000 casualties in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki. A horrifying display of the capability for absolute destruction that nuclear warfare is capable of. The United States claimed that in order to achieve victory, it was necessary to use the bombs (The Decision to Drop the Bomb.). In Truman’s 1955 memoirs, he states that the atomic bomb probably saved half a million American lives (The Decision to Drop the