The atomic bombing of Japan was a war crime. It happened, for the most part (see Sherwin "A World Destroyed" and Gar Alperovitz) in order to demonstrate to Stalin the power at Washington's disposal. Look at the documents as they talk about the advantages of an airburst. In terms of destruction the same thing could have been achieved by SAC firebombing, as Curtis Lemay himself concedes (which of course was also a war crime). Throughout the cold war there were a number of very close calls that almost led to Armageddon (see Scott Sagan, "The Limits of Safety") we are still here due to good luck rather than good management. States have in fact given up nuclear weapons; South Africa, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan. Others have reversed programmes, i.e. South Korea. In fact if the theory of normal accidents applies to nuclear command and control, as Sagan plausibly argues it does, then a large scale nuclear exchange is inevitable.

Ultimately, there is a disconnect between nuclear physics and the state system. Getting rid of nukes is good and should be supported but won't solve the problem. To solve the problem means getting rid of war itself, not weapons (whatever they are) and that means getting rid of the state system as we know it.

It's been long known that there was a frantic race to drop the bombs on Japan before the war ended, not to end the war itself.

At that time Japan was effectively beaten, almost out of fuel, and was desperately looking for a way to surrender honorably.

Meanwhile, the Russians were returning from the European front and preparing to attack Japan from the north. The Japanese were terrified that their country would be partioned by the Allies, like East and West Germany.

Their culture plus the god-like status of the Emperor made a normal surrender difficult and would have led to severe domestic social problems afterward.

The US scientists and military also desperately wanted to field test their new weapons and also send a veiled threat to the USSR.

That's why two bombs were dropped - two versions to be evaluated.

One bomb would have been more than enough and a military target would also have made more sense than two primarily civilian ones.
If a single bomber could penetrate that far into Japan by that time, conventional weapons may have worked just as well in destroying the morale of the population.

This act gave the Japanese an excuse to surrender against horrific odds and the US used the excuse that they were trying to shorten the war. The war could have ended in a matter of weeks in any case. Both stories have supported each other ever since but the background to the timing and the circumstances are never openly discussed.

Technically, it was a supreme act of terror against non-combatants on one side and the tragic result of inflexible cultural constraints on the other.

It was certainly never any sort of "noble victory" on our behalf and should never be seen that way.

It was a truly shameful historical event and suggestions that it was completely justifiable are a little short of the mark.

A few pro-bombers have argued that dropping these bombs and killing 10's of thousands of civilians, was better than drawing out the war and killing a couple of million soldiers. Another arguement has been that the Japs did terrible things, so our side wasnt so bad after all.

This doesnt sit well with me. I recognise that in some circumstances there are agressive nations that need to be brought back into line. I've had a number of relatives go off to wars, and some not come back, and seen the life-long scars that this inflicts on their families (including those of the returned). But basically we in the West try to position ourselves as good and compassionate. This means in part not doing things to others simply in retaliation. Eg they kill our women and children, so that makes it ok to kill theirs. From that logic its a very slippery slope down the same hole.

The dropping of those bombs constituted deliberate targetting of civilians. I honestly believe that it is better to have 10 times as many deaths to end the war, if they are the deaths of soldiers, than to deliberatey kill civilians. If civilians are accidently killed, that it bad enough, but deliberate actions like that are just deplorable. All it did was to make the US the bully, not the saviour. Its standing world-wide has been on a steady decline ever since - ever wonder WHY its such a target. No-one likes a bully-boy.

Wobbles and Country Gal,

There is another view on this

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/894mnyyl.asp?pg=1

Markob and Wobbles,

Your contention that the Japanese were about to surrender is only a theory. It is irrelevant to assume what the Japanese might have done. Wars cannot be fought on that basis. Thousands of people were dying daily. Japan had not surrendered. The Truman administration had a weapon that could end the war. They didn’t look at the ethicality of dropping bombs on civilians, as EVERYONE did it.

Wobbles said “If a single bomber could penetrate that far into Japan by that time, conventional weapons may have worked just as well in destroying the morale of the population”

This is absolute rubbish. The British could ‘take it’ during the blitz, the Germans never surrendered because of bombing, despite whole towns being destroyed. There is absolutely no evidence that the Japanese couldn’t have withstood large scale conventional bombings

Wobbles complaints that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets, is incorrect. Both were centres of Japanese war production.

If as you say it was the first shot in the cold war, why did Eisenhower prevent the Allies from taking Berlin?

Churchill definitely thought that the Russians would become an enemy, but at that stage the Americans were prepared to give Stalin the benefit of the doubt. After all they had shipped billions of dollars in weapons to Russia and were continuing to do so right up until wars end. In fact the US asked for Russian help to beat the Japanese, as a ‘beat Germany first’ strategy had been agreed among the allies.

Yes the SAC might have been able to take out Hiroshima and Nagasaki with conventional weapons, but this would not have provided the shock necessary to cause the Japanese to surrender. It would have cost a lot of American lives. Something America was loathe to do, especially since Japan was the aggressor in this war and many Americans had already paid the ultimate price.

This is an ends versus means argument. In saving millions of lives, hundreds of thousands were lost. That America was determined that it not be the lives of US servicemen is hardly surprising

Hiroshima was a minor strategic target and the bomb was dropped pretty far from the military area in any case.

The Target Committee at Los Alamos on May 10–11, 1945, recommended Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and the arsenal at Kokura as possible targets. The committee rejected the use of the weapon against a strictly military objective because of the chance of missing a small target not surrounded by a larger urban area. The psychological effects on Japan were of great importance to the committee members.

Some documents can be found at –
http://www.dannen.com/decision/
Note the bombing order issued to General Spaatz

Military Opinions –

"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.” – General Eisenhower

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender." Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman.

If the Germans dropped two A-bombs on England and lost the war anyway, I think the act would have been classified as a war crime.