I have. But I won't pretend it's an argument you'll accept.
The idea basically was, if you drop one bomb and stop, your enemy might assume that was your only one.
If you drop two in rapid succession, you're sending the message "I can do this all day".
We dropped two, basically, to give the false impression that the Japanese had two choices: they could watch as we incinerated city after city, taking thousands of civilian lives over and over until their entire country was a smoldering lifeless pile of ashes...or they could surrender.
There's a mindset I sadly believe most countries have when it comes to war. "If the cause is just, we must fight...until it hits us where we live". Soldiers sign up to fight and die. Civilians don't. Sending a bomber over the ocean, with a list of targets in prioritized order, to incinerate civilians who likely never picked up a gun just to make a terrifying point might easily be described as Lawful Evil...but the war did end, possibly saving more lives than it cost.
We're going to have to live with "possibly". And hope that the men and women today with nuclear capabilities learn an important lesson from those who had it in the past.
What Did Harry S Truman Have to Say About His Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb?
At the time, the president seemed conflicted over his decision. The day after the Hiroshima bomb was dropped, Truman received a telegram from Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia, encouraging the president to use as many atomic bombs as possible on Japan, claiming the American people believed “that we should continue to strike the Japanese until they are brought groveling to their knees.” Truman responded, “I know that Japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare but I can't bring myself to believe that because they are beasts, we should ourselves act in that same manner. For myself I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the ‘pigheadedness’ of the leaders of a nation, and, for your information, I am not going to do it unless absolutely necessary.”
On August 9, the day the Nagasaki bomb was dropped, Truman received a telegram from Samuel McCrea Cavert, a Protestant clergyman, who pleaded with the president to stop the bombing “before any further devastation by atomic bomb is visited upon her [Japan’s] people.” Two days later, Truman replied, “The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast.”
Looking back, President Truman never shirked personal responsibility for his decision, but neither did he apologize. He asserted that he would not use the bomb in later conflicts, such as Korea. Nevertheless, given the same circumstances and choices that confronted him in Japan in 1945, he said he would do exactly the same thing.
It was heavy burden to bear. Speaking of himself as president, Truman said, “And he alone, in all the world, must say Yes or No to that awesome, ultimate question, ‘Shall we drop the bomb on a living target?’” Every president since Harry Truman has had that power. None has exercised it.
also this segment sticks out
A 21-year-old American second lieutenant recalled, “When the bombs dropped and news began to circulate that [the invasion of Japan] would not, after all, take place, that we would not be obliged to run up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being mortared and shelled, for all the fake manliness of our facades we cried with relief and joy. We were going to live. We were going to grow up to adulthood after all.”
Last edited by Dadwen; 2020-07-11 at 05:16 PM.
One of the reasons why World War 2 was as horrible as it was, was because every side involved has read waaaaay too much Clausewitz and has fully interiorized the concept of total war and the legitimacy of targeting civilian infrastructure to hinder the ability of their enemy to wage war. Even civilian morale was considered by all sides to be a legitimate target.
Within the moral framework of the time...it wasn't a particularly vicious or malicious act. Very similar effects have been achieved through the use of more conventional weapons such fire bombs.
Last edited by Mihalik; 2020-07-11 at 05:39 PM.
Those bombs ensured an unconditional surrender. Without those bombs how would history have been different if the Emperor of Japan was not stripped of power and the nation had not given up their right to war? The bombs also prevented the imminent invasion of the USSR into Japan.
When speaking in hind sight it's hard to evaluate whether it was the best choice or not when you don't know how other timelines would have ended up.
This topic again, urgh...
Justified. Absolutely justified. I am so tired of repeating it.
P.S.
Russian nuke tests? In 1945? See people, this thread perfectly shows that oh so fucking many have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to atomic bombings. In 1945 USSR had nothing more than a theoretical knowledge of how a nuke could work, not any finer details. Eastern Front, after all, had many other priorities instead of spending resources on a bomb which may or may not work as intended...
That's pretty much true for me as well.
I also remember reading that there were various options, like an invasion, but it was estimated there would be more casualties this way, on both sides. Russia was also looking for some action, and that would have turned into a real mess, so there was not much time. So the nukes were chosen.
But as you said, I kinda question that now.
Can't accurately answer without visiting a timeline where we didn't bomb the two cities.
The wise wolf who's pride is her wisdom isn't so sharp as drunk.
Japanese officials tried to pass off the first bomb at Hiroshima as being a natural disaster to prevent the Japanese from being scared of the Americans but hours after the bomb dropped on Nagasaki the Japanese minister of war told his cabinet that "the Americans appear to have 100 atomic bombs and could drop three per day" which brought about the surrender of Japan. The first bomb could be covered up but the second bomb could not especially when the Japanese assumed the US could/would have that many bombs so quickly to blanket Japan into submission. As it was, General Leslie R. Groves was pushing lab in Los Alamos to be able to build 1 bomb every 10 days and they fulfilled his demands with the 2 bombs and more were not needed. There were a total of 4 Japanese cities that were up for bomb droppings. Hiroshima, Kokura, Nagasaki, and Niigat. Initially Kyoto was on the list but Groves argued of the historical and religious history Kyoto had to the Japanese people and how dropping a bomb on it would be unforgivable by the Japanese so Nagasaki took its place on the list.