Current Events > Was dropping the atom bomb the correct thing to do?

(+) Yeah! (+)

BlueKat posted...

There is no good. There is no evil. There just is.

So you don't think dropping the bomb was evil?

I think it's "No" but that's simply because we live in a world where we can say "No". It's anyone's guess what would happen in a world where nukes weren't used.

NhojAnec posted...

I have a feeling that if they weren't used in WW 2, the world could've very well had nuclear war already. In other words, in some alternate universe where the US decided to not drop the bombs, we might not be around anymore in that universe to debate whether or not the US should've dropped them.

I doubt a nuclear war but if it wasn't used in Japan it would have been used somewhere else eventually, and probably with a bigger payload.

Mew posted...

I doubt a nuclear war but if it wasn't used in Japan it would have been used somewhere else eventually, and probably with a bigger payload.

Yup.

Using the bombs as a tool to end the war quickly by shocking and demoralizing Japan was the right move.

I would advise anyone who believes otherwise to look up what happened to Japanese civilians in the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, then read up on how Operation Downfall would've gone.

The bombs ended the war with far less bloodshed than those alternatives.

haloiscoolisbak posted...

Wasn't the second one just mainly to show USSR they've got more than just one

That's a lot of lives lost to make a point

Stalin already knew about the US nuclear program. Truman had shared details with him a while before the bombings.

The real reason for the second bomb was the illustrate the point to the Japanese that "we did this to you and we can keep doing it until you surrender"

I dont know. It happened though.

BlueKat posted...

I'm surprised everyone isn't saying "FUCK NO" in this topic. No matter how horrible the Japanese army was, it is NEVER the correct thing to drop a nuclear bomb on a civilian population, like NEVER. I've interviewed survivors of the Hiroshima bombing and I still have nightmares from their stories

This is how i actually want to feel about it but I just cant make myself get there and I dont understand why completely. Ive only met the one survivor in my lifetime and she was kinda open minded about the whole thing. She was a beautiful human.

I swear people have this stupid argument because they need the US in some way to be uniquely bad in WW2.

DeadlyNinjaBees posted...

This is how i actually want to feel about it but I just cant make myself get there and I dont understand why completely. Ive only met the one survivor in my lifetime and she was kinda open minded about the whole thing. She was a beautiful human.

I mean no one here is generally speaking in favor of dropping atom bombs on a civilian population, I'm sure. It's just an interesting debate to put yourself in the mindset of WWII and ask this tough question, with some reasons for both yea and nay.

Doom_Art posted...

I would advise anyone who believes otherwise to look up what happened to Japanese civilians in the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, then read up on how Operation Downfall would've gone.

There were no Japanese civilians on Iwo Jima. Do you mean Saipan?

ssb_yunglink2 posted...

Nazi and japanese scientists getting immunity is so absolutely sickening. Even if their research was useful, which im pretty sure most of it wasnt they were essentially rewarded for extreme war crimes

Reality smacks ideals, huh? In a perfect world everything is made from a moralistic view point. However thats just not how reality works. Even in modern times, deals like that would still be made regardless on how enlightened we think we are compared the past.

pokeweeb30 posted...

Its insane how Japan went from being one of the most evil countries in the world to what they are now, in the span of 80 years.

I mean if you add meth and whole bunch nationalistic propaganda leading to jingoism, along with high levels of poverty and exposure to violence, it's a recipe for criminality for any country. In Japan's case, there were a few bad apples (imperial military leaders) that really spoiled the batch.

ssb_yunglink2 posted...

Nazi and japanese scientists getting immunity is so absolutely sickening. Even if their research was useful, which im pretty sure most of it wasnt they were essentially rewarded for extreme war crimes

Their research was useful but more importantly they were firm anti-communists. As long as they didn't work for the Soviets, the western allies were willing to look past it.

You've got to remember that towards the end of WW2, both Britain and the USA saw the Soviet Union as the next big threat and anything that gave them as advantage in the coming war would be fine, even if it came from former enemies.

BlueKat posted...

it is NEVER the correct thing to drop a nuclear bomb on a civilian population

It was a hell of a lot less terrible than what the Japanese Army did in Nanjing. Or anything that Unit 731 one did.

The bombing of Nagasaki clarified the message we sent at Hiroshima. "You have no bargaining position. Now lay down arms or we will wipe you off the map."

Trelve posted...

Their research was useful

Debatable. All Mengle's research really proved was he was a psychopath. Even if there was a sound basis for doing the research, the effects of frostbite and how to treat comes to mind, the fact that it was being done by sadists who enjoyed causing suffering rather than actual scientists had a tendency to mean unreliable data was gathered. And obviously we can't duplicate the results because the studies were simply barbaric torture, rather than functional research.

Crazyman93 posted...

It was a hell of a lot less terrible than what the Japanese Army did in Nanjing. Or anything that Unit 731 one did.

The bombing of Nagasaki clarified the message we sent at Hiroshima. "You have no bargaining position. Now lay down arms or we will wipe you off the map."

What the Japanese army did to others is irrelevant and shouldnt dictate strategy. However, we were looking at a culture that doesnt believe in surrender and the prospect of invasion where all civilians would be required to defend the island. Why send out boys to the grinder when we have a weapon that is the ultimate shock and awe and would even make this no surrender culture pause and think.

A big proponent of this argument that I don't think has been mentioned in this topic yet was thw nature of the nuclear arms race. The Nazis and Russians were very close to being the first ones to develop and use the bomb. The race was to ensure that they didn't do it first.

McArthur and Eisenhower (the supreme commanders of the Pacific and European theaters respectively) were both against using the nuclear weapons on civilians (and opposed bombing civilians in general). It's really amazing random Americans to this day will talk about how they were militarily necessary when the experts of the time didn't think so.

There is no point asking this question on this site. The site will only allow one sided discussion. This type of question is ok to be posted but can you imagine the fallout if someone here asked "Was killing the Jews the correct thing to do? "

YoBlazer posted...

Have there been any other times in the past 80 years that you think would have justified the use of an A-bomb, or are the only two instances where they *were* actually used against people the only two that could be justified?

This.

I don't think I have ever seen someone saying "well, bombing civilians is terrible, but it's better than the alternative".

I don't think I have ever seen someone saying "The use of nukes would be justified in this case."

except for the case of the only two nukes used in history. Then it's suddenly "necessary", "justified" or the "lesser evil".

Karovorak posted...

This.

I don't think I have ever seen someone saying "well, bombing civilians is terrible, but it's better than the alternative".

I don't think I have ever seen someone saying "The use of nukes would be justified in this case."

except for the case of the only two nukes used in history. Then it's suddenly "necessary", "justified" or the "lesser evil".

To me its not even about lesser evil, because that's a poor argument. Killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and leaving many more grossly sick is just...not even words for what that is.

What makes some sense to me is framing in the contexts of game theory. The nazis would absolutely have used nukes all around the world if they had been able to develop it in time. Their first bomb would probably have hit right at moscow or washington or london.

As Von Neumann put it,

If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?

pinky0926 posted...

A big proponent of this argument that I don't think has been mentioned in this topic yet was thw nature of the nuclear arms race. The Nazis and Russians were very close to being the first ones to develop and use the bomb. The race was to ensure that they didn't do it first.

They really weren't. The German nuclear program was a non-starter because they expelled all their Jewish scientists and conscripted the rest, and the Soviets didn't start serious work until after the war. Their first test wasn't until 1949.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

They really weren't. The German nuclear program was a non-starter because they expelled all their Jewish scientists and conscripted the rest, and the Soviets didn't start serious work until after the war. Their first test wasn't until 1949.

I think with the benefit of hindsight that's clear, but would they have known that at the time? Didn't they detect soviet nuclear emissions beforehand?

Of course not.

it was the right move at the time.

BlueKat posted...

I'm surprised everyone isn't saying "FUCK NO" in this topic. No matter how horrible the Japanese army was, it is NEVER the correct thing to drop a nuclear bomb on a civilian population, like NEVER. I've interviewed survivors of the Hiroshima bombing and I still have nightmares from their stories

You're right, I'll add one: FUCK NO!

Whatever excuses were made up, the power of the atomic bomb could've been displayed without those kinds of deaths.

Crazyman93 posted...

Debatable. All Mengle's research really proved was he was a psychopath. Even if there was a sound basis for doing the research, the effects of frostbite and how to treat comes to mind, the fact that it was being done by sadists who enjoyed causing suffering rather than actual scientists had a tendency to mean unreliable data was gathered. And obviously we can't duplicate the results because the studies were simply barbaric torture, rather than functional research.

I think they were probably more interested in research that yielded results in the oncoming space race, not so much the Mengele experiments...

pinky0926 posted...

I think with the benefit of hindsight that's clear, but would they have known that at the time? Didn't they detect soviet nuclear emissions beforehand?

For the first few years of the war, there was some concern that a German atomic weapons program might exist, but the Germans themselves had shut the idea down pretty quickly, and the Allies were aware by the end of 1944 that there was no chance of a German atomic bomb.

Concerning the Soviets, I don't see how there could have been any emissions to detect, at least during the war. The Soviets didn't get their first nuclear reactor online until 1946.

WW2 being total war meant no military target was off the table. Dresden and Tokyo bombings are also just as controversial for destroying military targets. All manufacturing targets bombed had civilians working and were almost always in city centers. The atomic bombs shouldn't be singled out, just meant instead multiple bombings of Hiroshima only one was used. No atomic bomb being dropped doesn't mean the allies wouldn't have bombed the city. It was a listed target for bombings. If you disagree with their use, you are also against all bombings of factories, depots, bridges ect.

name_unknown posted...

WW2 being total war meant no military target was off the table. Dresden and Tokyo bombings are also just as controversial for destroying military targets. All manufacturing targets bombed had civilians working and were almost always in city centers. The atomic bombs shouldn't be singled out, just meant instead multiple bombings of Hiroshima only one was used. No atomic bomb being dropped doesn't mean the allies wouldn't have bombed the city. It was a listed target for bombings. If you disagree with their use, you are also against all bombings of factories, depots, bridges ect.

Well I definitely don't disagree with the strategic bombing of areas that disrupt the enemy war effort

Doom_Art posted...

The real reason for the second bomb was the illustrate the point to the Japanese that "we did this to you and we can keep doing it until you surrender"

Literally 100% fucking false

name_unknown posted...

WW2 being total war meant no military target was off the table. Dresden and Tokyo bombings are also just as controversial for destroying military targets. All manufacturing targets bombed had civilians working and were almost always in city centers. The atomic bombs shouldn't be singled out, just meant instead multiple bombings of Hiroshima only one was used. No atomic bomb being dropped doesn't mean the allies wouldn't have bombed the city. It was a listed target for bombings. If you disagree with their use, you are also against all bombings of factories, depots, bridges ect.

I wonder how you feel about the Russian bombing of Ukranians infrastructure that is often described as a war crime? Also if you think the atomic bombings are about infrastructure you should look up what they actually destroyed. Nagasaki wasn't even the intended target, Kokura was, bad visibility led them to go for Nagasaki. Ground zero was a Catholic church and a prison for Chinese and Korean prisoners. More Chinese and Koreans died in Nagasaki than Japanese soldiers (there weren't that many soldiers there to begin with), some Australian POWs also later died from radiation poisoning. In Hiroshima about 30% of the casualties were Koreans, many of whom weren't even there by choice (forced mobilization). You see people creating these post-hoc justifications about military targets (almost entirely civilian infrastructure in both cases), revenge for war crimes (even though the actual people who did war crimes received little or no punishment, such as Unit 731), militarily necessary (again both McArthur and Eisenhower opposed the bombings and said it wasn't needed), etc. It's bullshit, but you feel the need to defend it using bullshit because saying civilians deserved to die isn't acceptable these days. You have to clutch pearls and pretend what's happening in Ukraine or Gaza is awful, when in reality you don't give a fuck.

They were the bad guys at the time so yes.

These topics are old and repetitive at this point so Ill just keep reposting that tidbit from now on to remind everyone of that fact.

Yes. The A-bomb ended centuries of Bushism.

Bushido. Ah same thing

Billyionaire posted...

I think they were probably more interested in research that yielded results in the oncoming space race, not so much the Mengele experiments...

Sure, which is why we got scientists like Von Braun, who was actually a scientist and developed rockets. There's some argument for some of them that they were only party members because it was the only way they'd get research funded.

Now, Unit 731 on the Japanese side has no excuse because they were doing shit just as fucked up as Mengele with just as little application of proper scientific method. But they got away with it.

NhojAnec posted...

If the allies hadn't dropped the atom bomb, the axis would've won WW II

No.

And he deleted it. Now that's just embarrassing.

NhojAnec posted...

If the allies hadn't dropped the atom bomb, the axis would've and would've won WW II and believe me when I say, you wouldn't want to live in a world controlled by the Nazis and Imperial Japan (as seen in The Man in the High Castle).

I can't tell if this is a troll or if someone actually believes this.

Came back to say Yes again.

ssjevot posted...

I can't tell if this is a troll or if someone actually believes this.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

NhojAnec posted...
No.

And he deleted it. Now that's just embarrassing.

That's because both of you, @UnholyMudcrab and @ssjevot were right and I was wrong. I looked up the question on Google "If the axis had used nukes in WW II before the allies, would the axis have won?" and historians agreed with what you two said.

So, my bad.