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

(+) Yeah! (+)

From an objectivist pov? If it killed say 300,000 but saved a million other lives, was it worth it?

Yes, it saved a lot of lives.

Also it caused the creation of anime.

created Godzilla

It saved more lives on both sides than it cost so from a purely objective sense, yes.

Now was it worth the political turmoil it brought on? Probably not.

Depends on if you evaporated or not

I'd say it was the right thing to do if and only if it's the main reason there hasn't been a nuclear war since then.

name_unknown posted...

created Godzilla

And that alone makes it totally worth it.

No

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

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

It caused anime so it was probably a mistake

Vengeance29 posted...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

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.

Vengeance29 posted...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

Wow. That was a tough read

Nagasaki was not justified (and it would make no difference had they bombed Kokura successfully instead). Hiroshima is a much trickier one to answer though I still lean towards no.

Mind you, neither one as a single event was as horrific as the firebombing of Tokyo. With that being said, the relevant strategic positions were also different at the time of that one.

Now if a full invasion had gone ahead and nukes were used against military targets as part of this, that would be much easier to argue justification for.

haloiscoolisbak posted...

Wow. That was a tough read

Understatement for some the worst war criminals in the biggest war in human history.

The first one was arguable.
Not a chance on the second one.

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

There's some argument that it was to show Japan there was more than one, but this could have been achieved with a demonstration. Shock value for the first one, iffy but can at least see the point. That's no longer a factor when you're just proving you have more of them.

not at all and the understatement of the disconnect between the japanese public and the japanese govt/military towards the end of the war in american media/education is borderline propaganda

BuzzKilljoy posted...

I'd say it was the right thing to do if and only if it's the main reason there hasn't been a nuclear war since then.

I think there's a very good chance of that. More specifically, I think there were only two real options for how nuclear weapons would get used in war:

1) Limited use at the end of WWII.

2) Massive use at the start of WWIII.

I find it completely incredible that testing alone could have scared world powers out of a belief that nukes were the way to win WWIII.

Yes

Couldn't they have bombed a remote location in Japan to show the bombs power and threaten to detonate one on a major city if they didn't surrender? Would that have worked?

ZEROWOLF posted...

Couldn't they have bombed a remote location in Japan to show the bombs power and threaten to detonate one on a major city if they didn't surrender? Would that have worked?

They probably wanted to one-up the shock felt from Pearl Harbor, is my thinking.

I think the amount of life lost compared to the amount that wouldve been lost in an invasion made it objectively the best move from an American standpoint.

Morally? Whole other can of worms. Japan had committed some of the most heinous acts in recorded history, but the bombs killed mostly civilians. I lean towards the first one being the correct move, but I think it probably wouldve sufficed with just one.

No way to know though, of course

IHeartRadiation posted...

Understatement for some the worst war criminals in the biggest war in human history.

Don't forget that Shir Ishii got immunity.

It was super effective.

Turbam posted...

The first one was arguable.
Not a chance on the second one.

This i suppose

The thing that actually caused Japan to surrender was the declaration of war from the USSR. Even if you (wrongly) believe that the revelation of the nuclear bomb's existence was the reason Japan surrendered, it's entirely possible to reveal it in a way that doesn't murder 100,000 innocent civilians. It was a completely unnecessary war crime.

It only saved lives in the imaginary dichotomy that the US must do a total land invasion of Japan instead and that Japan wont surrender to the last man even though they did surrender

so no, it did not save any lives

pjnelson posted...

And that alone makes it totally worth it.

This will never be a tasteful joke

DrizztLink posted...

Don't forget that Shir Ishii got immunity.

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

Garioshi posted...

The thing that actually caused Japan to surrender was the declaration of war from the USSR. Even if you (wrongly) believe that the revelation of the nuclear bomb's existence was the reason Japan surrendered, it's entirely possible to reveal it in a way that doesn't murder 100,000 innocent civilians. It was a completely unnecessary war crime.

I mean its easy to say this looking back. Much harder to make a rational decision when shit was actually happening

Yes, but it wasn't morally correct to drop it straight on top of major civilian population centers.

Yes,

was fire bombing Japan any better? If the nukes werent used thats what wouldve been the fate of Japan before the inevitable invasion that wouldve seen countless more deaths.

billman1000 posted...

Yes,

was fire bombing Japan any better? If the nukes werent used thats what wouldve been the fate of Japan before the inevitable invasion that wouldve seen countless more deaths.

Again, this is a false dichotomy. In any hypothetical history scenario where the US can choose not to atom bomb Hiroshima & Nagasaki, it can also choose not to blanket firebomb entire cities and not to plan a comprehensive land invasion premised on Japan never ever surrendering.

ssb_yunglink2 posted...

I mean its easy to say this looking back. Much harder to make a rational decision when shit was actually happening

Japan had lost any capacity to meaningfully challenge the American military by this point. Japan was being blockaded and they could simply starve them out until they gave up. Regardless, even if you STILL (wrongly) believe that Japan knowing about American nuclear weapons was the thing that caused them to surrender, you don't have to let them know by vaporizing innocent civilians.

drop some more on Moscow in 2024 if you want to prevent another 10,000,000+ deaths.

Morally? Probably not. Objectively, as a means of demonstrating the overwhelming force the US could bring? Absolutely.

Regardless of how you feel, it's definitely for the best that everyone got a first hand look at how horrific nuclear weapons are, before the US & USSR could attempt to nuclear war, without the fear of what that entails.

pokeweeb30 posted...

Yes, it saved a lot of lives.

Also it caused the creation of anime.

wackyteen posted...

It saved more lives on both sides than it cost so from a purely objective sense, yes.

Now was it worth the political turmoil it brought on? Probably not.

It literally saved no lives, shut the fuck up if you don't know what you're talking about.

It was all a show of force to Russia

Vengeance29 posted...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

Add in Nanjing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre

When one of the best people to come out of your military occupation is a literal Nazi Party member, things have gone VERY wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe

yes how was any1 supposed 2 kno what it was gonna do

if it wasnt on hiroshima it was gonna be somewhere else

nagasaki was prob a bad idea tho

theres a good book about Japan after the war called Embracing Defeat and it goes into detail into hoe Japan went from a military power to an economic giants thanks to US assistance...

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?

prisonerd posted...

yes how was any1 supposed 2 kno what it was gonna do

The Trinity test would've given them a fairly good idea, even if they couldn't be sure of the exact impact. Also some scientists thought Little Boy would be more powerful than Trinity (it was somewhere between half and three-quarters as powerful, depending on what estimates you go by). Fat Man was pretty close to Trinity, as expected.

As they say, war determines not who is right or wrong, but only who is left.

Forcing a rapid capitulation by any means necessary was probably the best thing for American interests instead of letting the Soviet Union get their fingers into the pie and make it into another divided country like what happened to Germany or later Korea. So it was correct in the sense that it best served the interests of the ones who made the decision.

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.

No.

Next question.

Vengeance29 posted...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

Shit like this is why they needed to unconditionally surrender and be demilitarized.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territories_acquired_by_the_Empire_of_Japan

soviet entry into the war with japan occurred the day after hiroshima, at which point japan began to seriously accelerate with respect to its internal moves/discussions towards unconditional surrender to the usa

so while there may have been a case for hiroshima, nagasaki was unacceptable

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