MissPandaGoth
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Evaluate the reasons for the USA’s use of the atomic bomb against Japan in 1945
There has been a long- standing debate on why the atomic bomb was used to defeat Japan. The decision to drop the atomic bomb was made within the context of immense complexity. The US military needed to end the war, the political confrontation with Russia needed to be justified, and the cultural passions of rage required to be powerfully demonstrated. Although, there were numerous other reasons for the US dropping the Atomic bomb, these three points remain the key reasons to why Truman ordered the bomb’s use in 1945.There has been continuing disagreement since 1945 among historians--and indeed among many others--about how to explain and evaluate President Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb in the war against Japan.
After a preliminary invasion of the southern peninsular of Kyushu, Japan would still carry on fighting. It was understood that despite both the Americans and the Soviets being poised to invade, Japan would still not surrender. Additionally, the people of Japan, who were starving would not revolt against a suicidal government.
By April 1945, the Japanese government was divided between those who wanted to seek a negotiated peace and those who insisted on fighting to the end. The government was, however, united in opposing any acceptance of the Allies’ demand for Japan’s unconditional surrender. On 22 June, the Emperor told the government that Japan should seek peace. After heavy Allied losses during the capture of Okinawa on 2 July 1945, the main concern of the USA was to end the war without suffering further casualties.
Historian Herbert Feis argued in The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II (1966) that Truman made his decision on purely military grounds--to ensure a speedy American victory. David McCullough, the author of an enormously popular biography of Truman published in 1992, also accepted Truman's own account of his actions largely uncritically, as did Alonzo L. Hamby in Man of the People (1995), an important scholarly study of Truman. "One consideration weighed most heavily on Truman," Hamby concluded. "The longer the war lasted, the more Americans would be killed."
A second factor in Truman’s decision was the legacy of Roosevelt, who had defined the nation’s goal in ending the war as the enemy’s “unconditional surrender,” a term coined to reassure the Soviet Union that the Western allies would fight to the end against Germany. It was also an expression of the American temperament; the United States was accustomed to winning wars and dictating the peace. On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally to great rejoicing in the Allied countries. The hostility of the American public toward Japan was even more intense and demanded an unambiguous total victory in the Pacific. Truman was acutely aware that the country—in its fourth year of total war—also wanted victory as quickly as possible.
Most people in the Allied countries thought little about the outcomes of the atomic bomb at the time. They were too overjoyed that the war was over. However, over 100,000 Japanese were killed by the two bombs and fifteen years later 90,000 were still suffering terribly from radiation sickness. As the destructive power of the A-bombs was revealed an ongoing debate began on the necessity and justification of its use. Conventional bombing had already caused over half a million deaths in Japan. Moreover, Japanese aggression had resulted in untold death and destruction throughout Asia and the Pacific. These points and more assisted the acceptance of the atomic bomb.
The Russian territorial expansion definitely played a major factor in the dropping of the bomb. The Soviet Union had already taken Poland and many other countries during the war. The Soviets were helping the Chinese with the war against Japan and would later gain control of the railroads in China and Manchuria when Japan completely surrendered. On July 24 Truman casually mentioned to Stalin that the US had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no special interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make "good use of it against the Japanese.”
The Americans did not want Russia to get involved in the war against Japan. The most obvious reasons were to prevent the Russians from expanding and to keep them out of Japan where they would hamper the peace process and gain even more territory.
Historians Gar Alperovitz and Martin Sherwin have amply documented, the decision was also related to postwar concerns – the reality of the Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe as well as in Asia and, more importantly, the fearful prospect of an atomic arms race.
“My father’s overriding concern in these first weeks,” Truman’s daughter, Margaret noted, “was our policy towards Russia.” Truman’s diary and memories clearly reveal that he was thinking more about Russia than Japan. Some of the key policymakers around Truman were also worried about an emerging Russian threat. Secretary of War Stimson, Truman noted, was “at least as much concerned with the role of the atomic bomb in the shaping of history as in its capacity to shorten the war.” Shortly after bombing Hiroshima on September 11, 1945, Stimson told Truman: “I consider the problem of our satisfactory relations with Russia as not merely connected but as virtually dominated by the problem of the atomic bomb.”
The United States finally proved their superior weapon power to the Soviet Union and the rest of the world. The bomb's use impressed the Soviet Union and halted the war quickly enough that the USSR did not demand joint occupation of Japan.
The dropping of the Bomb on Japan was not entirely to halt Soviet expansion although it did play a momentous role.
It is evident in historical sources, that the Pearl Harbor attack on the US 7th Fleet started the road to the atomic bomb explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, since the Americans turned the Pearl Harbor defeat into the entire commitment to victory in World War II. It was this solid need to avenge their losses at Pearl Harbour that eventually pushed the US to embrace nuclear warfare.
''Having found the bomb, we have used it.'' These words were spoken by President Truman in a radio address to the American people on the evening of Aug. 9, the day a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. ''We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare.''
President Truman, and others who justified the bomb, would rarely speak this way again - a direct articulation of revenge as a main motivation for the overwhelming destruction of the Japanese cities. In his radio remarks, Truman went on to add the other justifications: ''We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans. We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan's power to make war. Only a Japanese surrender will stop us.'' But even the surrender, when it came, would prompt after-the-fact controversy, since, clinging to the Emperor, it wasn't unconditional. If the US accepted Japan's hedged surrender after the atomic bomb, why wouldn't they accept it before?
Roosevelt summed up the US’s need for vengeance when he alleged 'We now have taken partial revenge for Pearl Harbor The revenge will only be complete when the whole Japanese Navy has been crippled completely'
Every justification offered for the use of the atomic bomb would be clouded by ambiguity except one - revenge. It was the first justification Truman offered, speaking the primal truth, and it was the only validation the American people needed by then. But soon enough, revenge would disappear from all official explanations, and even Truman's critics would rarely refer it except obliquely.
The debate over the decision to drop the atomic bomb is an unusually emotional one, and it has inspired bitter professional and personal attacks on advocates of almost every position. It illustrates clearly how history has often been, and remains, a powerful force in the way societies define themselves. The military needed to end the war, the political confrontation with Russia needed to be justified, and the cultural passions of rage required to be powerfully demonstrated. These points, and these points alone, serve as the reasons for why the US dropped the atomic bomb.
