Was America justified in dropping the atomic bomb on Japan?

That's not quite correct. There has been some evidence that suggest that. On the other hand it's not at all clear when Japan would have surrendered or what the cost would have been. In the long run yes they would probably have surrendered but it was politically unacceptable to the allies to allow the war to drag on for months and perhaps as long as a year or even more. Then there's the question of just what was known at the time. Hard to justify dropping or not dropping the bombs on information that was not available at the time.

August Storm was more another nail in the coffin rather than the dagger. If a demonstration was necessary one bomb would have been enough indeed the films from Trinity would probably have been adequate. If you are looking at after the fact info Stalin already knew about the bombs and he certainly wouldn't have doubted that there was a good chance that if it came to it the US would use the bomb. Stalin was also no where near the gambler Hitler was. He wasn't going to risk the USSR on anything he didn't consider at least close to a sure thing. He also knew that the West was tired of war at the time and that the USSR wasn't in any better shape. Of course the US may not have been as aware of this then.

Actually it can be argued that it may have increased the number of conflicts. It just produced an environment where the US and the USSR tried quite hard to avoid direct conflict. Proxy wars on the other hand ....

The only minor quibble I have with this is that Germany a year or two earlier would have been as or even more suitable IMO.

 

What is the evidence? Pls supply sources other than articles on opinion. The word probably indicates opinion. From other posts, you don't like the use of opinion. Please supply sources.

 

There's lots of information in the various threads we have on this topic. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "other than articles on opinion" when I've supplied sources on this (and for that matter other topics) in the past that phraseology would seem questionable. If you want sources for a particular item please indicate it but I frankly don't see much point in responding to generic request when so much data is already available on the forum as well as readily available on the web.

 

What I'm meaning is that you should give people the same courtesy in your responses. You put people down for opinions and ideas when you also post opinions. Specifically you do it when your opinion is different than that of the other poster. When convenient you say you only deal with historical facts, when in fact you don't. That is my point. I'm mainly asking for courtesy in your responses. It isn't difficult to do.

Cheers.

 

Was America justified in dropping the atomic bomb on Japan?
In my honest opinion...yes. It is sad that many civilians were killed and that many had suffered from the nuclear aftermath but that's what you get when you don't know when it's enough. One of the most recent examples was the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 which didn't end in as much of deaths but the Serbians tend to use it as an excuse against NATO. Serbia like Japan didn't know when to stop so someone needed to intervene. Too bad the intervention didn't come earlier so we could avoid any further unneeded casualties.

 

This subject is pointed enough so please leave previous disagreements in other threads at the door. If this is beyond the capacity of those participating in this thread you know where the door is.

 

It was directed at someone specific in response to a response. And yes that would be a good source.

 

There is a big difference in calling a opinion to question and stating an opposing opinion. If an opinion seems questionable asking for sources is a very reasonable thing to do. If an opposing opinion is presented then it's not unreasonable to present source to support it. In the case of the issue under discussion here it was stated:

Now we have discussed this quite a few times in threads on this board with both sides presenting considerable evidence. There simply isn't a strong enough case to conclude that August Storm was sufficient in the absence of the atomic bombs to bring Japan to surrender in the short term. Now I personally think the evidence strongly supports the conclusion that the bombs were fundamental to it although August Storm may have had a significant impact but since we are dealing with a "what if" here it's hardly conclusive. And again the data as well as the logic for both cases have been presented on this board in several threads. If you have a particular question as to some facet of it then by all means ask and I'll try to find it but I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time and effort researching and posting things that haven't been called to question or that most of us are already familiar with.

 

I'm not sure that overly disagree here....

 

Can you give your answer without writing a book? No offense

 

Your posts aren't challenging but you do have to summarize it a little, it's a little annoying scowling down and passing a post that long every time I want to see the newest comment. But other than that please be as descriptive as you want, just shorten it a bit.

 

I think the general consensus is that; Yes, the A-bombs were justified though were not the sole reason the Japanese surrender. Were they a major factor? I would think so. The sheer power of a single bomb. Japan had no air cover (or very little meaningful planes left) so were completely at the mercy of the USAF. The US showed that it was not scared to use such a powerful, devastating bomb not once but twice so I imagine - as that quoted text from earlier states - that they could see the writing on the wall. Imagine what - if any - part of Japan would have been left if every major city had been hit by an A-Bomb.

I don't know exact casualty figures and while the firebombing was pretty devastating and horrific, the A-bomb was much more horrific. I recently watched a documentary on the A-Bomb. Peoples eyes were melting or popping out of their faces, the burns were horrific, corpses turned to ash, people being sucked towards the vortex at the center, asphalt melting and trapping people etc. Then in the post-war years, more people dying from 'bomb sickness' (i forget the exact term they called it)...people who had survived the blast with no injuries but then would get sick and die within a few months. All related to the A-bomb (though those deaths and after affects were not known at the time). While I would not wish to see what a modern day nuclear bomb could/would do, I do think it was a justified decision to drop the bombs and bring the Japanese to their knees - how do you fight something like the A-bomb? You can't.