For and Against Dropping the Atomic Bombs on Japan
I missed the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Japan and VJ day as I was busy with travel.
Including long-term effects, perhaps 200,000 people were killed by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This has led to 80 years of questions about whether the bombs should have been dropped.
Best Argument Against:
Nuclear weapons are a horrible weapon that had little or no military value were they were dropped in Japan. Their sole role was mass killing civilians, something we and most nations considered a war crime until about 1940. While the US was not the one to initially break taboos against terror bombing of civilians, we joined in enthusiastically given that strategic bombing fit so well with our technological and economic advantages, not to mention a national sense that bombing was a "cheaper" way to win a war, at least in terms of US casualties (a bias that has never really gone away). For everything written below, I still think this argument dominates, though for reasons stated below it was an impossible position at the time.
Worst Argument For:
"The atomic bombs in Japan killed fewer people than the fire bombing of Tokyo." This is a lame moral position, boiling down to "well, we did worse stuff."
Worst Argument Against:
A very common argument against the bombing was that the blockade of Japan was working and would have eventually strangled Japan and brought it to its knees. This is likely true. But starvation and related diseases were already killing as many as 50,000 or more a month, and likely higher. Even with the sudden end of the war and the reopening of trade and some American food aid, there were hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilian deaths due to hunger and related diseases. Opponents of the bomb frequently argue that the blockade alternative was more humane somehow, but 6 more months of Japanese holding out would likely have led to the deaths - slow, horrible deaths - of far more Japanese than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Contemporaneous Arguments For:
- I don't think modern audiences understand how tired Americans were of the war. There was simply zero support for a decision to spare Japanese civilians in exchange for a longer war and more American death.
- There is an ongoing argument about how many American lives were saved by not having to follow through on the American invasions of Japan. Personally I think we would have seen at least 10x the casualties suffered on tiny Okinawa, which would mean 500,000 American casualties invading Japan. Opponents of dropping the bomb have argued, implausily I think, that the total would have been 100,000 or less than the death toll in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But this is only American casualties. In Okinawa the Japanese army and civilians died at a rate 5x that of American killed and wounded. So even at the lower estimate of 100,000 US military dead the total human death toll would have been over a half million.
- The leadership of Japan was simply not going to budge and make peace on any sort of terms close to unconditional surrender. Some said they were interested in a negotiated peace, but on terms the US would never have accepted (eg Japan holds on to Manchuria). After the first bomb no one in the Japanese leadership changed their position. After the second bomb almost no one changed their position -- only a shift by the Emperor and a few of those around him turned the tide, and even so there were last minute efforts to thwart peace among hardliners (up to and including attempts to steal the recordings of the Emperor's broadcast and take the Emperor into custody "for his own protection").
- There was likely some racism involved in the decision, but had the bomb been available we would probably have bombed the mayonnaise-white Germans given the opportunity. Weird racist theories would pop up about the Japanese from time to time -- eg that the shape of their eyes would affect their vision and thus make them poor pilots, a theory that got disproved pretty dramatically early in the war. But Americans never could understand the cultural norms that caused Japanese soldiers to fight to the last man, even when the fighting was pointless. It looked to Americans like a death cult, and completely alien, and eliminated any small empathy that might have existed after 4 long years of war.
Ex Post Argument Against:
- The Russians were coming. The Russians invaded Manchuria after the first bomb was dropped. The bomb may have slightly accelerated their time table but not by much. In line with their previous commitments at international conferences (and their own desire to grab some territory), they were preparing to invade in August of 1945 (3 months after the defeat of Germany) and had spent much of the summer moving troops across Siberia. By this time the US, which had begged Russia to join the war with Japan in 1944, was starting to regret this decision. The Russians were quickly and immensely successful, rolling through the Japanese forces like they did not exist. They had plans to invade the island of Hokkaido within weeks. This terrified Japanese hardliners -- who were strongly anti-communist -- as well as the US which was already coming to suspect that the Russians were not going to leave the Eastern European countries they had overrun. We could have left the hard fighting for Japan to the Soviets, but we did not want the Soviets permanently ensconced in the Japanese Islands. You can see this fear in some of the American actions -- in particular how fast the second bomb was dropped. When the Russians invaded the whole time-table accelerated with the US racing to end the war with Japan before the Soviet steamroller took too much territory. While leaving it to the Russians would have saved American lives and prevented the atomic bombings, it almost certainly would not have reduced total Japanese deaths and long-term suffering.
Ex Post Argument For:
- Nobody has dropped one since. Counter-factuals are always hard, but personally I am convinced that if the bombs had not been dropped on Japan, some idiot would have dropped them somewhere else -- perhaps on a large Chinese city in the Korean War. This is an awful argument to make, I admit, but perhaps only a demonstration of their horror changed attitudes about atomic bombs.
To me the most convincing argument against is the allied commanders who were against it, including Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Curtis LeMay, and Henry Arnold.
I would presume that they had as much information as anyone about the strategic and tactical conditions at the time, and they were not a bunch of bleeding-hearts averse to killing civilians if necessary to achieve a critical objective; this has always been part of war (despite a lot of weird modern denial). They seemed to deem it unnecessary and gratuitous on the part of Truman and his inner circle.
I'm sorry, Warren. This reads like there are some paragraphs missing. Or maybe asserting arguments that have little support in history.
Your "best argument against" is that nuclear weapons had little or no military value. This is highly debatable, but applies to nuclear weapons no more than to conventional bombing. Before the war, it was generally accepted on all sides that enemy transportation and industrial infrastructure were legitimate targets for strategic bombing. Looking at results after the war, it's reasonable to argue that this bombing mostly didn't affect enemy warfighting capacity, aside from attacks on the German oil and synthetic oil facilities. But these results weren't available during the war. And, as you noted elsewhere, by 1942 at the latest, all combatants had lost all compunctions at bombing enemy populations.
I read an article by a Japanese historian several years ago - I can't locate it at the moment. He looked at the minutes of the war cabinet meetings between August 6 and 9, probably earlier as well. When reports of the bombing of Hiroshima reached the cabinet on August 6, it was considered a minor development. Yes, the city was destroyed, but many cities had been destroyed. It was recognized that the weapon used was different, probably an atomic bomb, but this was considered only a new method of destroying a city, and did not change the cabinet's attitudes. The Soviet declaration of war on 8 August was calamitous - it close off the (wishful) path to negotiation with the Americans, it spelled the certain destruction of Japanese forces in China and almost certainly Korea, it came with Soviet invasion of South Sakhalin and the Kuriles, and threatened Soviet occupation of Japan itself. This caused a split within the cabinet, with one faction arguing for quick acceptance of surrender to the Americans, while another argued for holding out.
It is debatable how many American and Japanese lives were "saved" by the bombing. It seems likely to me that Japan would probably have decided on surrender around August 9 based on the overall strategic situation - economic strangulation from the US blockade, destruction of the Japanese navy and most of the Army, and now the prospect of Soviet invasion.
Continuing my previous note...
You say an ex post argument against using the bomb is that we could have left the invasion of Japan to the Soviets, and let them occupy Japan. In what sense is this an argument against using the bomb? Should we have welcomed Soviet invasion of Japan, with all its attendant death and destruction, and permanent Soviet control of Japan, in order to avoid using the atomic bomb? How would this have been better for America, Japan, Americans, or Japanese?
As you noted, the American people would not have accepted any decision that involved lengthening the war and increasing American deaths. Japanese deaths were not a consideration. The Soviets declared war on August 8, which was exactly 3 months after Germany's official surrender, as agreed between Roosevelt and Stalin. By August 1945, Truman probably regretted this deal, because he didn't relish Soviet occupation of Japan and Korea - he and the US leadership wanted to avoid any Soviet role in occupying Japan, and the influence that would go with it. But I don't think this had any influence on the decision to use the bomb. Quite simply, once the bomb was successfully tested, it was going to be used.
If American decision makers had access to the inner workings of the Japanese government in the first ten days of August, they might have seen a Japan ready to surrender. They also would have seen a local defense plan that involved arming civilians with bamboo spears if rifles weren't available, teaching children to crawl under tanks with explosives, and do absolutely anything to cause as many American casualties as possible.
Using the atomic bombs was horrible. It was a horrible end to the most horrible war in human history. I don't think there's any credible argument that the US leadership would have considered not using it, and I don't think there was any serious debate on the subject at the time. The current debate is based on post-war sensitivities, not on wartime considerations.
The Atomic bomb discussion always focuses almost always only on the cost of invading Japan, but at the time Japan occupied huge swaths of territory. A longer war, with Japan still losing at the end, would have been catastrophic in those occupied territories.
An interesting hypothetical is: what if FDR had lived and was functioning in August 1945?
In partial reply to Bryan Smith - Should we have welcomed Soviet participation in the invasion of Japan.
My apologies if my history is a little off -
My recollection is that FDR wanted Soviet participation in the land invasion because FDR thought their assistance would have been of benefit in the invasion for several reasons including reducing american deaths. FDR was surrounded by numerous pro soviet advisors including harry hopkins who was obviously naive about soviet domination of eastern europe. The US was still suppling huge quantities of material and goods to Russia as late as mid July 1945. Truman finally cut the supply in July 1945.
It wasnt until mid summer of 1945 (June or July 1945) that US military advisors were against soviet participation .
Worth noting that Truman had a big hand in stopping the soviet advance through Korea and got the soviets to stop at the 38th.
In response to Cole's comment"
2 hours ago
An interesting hypothetical is: what if FDR had lived and was functioning in August 1945?"
As previously noted, FDR and harry hopkins were pro-soviet with the most likely result that all of korea would be communist and approx 1/3 of japan with the caveat that soviets did not have shipping to move troops onto japan land
Warren underestimates the total deaths that would be involved in a japanese land invasion
A - american deaths appro 500k-1m
B - japanese deaths - approx 1m to 2m killed in battle or dying of starvation
c - 1m to 2m chinese and korean deaths killed in battle or dying of starvation.
The scholarship is pretty clear that the Soviet entry to the war is what compelled Japan to surrender, not the atomic bombs. Robert Pape has a fascinating chapter on this in "Bombing to Win", there's also an abbreviated version in article format ("Why Japan Surrendered")
Comparing facts (the bombs were dropped; Japan surrendered) with mere conjecture (she'd have surrendered in days anyway) is intrinsically unsatisfactory. Especially if much of the conjecture may come from people unfamiliar with Japanese culture and Japanese history in the decades before the war.
'Course I'm biased: my father, having already invaded France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, was training to invade Japan. He and his men were delighted by the news.
And these men were not heartless brutes: many had wept or vomited when they saw Belsen.
Ken
5 hours ago
The scholarship is pretty clear that the Soviet entry to the war is what compelled Japan to surrender, not the atomic bombs.
Ken while that was a factor, it was not as much as depicted by robert pape
I always start my arguments about the bombing by observing that none of it would have come about if Japan had resisted the temptation to attack the United States in Hawaii and the Philippines. I then generally let people natter on about all kinds of silly things that had nothing to do with starting the war. That's my best approach to putting 100% of the onus where it lies, on Japan and hopefully making it crystal clear I care every bit as much about those killed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima as the Japanese cared about all the people they killed here and there for decades.
"Counter-factuals are always hard, but personally I am convinced that if the bombs had not been dropped on Japan, some idiot would have dropped them somewhere else..."
Yes.
Forcing the Japanese to surrender via other methods: continued conventional bombing, tightening the already tight blockade, and potential subsequent invasion would have killed orders of magnitude more Japanese than the atomic bombs. And, worse, it would have killed US and allied soldiers, and Chinese and other civilians under Japanese occupation.
The Japanese had anticipated the US invasion plan and concentrated troops in southern Japan. They intended to fight to the last to try to force the US and allies into making concessions, including letting the war time Japanese leaders continue to run the country.
I have written on the topic before and I'll list some specific reasons for dropping the bombs.
The deaths. I'm not speaking of the American or Japanese lives saved. Yes Truman would have been impeached if not lynched if he allowed an invasion to proceed with hundreds of thousands of American causalities when he had a war winner in hand. Yes the bombs spared the Japanese millions of dead from either invasion or blockade.
Rather I'm speaking of the estimated hundreds of thousands of people who were dying every month in various corners of the Japanese Empire, especially China. Why did the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have a greater claim to life than those other people?
To WM's callous dismissing of the firebombing argument....
The emotional threshold of causing mass civilian causalities through civilian bombing was crossed years earlier during the Spanish Civil War and then Rotterdam, Warsaw, and the Blitz. The Allies had already conducted mass firebombing raids in Hamburg and more recently Dresden. When Lemay authorized the fire bombing raids over Japan he was simply continuing in a long line of earlier attacks by both sides and he understood that what he was doing, in the unlikely event the Allies lost, would result in him being put on trial for war crimes.
If you have already killed 100,000 in Tokyo in a firebombing what's 100,000 more from an A-bomb in Hiroshima (keep in mind that we didn't know about radiation effects.)?
Another argument no often made for dropping atomic weapons is the shock value. There are eyewitness accounts from Japanese civilians in Hiroshima at the strange sight of a few B-29s, which of course unleashed utter devastation. The bombing three days later that destroyed Nagasaki three days later was part of a deliberate message by the US to Japan that 1) we have a devastating weapon and 2) we have a lot of them. What was not known until years later was that raid that destroyed Nagasaki was initially aimed at Kokura but that target was scrapped due to weather; the secondary target Nagasaki was also obscured by weather and only a last-second break in the clouds allowed the B-29 to drop the bomb. As is, Bockscar landed in Iwo Jima on fumes.
Had that last-second weather break not occurred, Bockscar would have ditched the bomb in the ocean. We had only one other bomb and the reduction in weaponry and delay in dropping the next bomb might have delivered a very different message to the Japanese, that Hiroshima was a one-off, simply a firebombing on steroids.
The use of psychological shock as a battlefield as well as a strategic weapon was formalized years later by Boyd with his ODDA loop, but it was intuited for millennia by the military. The goal was to deliver such a disorienting shock or deception that you would separate the target from its previous external frame of reference. Shocks had to be delivered rapidly and just as rapidly exploited before the target could reorient and reacquire a valid frame of reference.
We know now, as both Toll and Horsnfischer have recently written, that we were reading the Japanese's “mail.” We knew then, confirmed by researching Japanese archives that the Supreme War Council was deadlocked on ending the war and that the shock of that second bomb forced Hirohito's hand to intervene and gave the Japanese a face-saving way out.
A final reason for dropping the bomb....
I find, especially in the post-9/11 world, a certain lack of civilization confidence for dealing with mortal enemies, Michael Walsh has noted that if it was the Romans who suffered 9/11 and knowing how complicit the Saudis were they would have gone full Carthaginian leveled Mecca and Medina, destroyed the Kaaba (destroying Islam), and sold the populace into slavery. If that is too far back in history to be relevant consider what Sherman did in Georgia contemporaneous to what Sheridan did in the Shenandoah.... or what Israel did after 10/7
Rule number one of starting wars, if you start it you better win it and number two if you cannot win it don't start it
The Great War in the Pacific wasn't a police action or even an expeditionary war like the 1991 Gulf War, it was civilization struggle. Such wars need to be fought to finish and quickly.
How many Japanese lives are worth one American? How many Indonesian/Chinese/Vietnamese lives are worth one Japanese?
Okinawa: American Personnel Battle Casualties
~50,000, including ~12,500 dead
...in less than three months. Sorry, not sorry. Truman may well have been impeached had he not dropped those two bombs. Even worse, Stalin and Mao would have ruled Pacific Asia which would have led to countless hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions - of more deaths.