11

World War 2 was a long and deadly conflict, taking the crown of being the bloodiest war in human history with a whopping 50 million casualties. Despite Japan being the initial aggressor and the cause of the U.S. entering the war, nearly four years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the land of the rising sun was not as strong and triumphant as it once was. Following the collapse of the axis powers on the western front, the Japanese empire was the last man standing. With America closing in on the country through pacific and the Russians planning to overrun from the north, Japan was in a lot of trouble. Japan at this point was left with a fatigued navy and airforce, supported by nearly exhausted vital supplies that threatened a widespread famine within the country. Japan was near defeat, and their surrender was seemingly inevitable, so why is the use of the atomic bomb on Japan at the end of the war so hotly debated? Some fall on the side that dropping the bomb was justified and that it was a necessary action taken to save the lives of hundreds of thousands and to end the war quickly. Others fall on the latter half, saying that the bomb wasn’t necessary at all because a Japanese surrender was so inevitable. Ultimately, the United States was justified in dropping the bombs because of all the lives saved from the prolonged war and because of Japan’s unconditional surrendering policies.
 The first argument of why the U.S. was justified in dropping the bomb is because it saved countless lives. If the conflict was not treated with the highest degree of urgency, the U.S. would have had no choice but to carry out their plan for a ground invasion onto Japanese soil. This invasion would have claimed by postwar estimates, “the possibility of up to a million casualties in a U.S. invasion of Japan.” with the first phase of the ground invasion alone claiming up to 100,000 lives. Thus, to end the war quickly, the bomb had to be used. Although the loss of life from the two bombs dropped was horrific, it was a better outcome than an additional 1 million people’s lives claimed by a prolonging of the war. This continuation of the war would have reaped many more Japanese lives.
    The second argument for why the U.S. was justified in dropping the bomb is because it was necessary to end the war. Japanese forces, although severely exhausted, did not want to end the war until they knew they could get surrendering terms they agreed with (the primary term was that the emperor must retain his position as emperor). Truman had other methods of getting the Japanese to surrender. Still, the atomic bomb seemed like a far more accessible and effective option once it was finally possible via completion of the Manhattan Project. “The alternatives included continuing the firebombing of Japanese cities that had already caused massive destruction and loss of life, modifying the U.S. demand for unconditional surrender by allowing the emperor to remain on his throne, and waiting for Soviet entry into the war against Japan.” Although the other options were on the table, they would have most certainly led to more loss of life and prolonged war. Although the Japanese emperor’s advisors tried to convince Hirohito to surrender, he was not willing to give up. This prompted the U.S. to drop the first bomb on Hiroshima, but still no call to surrender from Japan. It was not until the invasion of Manchuria by Russian soldiers did the second bomb drop on Nagasaki that the need to surrender was abundantly clear to Hirohito. The dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan quickly diminished the magnitude of the war, which would have claimed more lives on both sides.
    The opposing argument to why the U.S. was not justified in dropping the atomic bomb is because it was simply not necessary. This consensus is drawn from the fact that according to former Japanese leaders themselves admit that Japanese surrender was inevitable even without factoring in the dropping of the bomb. This was due to the utter defeat of Japanese forces in the Pacific; through island hopping, the U.S. had established bases along the way to Japan that made it much easier to launch air raids on Japanese cities. These air raids were devastating for Japan, with hundreds of thousands of citizens dying during every attack. The atomic bombing was not even the air raid with the most initial casualties; the napalm bombing of Tokyo in March 1945 takes the lead in that category with 100,000 casualties from the firebombing of Japan’s capital. The war was extremely costly for Japan towards the end as the war began being fought on their soil. Despite Japan’s inhuman will to want to continue to fight until the death, it was clear to a significant portion of the Japanese emperor’s cabinet that Japan would meet defeat and would need to surrender soon. Pleading ignorant to the fact that Japan was on the brink of collapse is not a reasonable excuse either because many of the United State’s own military officials saw the clear signs that Japan would surrender soon. Dwight Eisenhower, a general at the time of the war states the following, “During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.” Eisenhower, who later went on to supersede Truman as president, made his dissent and disagreement with the dropping of the bomb abundantly clear. He believed that there was no reason to bring on such immense suffering when the war was nearly complete and would not save any substantial number of Americans in the process. He is not alone in this belief, the commander of the pacific fleet that fought Japan said the following, “The war would have been over in two weeks. . . . The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.” Even President Truman’s own chief of staff stated that, “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . . In being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.” This consensus that Japan was going to surrender either way and that the dropping of the bomb was not necessary is a common opinion.
The reasoning that has been given behind why the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb goes as follows: The U.S. desired to flex its strength and advanced technology to the postwar Soviet Union. This makes sense, especially considering the coincidence that the bomb was dropped so close to when the Soviets were scheduled to carry out their ground invasion in Japan.
Despite this reasonably convincing argument, there is still one quarrel that pushes this debate back onto the side of the justified. The thinking was that Japan was committed to unconditional defeat; they were determined to keep fighting until the decision of surrender was unquestionable. This commitment to absolute defeat is the result of conflicting goals from elites and advisors within the cabinet of the emperor; no one could agree where the ship needed to be steered. This confliction led to a recurring dispute that lasted up until the moments of surrender. Far beyond when even the first bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. This confounding piece of information shows that Japan shot itself in the foot by not enduring defeat, an action of which would have prevented the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
It is not a mystery why the use of the atomic bomb on Japan is so widely disputed; the atomic bomb is a cruel weapon of war that has the potential of horrific destruction and loss of life on a massive scale. The arguments against its use are quite convincing; according to both Japanese and American sources, Japan was on the brink of defeat and would have surrendered even if the bomb had not been dropped despite the prolonged war. Nevertheless, the counter-arguments used are just as convincing; the bomb was necessary to end the war and did, in fact, save thousands of lives on both sides that would have been lost in the event of a prolonged war. As well as those two factors, there is also the confounding variable that Japan was not willing to surrender until they met utter defeat; giving up their country’s pride and surrendering was quite literally worse than death for them. Their initial unwillingness to surrender cost them thousands of their own citizens’ lives and justifies the usage of the atomic bomb to end the 2nd World War.