If the bomb is wrong now, it was wrong then too
There are still people who come to
Hiroshima and Nagasaki to honor American relatives who were spared the task of
invading mainland Japan. They may come to also honor the victims who died
there, but they still see the atomic bombings as justified attacks against an
aggressor, as attacks which led to fewer lives being lost on both sides of the
conflict. Blame ultimately lies with the aggressor. This belief persists in
spite of the large amount of historical research that has been done since 1945
which demolishes the argument that the bombs were necessary to end the war and
that they were the essential cause of the Japanese decision to surrender.
It has been well demonstrated that
the Japanese were no longer able to wage war and they were starving for food
and fuel. A negotiated surrender was possible, especially on terms that
required only that the emperor be retained as a symbolic head of the Japanese
people. This condition was rejected in favor of pursuing an unconditional
surrender, then after the surrender, the American occupying forces decided
after all that Japan would be easier to manage if the emperor were kept in
place. That fact alone should be enough to put an end to the assertion that the
bombs were necessary to end the war, but then there is the additional fact that
the Soviet declaration of war on August 9, 1945 made much more of an impression
on the decision-makers in Tokyo. Over the next few days until the surrender on
August 15, the bombs hardly registered in cabinet discussions as an issue to be
worried about. It was just two other cities that had been bombed. Like other ruined
cities all over Japan, they were regarded as acceptable sacrifices.
What bothers me most about the
people who still hold onto this discredited view is the fact that they are
often the same people who say very solemnly that atomic weapons must never be
used again. We know now, apparently, but we didn’t know then. On the contrary,
the nature of the new weapons was pretty well understood in 1945 in terms of
the damage they could do with heat, blast and radiation, and everyone involved
in the Manhattan Project understood what the effects would be on the nature of
war and international relations. It was known that they would launch a horrific
arms race. It was known that there would soon be much larger and deadlier
hydrogen bombs. It was known that these weapons might put human life back in
the Stone Age. Yet still it was decided that the situation was exceptional.
America was faced with an implacable aggressor that had to be stopped, but it
wanted to achieve its goals at minimal cost of American lives—an attitude that
some of the highest officers serving at the time found dishonorable and also an
unnecessary concern because, as mentioned above, they knew that Japan would
soon have to surrender on terms favorable to America. The atomic bombs were a
distraction, a billion-dollar bureaucratic juggernaut that rolled to its
conclusion because no one powerful enough to stop it stood in its way.
I don’t intend to thoroughly rehash
this argument that has been covered fully in other sources [1], [2], [3], [4], but I just mention what should be
an obvious conclusion. If you think atomic bombs should never again be used in
war, then you must also accept that they should not have been used in 1945. There
is no reason to believe that circumstances similar to those of 1945 could not
arise again: an aggressor starts a war—and the perception of who is the
aggressor may be very subjective—but those who say it is an aggressor decide it
must be stopped. However, as the conflict drags on and takes an unacceptable
toll, the side trying to stop the aggressor becomes impatient and decides to
just drop a nuke and be done with it. Most people today would say this should
never happen, but it is exactly what happened in 1945.
In fact, American attitudes to this
scenario were investigated by two researchers, Scott D. Sagan and Benjamin A.
Valentino, and they found that little has changed since 1945. Americans still
believe that military objectives should be achieved with minimum cost of
American lives, no matter how many enemy civilians die. In the scenario they
used in their survey they wanted to recreate the dilemma faced by the US in
1945. A report on their research described it thus:
... participants read a mock news article in which the
U.S. places severe sanctions on Iran over allegations that Tehran has been
caught violating the 2015 nuclear deal. In response, Iran attacks a U.S.
aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, killing 2,403 military personnel (the
same number killed by Japan at Pearl Harbor in 1941). Congress then declares
war on Iran, and the president demands that Iran’s leadership accept
“unconditional surrender.” U.S. generals give the president two options: mount
a land invasion to reach Tehran and force the Iranian government to capitulate
(at an estimated cost of 20,000 American fatalities), or shock Iran into
unconditional surrender by dropping a single nuclear weapon on a major city
near Tehran, killing an estimated 100,000 Iranian civilians (similar to the
immediate death toll in Hiroshima). The poll’s participants were reminded that
Iran doesn’t yet have an atomic weapon of its own. The results were startling:
Under our scenario, 59% of respondents backed using a nuclear bomb on an
Iranian city... Even when we increased the number of expected Iranian civilian
fatalities 20 fold to two million, 59% of respondents—the same percentage
supporting the nuclear attack with the lower death toll—still approved of dropping
the bomb.[5]
One major difference not covered in
this survey is that if this scenario came true, public opinion and military
planners would have to consider the possibility that nuclear armed nations
might come to Iran’s defense. The unique circumstances of 1945 cannot be
recreated. We now know that the world bristles with 15,000 atomic and hydrogen
bombs and we know that an uncontrollable escalation that would destroy the
world. In other words, the reasons for restraint are practical and selfish, not
moral. Those who still justify Hiroshima and Nagasaki have a different attitude
about the present or future use of nuclear weapons because they fear the
repercussions on themselves, but disregard the violence that would be inflicted
on the first target—that aggressor who had it coming, who had to be stopped.
If a nuclear weapon is ever used
deliberately again, it’s a sure thing that the decision will be justified just
as it was in 1945. It will be said that there was an implacable aggressor. They
had to be stopped. We hoped it would save lives and shorten the war. Our
intentions were good.
Notes
[1] Ward Wilson, “The
Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan–Stalin Did.” Foreign Policy, May 30, 2013.
[2] Gar Alperovitz, “Nuclear
Attack on Japan Was Opposed by American Military Leadership,” Truth-out.org, January 14, 2014.
[3] Gar Alperovitz, “The
Decision to Bomb Hiroshima,” Counterpunch,
August 5, 2011.
[4] Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the
Surrender of Japan (Belknap, 2006).
[5] Scott D. Sagan and Benjamin A.
Valentino, “Would
the US drop the bomb again?” Wall
Street Journal, May 19, 2016.
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