Was the US justified in using atomic bombs against japan?

Answer 1

That depends on who you ask. If you ask a Marine or soldier in the Pacific in 1945, they would probably agree that it was justified. The casualty projections for the invasion were running at an expected 2,000.000 killed and wounded. Don't forget most Americans also blamed Japan for getting the US into the war by attacking Pearl Harbor. The Japanese obviously didn't feel that the unleashing of the bomb on civilians was justified.

Answer 2

Based on the information available to the US Gov't at the time? Yes. Because, to the best of the knowledge of the US Gov't and Military, Japan would never surrender and a full-scale invasion of the Japanese mainland would be the only way (other than the Manhatten Project) to end the war - which was expected to cost more than 1 million lives.

Base in the information that we know now? Nope. Japan was attempting to surrender, but their mistake was using Russia as the intermediary. The problem was that Russia wanted to conquer Japan, so it was in their interests to let the war drag on to weaken the Japanese military even more.

As they say, hind-sight is 20/20. It is too easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback, and much to difficult to be the ones making the hard decision. But a decision needed to be made, and the right one was made based on the information and intelligence that was available to the decision-makers.

Answer 3

In War, FAIR rarely enters the equation. The use of the atomic bomb was justified by the USA by the fact that it caused fewer casualties than were anticipated by a massive land invasion of the Japanese mainland.

It is also worth noting that the USSR had declared war on Japan just weeks before the use of the atomic bomb, and had already seized one small Japanese island. It is significant that even today, long after the end of WW II and after the end of the Cold War, Russia retains possession of that island and refuses to return it to Japan. Strategically, it was felt that it was necessary to bring the war to a quick conclusion before Japan was overrun by Russia, as Eastern Europe had been.

Answer 4

According to most historians and military specialists, war would have lasted longer without Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, may be of three, four or five years. The American victory was obvious, but the Japanase resistance was tough.

President Trumann thought that using the atomic bomb would make japan give away more quickly.

Was it justified ? If you have an military approach, yes it problably was. If you have a humanistic approach, surely not.

History is not bad or good. History is facts. Of course, everyone can have his own judgment. (The Nazi's were bad guys). But we were not there and all we have to do, and all we can do is learning from it.

Answer 5

Yes, but I am an American born at the end of the 'baby-boom'. Had my father not survived a seemingly inevitable invasion of Japan, I would be unable to answer this question at all. A person of Japanese descent may have an entirely different opinion.

Answer 6

Absolutely, and kept dropping them as fast as we could build them until Japan surrendered. After the Little Boy and Fat Man that we did drop, we had 21 more Fat Man style bombs in various stages of production or scheduled to enter production in 1945. The first of these left Los Alamos before the Japanese surrender on August 14, arrived in San Francisco on August 18, to be air shipped by Colonel Tibbits himself to Tinnian. It was returned to Los Alamos.

The alternative of the planned invasion would have:

1. killed a million allied troops, a million jap troops, up to 10 million jap civilians.
2. the invasion would have extended the war by at least a year possibly more than two.
3. resulted in a communist north japan & free south japan; almost certainly resulting in a japan war sometime in the 50s or 60s like the korean & Vietnam wars.
4. had the war lasted one to two years longer and the information gotten out that Truman had a weapon that could have shortened it & chose not to use it, he would almost certainly been the first president impeached, thrown out of office, and convicted as a traitor!

Answer 7

i don't think it was because even though it had saved many people lives but it also had killed many civilians of japan who had nothing to do with it...

Answer 8

The justification for using the atomic bomb was that it ended the war , or at least ended it sooner and thereby saved countless American-and Japanese-lives .