Why Did the US Drop Nuclear Weapons on a Weakened Japan

Question

Why did the United States drop two nuclear bombs on the Japanese mainland when they were already on the wining side?

Answer 1

The official reason was to avoid a long and costly battle attempting to force the Japanese to surrender by invading the mainland. The Japanese were tenacious fighters and their tactics of Kamikaze suicide bombers and their courageous defense of their country in engagements such as the Battle of Okinawa, lend substantial credibility to this claim. Some such as General Eisenhower disagreed to as whether such a maneuver was really necessary.

"...in 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

"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. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."

Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380

Regardless of whether the Japanese government was seriously considering surrender, the bombing forced the decision and was less costly to the Americans (obviously) than a protracted war. Whether a protracted war would have spared Japanese lives as opposed to several more months of brutal warfare is an open question.

It is my opinion that this motivation was one of several competing reasons as to why the Americans decided to detonate nuclear bombs on Japanese civilian centers. In a large part I feel this was simply the natural evolution of the doctrine of total war applied to aerial bombings of civilian targets, first seen in action during the German bombing of Guernica and continued by the Americans both in the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo.

Beyond this there was also the ability to justifiably test an atomic bomb in warfare conditions. American military scientists were very interested in seeing the effects of nuclear weapons in many environments (even detonating them underwater to see what would happen). Obviously the most important environment to test it on would be that of urban or military targets. The prior would be unthinkable, outside of a war anyway.

Also, by deploying the bomb America was able to send a strong message about the balance of power after the war. Given that there is always some degree of uncertainty about political relations and military stability after the war, the bomb was certainly a strong message that Americans were not to be messed with. I don't think any of these motivations were alone sufficient in explaining why the American high command decided to drop the bombs; its far more likely that it was a combination of several of these and possibly additional concerns as well.

Answer 2

The Soviet point of view was that the US used the bomb to threat the USSR.

According the Great Soviet Encyclopedy, article "Nuclear weapons" ("Ядерное оружие") "Применение ЯО не вызывалось военной необходимостью. Правящие круги США преследовали политические цели — продемонстрировать свою силу для устрашения свободолюбивых народов, запугать Советский Союз." "Use of the nuclear weapons was not justified by military necessity: the ruling class of the USA pursued political aims - to demonstrate their strength to the freedom-loving peoples, to threaten the USSR."

But my opinion is that the bomb was actually developed against Germany and only the fact that they surrendered so quickly saved them and brought such misfortune to Japan. The US already spent much money on the new weapon and just could not leave it unused.

It was also instrumental to demonstrate technical superiority over enemy (including Germany, which at the time was considered the most technologically advanced nation), so that to break an image of "advanced" and "civilized" Germans defeated by barbaric and underdeveloped inferior nations (the Germans did not consider the Anglo-Saxons sub-human, but still always empathized that the Germans are the most productive and creative). It was known that Germany developed a range of "wonder-weapons" so that their enemies had to get something to counter-balance such image.

Answer 3

The war in Europe had brought the powerful red army, which was mostly responsible for beating Nazis to Berlin in Germany. Us and the soviet Union were having some disagreements on arragements on Europe. Us wanted to let the russians know who is the boss (in the words of Truman) and thus US army roasted nearly half a million Japanese and hurt millions in the coming generations to achieve that. President Truman was instrumental in this by failing to stop the hawks in the army. FDR (Rosevelt would never allow the vision of post war power grab to extend to nuking Japan.) Japanese cities were already incinerated and the most worrisome thing for the Japanese was a Russian Invasion and not the nuclear attack. Also they could not stomach the hanging of their emperor. US delayed assurances to safeguard the emperor until it had exploded the second bomb, on the same day USSR attacked Manchuria, then controled by Japanese forces. Japanese were considered to be sub human at that time and thus the political cost for US politicians was negligable. To understand this well watch Oliver Stone's documentary "Untold history of the USA" episode 2 and 3.

Answer 4

The Japanese had 4 terms they were demanding in order to "surrender":

• The emperor would remain inviolate.

• Japan's borders would be restored to those of summer of 1942, requiring the allies to return to Japanese control every island and country that they had been thrown off of, such as Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and the Philippines.

• Japanese troops would surrender only to Japanese officers. No allied officer or soldier would be allowed to be involved. In effect, the Japanese troops would return to barracks.

• The Japanese would pay no reparations to anyone for what they did.

To Westerners, this means that the Japanese would be "returning to barracks" and not surrendering in any way that word was understood to mean. The Allies stated clearly "unconditional surrender"

The Japanese felt that they could disgust and demoralize the Allies with the kamekaze attacks and drive the Allies to the bargaining table.

As for the 2nd atomic bomb, we knew what the Japanese were thinking because we were reading their codes. The high command claimed that since it took 4 years for the Allies to make the first atomic bomb, then it would take 4 more years for the second atomic bomb. They knew what an atomic bomb was, and the effects of such weapons, because they had 2 separate atom bomb projects themselves (one in Tokyo using chemical separation of Uranium isotopes, and a diffusion plant in what is now North Korea). Rhodes wrote 2 books (The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun) that discussed this along with other national nuclear projects).

A conventinal land invasion of the "home islands" of Japan was expected to cost between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Allied troops. Based on how fierce the Okinawa fighting was, and that it took about 25 Japanese casualties to inflict 1 Allied casualty, it would be expected that a conventional land invasion of Kyushu and Honshu would end up having to kill tens of millions of Japanese civilians before they would really surrender.

Cook, in Japan at War, lists the number of soldiers in Japan at the time of surrender ate 4,335,500, with 3,527,000 stationed outside Japan (mostly in China and Korea).

In the end, we chose to accept only the first "condition" that the emperor would remain untouched.