The Pros And Cons Of The Atomic Bomb

The end was in sight. The war in Europe has been won, and the Japanese stood as the last of the axis powers. At the Potsdam conference, the allies drafted and delivered an ultimatum for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese. However, the enemy in the pacific refused to give up despite their circumstances. The Allies, specifically the US military, began exploring options of how to force the Japanese into surrender. The ideas of blockades, conventional bombardments, full scale invasion, or use of the developing new weapon – the atomic bomb – was the focus point of the military and of President Truman. The options were weight based upon effectiveness, causality losses, availability/practicality, and other such factors. However, after thorough

After the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese finally surrendered to the allied powers. After the war, the decision of dropping the new destructive weapon was called into question. Many argued that it was unnecessary, and didn’t need to be used, or could have been used differently. Many scientists who worked on the development of the bomb at the Manhattan project claimed that they regretted their work, and even hated that it was used. Many politicians claimed that it was unethical, unproportionate, and unnecessary as the Japanese were about to surrender, and many others claim that the plan to invade would have been a better path to take. On the other hand, many supported the use of the bombs, and one of the men who flew the bombs to be dropped even said that if asked to do so again, he would agree to drop the bomb without hesitation, even volunteer. Also the claim of that the bombs actually saved lives on both sides by preventing the invasion, where countless allied and Japanese lives would undoubtedly lost, was brought up as a positive factor into the support of using the atomic

However, the USSR covertly wanted to join the war against Japan. The Japanese military had ideals which made the direct pursuit of peace impossible, as they jailed or assassinated anyone who made an effort to extend official peace. These unofficial proposals were entirely intolerable to the US as they only provided vague propositions to return territories in exchange for an end to the war. The question now was how to persuade Japans surrender. Despite Japan's major cities being fire-bombed on a nightly basis, the islands blockaded, and the Japanese Navy utterly destroyed, they still refused to surrender. Planning for a massive invasion by Allied forces was underway to try and put an end to the war by taking japans home island. But was this the best solution? The cost in lives for both Allied forces and Japanese civilians would be great. At the same time, the secrete Manhattan Project had just finished testing the first ever atomic bomb, and now provided Harry S. Truman, whom had just become the US President following Franklin Roosevelt's unexpected death, with an alternate option than invasion to get japan to