“On august 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45) an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki killing a total of over 120,000.” [History.com] Today, it is highly debated whether it was necessary for the US to drop the atomic bomb. I believe dropping the atomic bomb was the right decision for the United States. The reasons for this stance will be argued under the topics of self-defense and limiting total damage.
According to USHMM.com (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), an online resource that includes a timeline of notable events that happened during World War II, “Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The next day the united states declared war on Japan.” Being that Japan prompted the war against the United States, it is assumable that Japan was ready to fight against the United States. Furthermore, the Japanese would have kept prompting United States with
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According to secondworldwarhistory.com, “The United States casualty count was 416,800 in military casualties and 1,700 in civilian casualties, while Japan’s casualties counted were 2,120,000 in military and 580,00 in civilian during World War 2”. This statistic means that over the course of the time Japan was in the war from “1937-1945” [USHMM.com] less than 10%, equivalent to about 270,000 people, were killed by the bomb. If it were not for the bomb, the war would have been prolonged killing. If you average the statistics provided above, about 267,000 casualties per year accrued on only the Japanese side. I believe it is safe to say more than 200,000 casualties would have been added to the war before it was over. Therefore, dropping the atomic bomb was a smart decision for the preservation of both