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The Pros And Cons Of The Atomic Bomb

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Taylor 1 Nash Taylor Ms. Cowels English 9 17 April 2024. The Atomic Bomb Since the beginning of time, humans have made innovations to solve problems. Some of these innovations, such as fire, electricity, or the internet, are things that impact our lives every day. We may not think of it while we use them, but they come with a tradeoff for being very good or potentially destructive if used irresponsibly or in an unintended way. Fire, for example, can be used to cook food or stay warm in chilly winters, but it can also burn down houses, forests, and hurt animals and people. Electricity provides light, transportation, and computing power, but if derived from unsustainable sources can deplete and pollute the earth. A somewhat less thought of, but far reaching invention is the atomic bomb. It was made to protect lives, but at the same time put thousands of …show more content…

This fact would be devastating for whoever the bomb was dropped on, and would set their civilization, infrastructure, and society back many years. Although the atomic bomb comes with negatives, it also comes with very many positives. From the Atomic Heritage Foundation, “The bombs were necessary in order to save American lives and prevent an invasion that might have cost many more lives than the bombs took.” (Atomic Heritage Foundation). The bombs were dropped in order to prevent the loss of American and allied soldiers. From an article called Japan: No Surrender in World War Two we learn, “Although some Japanese were taken prisoner, most fought until they were killed or committed suicide.” (Japan: Never Surrender World War Two). Even when they ran out of ammo, food, or faced impossible scenarios, they nevertheless conducted charges on Allied positions and detonated grenades on themselves if they could also kill their enemy. This came at the price of heavy loss of human lives. The prospect of Allied soldiers being required to take the main

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By July 1945, it was clear that Japan had been weakened by violent attacks, but there was no indication of any weakening of their determination to fight. In addition, the total strength of the Japanese Army was estimated to be close to 5,000,000 men, which posed an even greater threat to the United States (Blanche M. Touhill, 452). In order to end the war and bring down this large, determined army, the Potsdam Declaration was created. This ultimatum was designed to “spare the Japanese people from utter destruction”, as said by Truman (Kevin B., 605). This rejection shows that the Japanese army and government were aware of the possible dangers of the continuation of war and their choice to decline to surrender.

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The United States should have dropped the atomic bomb because it was a way to show the Soviet Union and the whole world of what they are capable of. According to President Truman, the atomic bomb is very destructive. It caused a 60 feet steel tower to crumble and knocked

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Prior to World War I, weapons like the musket were used effectively. The muskets had multiple downsides, including the inaccuracy in aiming the weapon, the long reload time, and the range they can fire to. The fix to all these problems the machine gun was created, an accurate gun, with a quick reload time, and a much longer firing range. The machine gun has had a major impact on warfare during World War I, with the improvements over the prior weapons used. These improvements first changed how machine guns were looked at throughout World War I, starting as such an inavative machine used for defense and by the end starting to be used on the attack.

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At approximately 8:15 am on August 6th, 1945 an American B-29 bomber dropped an Atomic bomb called the Enola Gay under the commanded of former vice president and now president after the death of Roosevelt, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing around 80,000 people. Three days later the second Atomic bomb is dropped on another city of Japan, Nagasaki causes the deaths of 40,000 more. Consequently the Atomic Bomb killed relatively 100,000 more people that died a slow and painful death days after the explosions. Even though the atomic bomb being dropped saved more lives than if the US would have invaded Japan, because the Japanese soldiers don't surrender. , the atomic bomb should have not been dropped for moral reasons because

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The article states, “It achieved its primary objective of shortening the war.” (History on the Net 15) Dropping the bomb actually shortened the war, which also means there were less deaths compared to how many more there would have been if they did not drop the bomb, and the war may have gone on for much longer without the bomb. The article adds, “President Truman and the Allies issued a final ultimatum to Japan, known as the Potsdam Declaration” (History on the Net 19). The president and the Allied powers gave further warning about the bomb and even issued a final compromise, Japan still didn’t do anything and refused to cooperate, which forced the US to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.

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They were so desperate that they were sending kamikaze to U.S. ships in the Pacific (Doc. C). This action showed America just how desperate the Japanese truly were, meaning that they were already winning the war (Doc. C). According to the Air Force Strategy Bombing Survey, “certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945 (well before the date of the [proposed] invasion) Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped” (Doc. K). This means that the Survey agreed that the war would have ended even without the bombing. Furthermore, Dwight Eisenhower stated, “I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act.... first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and second 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.

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After the atomic bomb was dropped and Japanese soldiers got the order to surrender, they started killing themselves because they did not want to surrender because of their bushido ideology. “ The notion that the atomic bombs caused the Japanese surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, has been, for many Americans and virtually all U.S. history textbooks, the default understanding of how and why the war ended”(Source 9). The atomic bomb convinced Japan to end the war, the bomb was catastrophic to Japan and immense damage was dealt in Hiroshima and

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The Atomic bomb was part of the Manhattan project. The reason why they dropped the atomic bomb was to end World II it ended the war. However, it only started the cold war. The bomb was going to be made to defeat the Nazis but, by the time the bomb was tested the Nazis were already defeated. The United states of America was the first country to make and drop an atomic bomb.

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Thanks to a german scientist named Albert Einstein, The United States created the atomic bomb.     Albert Einstein came from germany to warn the president that Germany was going to make an atomic bomb.  President roosevelt then approves the making of the atomic bomb and the project later becomes known as the manhattan project. The first atomic bomb was made in Manhatten, New York, USA.

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First used in war on August 6, 1945 the atomic bomb was dropped on to Hiroshima killing thousands. On that fateful day a door was opened out of which came a monster the world had no idea how to deal with. The ability to destroy a massive amount of the population so effortlessly has created a world-wide issue that continues to this day. Tension runs rampant in international relations, many times due to the power behind atomic bombs and the advancements thereafter. There has been controversy over whether or not U.S. President Truman made the right decision by using the atomic bomb on Japan.

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Specifically, as I have stated above, the Japanese had an extremely strong will and would not surrender even if they had lost many of their men. According to “Arguments Supporting the Bomb” by Michael Barnes, “Some in the leadership argued that there was no way the Americans could have refined enough fissionable material to produce more than one bomb. But then the bombing of Nagasaki had demonstrated otherwise, and a lie told by a downed American pilot convinced War Minister Korechika Anami that the Americans had as many as a hundred bombs. . . Even so, hours of meetings and debates lasting well into the early morning hours of the 10th still resulted in a 3-3 deadlock. Prime Minister Suzuki then took the unprecedented step of asking Emperor Hirohito”.

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Japan had to accept unconditional surrender; if they disagreed with that request, America would drop the bomb. What made the Japanese surrender was the retention of their emperor; anything else couldn’t have forced a Japanese surrender, including the attack of the atomic bomb. As Japan's Prime Minister Suzuki spelled out on June 9, 1945. “Should the Emperor system be abolished, they [the Japanese people] would lose all reason for existence…. [and have] no choice but to go on fighting to the last man” (Butow).

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The Japanese had done many ruthless things towards other countries, and they did not have a bomb there, so they could not do anything to defend themselves. Although there are many reasons to drop the bomb on Hiroshima, there were just as many reasons as why the bomb should not have been dropped. The bomb killed 60,000-80,000 people, and most of those civilians had nothing to do with the war. As the years went on, many more people died, which was caused by illnesses from radiation exposure. Even if people survived the bombing, their children would also be affected.

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Even though they have already lost the war they still wanted to keep on fighting and not surrender for anything. They would still attack and then the United States had to act in order to guarantee Japan surrendering.

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According to an excerpt from Three Narratives of our Humanity, “It is hard to imagine that the Japanese would have surrendered without the atomic bomb”. The bomb was a necessary step in the war to defeat the ever growing Japanese military. Dropping a bomb seemed like the most efficient way to kill a large amount of the Japanese without having to but insert thousands of American soldiers into enemy territory. According to a World War II veteran, “The people who preferred invasion to A-bombing seemed to have no intention of proceeding to the Japanese fronts

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