Was The Us Justified Dbq Research Paper

Was the United States justified in using the Atomic Bomb against Japan? When the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan in the summer of 1945, the world was shocked, and all war immediately ceased. The United States justified their decision to use the atomic bomb to avoid invading mainland Japan which would have resulted in massive casualties of both Americans and Japanese, and would have surpassed the number of deaths resulting from the actual atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Knowing the Japanese were ruthless in their military decisions, motives, and use of suicide aircraft; President Truman also knew using nuclear warfare would stop Japan without killing massive numbers of American soldiers. The attack caused

In his postwar memoirs, former president Harry Truman recalled how military leaders had told him that a half-million Americans might be killed in an invasion of Japan. This figure has become canonical among those seeking to justify the bombing. But it is not supported by military estimates of the time. As Stanford historian Barton Bernstein has noted, the U.S. Joint War Plans Committee predicted in mid-June 1945 that the invasion of Japan, set to begin Nov. 1, would result in 193,000 U.S. casualties, including 40,000 deaths. America’s decision to use the atomic bomb was only one factor considered. The “selection of targets to produce the greatest military effect on the Japanese people and thereby shorten the war;” and the “morale effect upon the enemy” was also critical to ending the war. (Source: Manhattan Project Investigation Group 1946. http:avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/ mpmenu.asp) The leaders of other foreign countries, such as the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill also saw the benefit of using the atomic bomb to give peace to the world. (Source: Excerpt #2) So there was a unanimous decision from many supporting countries agreeing to stopping the war through the use of the atomic

The Japanese were ruthless and brutal when it came to their militaristic decisions and motives. Dropping the atomic bomb was our final hope in stopping them from performing further harm. Either way, lives were going to be taken. The question we must ask ourselves is whether we wanted those lives to be those of Americans or the Japanese. President Truman had to make a vital decision, and using nuclear warfare was the only way to stop Japan without killing American soldiers. Furthermore, the use of the atomic bomb convinced the world of its horror and prevented future use when nuclear weapons became more accessible, it also displayed our military might to other threatening and powerful countries. To conclude, the United States was justified in using the atomic bomb since it brought the war to an end, saved even more Japanese and American lives from being lost, and resulted in the restriction of nuclear weapons being used in the