This Sunday is Hiroshima Day, the 61st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki. While the conventional wisdom is that the mass murder of 150,000 Japanese civilians (and U.S. prisoners of war) was absolutely necessary to end the Pacific sphere of World War II by minimizing U.S. troop casualties and forcing a quick, unconditional Japanese surrender, a thorough review of historical documents and secondary analyses will tell you a very different story.
“The Hiroshima Myth” explains that the nuclear holocaust in Hiroshima was more for flipping off the Russians (who had entered the war three days earlier) and securing America’s new role as a superpower. It’s time for us to stop heralding the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a necessary evil and recognize them for what they really are: abominable, unprosecuted war crimes.
But that was sixty years ago. Not much we can do about those 150,000 murders now, but we can take a moment to think about the United States’ nuclear strategy. This Common Dreams article, documenting two people’s protest at a nuclear missile silo in North Dakota, is illuminating.
A friendly cab driver in Bismarck told me “If North Dakota seceded from the Union, we would be the world’s third most-powerful nuclear state.”
Not counting those screwed on top of intercontinential ballistic missiles stored in underground concrete silos, North Dakota has more than 1,700 nuclear warheads. The Peace Garden State alone has the capacity to send any country of any size (from Burkino Faso to China) back to the Stone Age, with a considerable amount of radiation and fallout to accompany them on their time travel journey.
In an age where conflicts are increasingly fought among supranational groups rather than nation-states (both the U.S. and Israel are fighting wars against organizations, not nations), is having an overwhelming nuclear arsenal the wisest decision for America? If Al-Qaeda set off a dirty bomb in downtown Seattle, where would we send our nuclear weapons? Southeastern Afghanistan? Beirut? Tehran?
It strikes me as folly that we’ve got this enormous stockpile–and have been the only nation so far to use it–and because of that stockpile alone, we believe we can dictate to other nations whether they are allowed to possess nuclear weapons or not.
We’re not fools. Iran wants to process uranium in order to run their nuclear power plants (Iran is/was an oil-rich country; their willingness to convert to nuclear energy should tell us something about the coming age of depleted oil), but they’re definitely going to consider making nuclear warheads while they’re at it. Who wouldn’t? The U.S. has dealt with India and Pakistan on a much more eye-to-eye level since they became self-declared nuclear powers. A nuclearized Iran changes the rules of the game and forces the U.S. to either sit down at the bargaining table or blow Iran to smithereens–neither are very good solutions.
Shouldn’t the U.S. walk the walk and drastically reduce their stockpiles before they can run around telling other countries whether they can have nuclear weapons or not? The issue of nuclear weapons is far too serious for Bush’s cowboy diplomacy. Allow North Dakota to live up to its nickname, The Peace Garden State, and maybe our international reputation could improve. Sue for peace, and it may just happen.
Then again, Japan tried to, and they got nuked instead.
© Copyrighted material. This article cannot be copied, reproduced or redistributed without the express written consent of the author. As with every blog on this website, this blog does not reflect the opinion of DeafDC.com.
16 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Its interesting how the image of the nuclear bombs make it easy for us to remember and question the death of 150,000 Japanese yet no one remembers or discusses the events that lead up to that including the 250,000 Chinese who were slaughtered by Japan during Sei-Go.
Using the bombs will forever be discussed but lets not forget the true horror that was then Japan.
its not just the 150,000 deaths (the numbers are disputed) — there were tons more who died slow deaths years later due to the radiation exposure. then adding onto the horror of the deaths is the generational impact the bombs had - babies born to survivors suffered defects due to the radiation exposure. a visit to hiroshima would leave any visitor with no doubt that nukes are never justified.
Yes, I am well aware of the long lasting effects and deaths caused by the nukes as well as the numbers being constantly disputed. However I do believe that without showing such force the War would not have ended as quickly and even more deaths would have been the result.
However its all speculation, opinions differ such as most things in life.
I’m sorry - I had linked to the wrong page. It’s fixed now–please take some time to read “The Hiroshima Myth.” If Japan was surrendering (and it was), then the argument that the war would have gone and on is moot.
I’ve always been fantasticated by how the cold war and our nuclear stockpile buildup has affected our national psyche. In other words, “the domestication of doomsday.”
I would highly recommend this book by Tom Vanderbilt–Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America
While we probably won’t see a repeat business in the construction of these structures since we are no longer worried about the whole country going down the tubes in a nuclear holocaust with another nation-state. However, we still might see an entire city destroyed one at a time if a terrorist organizations are able their hands on a nuclear bomb. Such protective structures may be rendered useless since the attack would be a total surprise and there would be no 30 minutes warning after the long range missile trajectories have been calculated. People just would not have the time to escape to the protective structures.
It all boils down to people’s perceptions of the cost/benefit ratio of building some kind of radiation detection equipment as preemptive protection in the unlikely event that their own city is targeted. Here in San Diego, there is several trials going on with the radiation detection equipment currently being developed. They are hoisting it over the freeway in hopes of possibly catching that one rogue truck or scanning the freights of arriving cargo ships.
Only time will tell where the world is heading…
Use of nuke weapons are kinda outdated in many ways.
EMG (electromagentic) and selective biological weapons are the future of warfare. EMG is most cost-effective, reliable and logical weaponry within the modern warfare.
EMG could disable the particular community especially daily life without damaging the structural contents of existing buildings. It ever doesn’t deform anyone.
Biological weapons don’t have to be all destructive and life-threatening. Someone could emit the controllable scents across the region in disabling the so-called enemy or parlyze the entire community.
RLM
Two things.
We haven’t used our nuclear arsenals on another country for more than 60 years. And we don’t want to unless it’s absolutely necessary and a last chance option. Plus, we don’t go around saying that a certain country should be wiped off the map. Or lob several test missiles at another country either.
Secondly, it was either an aerial and ground force assault on the whole country of Japan or a few nuclear bombs. Had we gone the route of ground troops with air and naval support invading Japan, there would be more deaths on both sides. More deaths on the Japanese sides since we’d have to some how take control of Japan by ground troops. It was hard enough to extract those Japanese mole rats out of their tunnels on those Pacific Islands. Imagine the whole island of Japan and Okinawa.
None of this would have happened had not Japan attacked the United States that embroilled the United States into WWII. Japan never bothered to think about the consequences of their own actions that would ultimately have their citizens be killed by the hundred of thousands.
This seems to be the classic peacenik complaints about the atomic bombing of Japan. Understandable that these deaths were horrible and that those innocent Japanese civilians never deserved such horrible deaths. Now, unless somebody here can think up of a better idea on how the United States could have ended the war on a better note with Japan surrending, I’m all ears.
Also, it has been proven that Japan was already in the process of developing a nuclear bomb. We destroyed their nuclear labatories.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/aw...../41bom.htm
Also, click on the links inside. Interesting stuff.
Had we not moved in earlier with the atomic bombing of Japan and favored ground troops, this would have allowed Japan extra time to finish their nuclear plan. And they would have no qualms to use it immediately on the United States.
Something to think about when time is really was of essence back then.
I believe that near the end of WWII there were intelligence intercepts that showed that the Japanese were about to cave in and surrender in matters of weeks.
I can only surmise that the real reason for using the bombs on Japan was to show the Soviet Union that America was ready to use the bomb if necessary to prevent the Russians from gaining more territories in Far East and Europe.
If it was to be used solely to force a surrender, a demonstration of the bomb would have been sufficient. There was no real need to actually drop not just one but two bombs on cities with thousands of people.
Uh, they had 3 working atomic bomb ready at the time. The first one they tested it here in America in the New Mexico desert. Scientists didn’t know how it would explode or how much explosive force it would generate. Some feared it would light the atmosphere on fire.
Now, remember, We had 3 working bombs and took a very, very long time to develop them. The first was a test. A successful detonation.
The 2nd one was dropped on Hiroshima first but only before they warned them to surrender first. They didn’t blink after that bomb.
So, they dropped the 3rd bomb on Nagasaki. Japan blinked only because Truman said we have more bombs only when they didn’t. It was a bluff but they had the technology to make more but then again it would take time.
Remember, Japan has it’s own nuclear lab and was working on a bomb. They know it takes time to make a bomb and they could end up theorizing, after American dropped a demo bomb near Japan on some isolated piece of the country, that U.S. had only limited number of atomic bombs and they could essentially would dare them to drop on their cities.
If you only had three bombs and use used 1 of them in a secret test. You had better make the best use of the two remaining bombs to provide the fullest deterent effect.
Both of you, Jared Evan and McConnell are absolutely right about many things on the injustifable atomic bombings of two Japanese cities.
Atomic scientists protested to President Truman about the proposed bombings which considered the act against humanity.
Truman, the staunch communist foe, wanted to show USSR that his country was capable of producing the unimaginable military weapon. Truman was aware of the USSR’s ongoing development of hydrogen bomb.
The atomic bombings left the Japanese society socially, politically and culturally impacted above the normal human memories.
The nowaday Japan seems less opposed to the idea of nuclear energy unlike the pre-90s decades.
Robert L. Mason (RLM)
We store nuke in Okinawa without letting the Japanese know.
And Amanda, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. They started it, so don’t be a Blame Americe 101 person.
this isnt an issue of who hit who first. there is a dramatic difference between bombing military ships at pearl harbor and nuking entire cities of civilians. and are you sidestepping the issue of japan’s surrendering?
Whoa, Nellie…I couldn’t disagree with you more about the 8/6 and 8/9/45 bombings.
No less than 1,000,000 Americans were saved from death or wounds from a mainland invasion. The Imperial Army was far from capitulating in Aug ‘45. My reading, not minimal on the subject, tells me that Truman had little choice…and you must look at the decision in the perspective of 1945…NOT with your (im)perfect 20/20 or 20/2006 hindsight.
Look at what happened 6 mos earlier on Iwo Jima. More than 5,000 Americans DIED for 5 square miles. Nearly 25,000 were wounded. Consider those numbers.
Look at what happened at Okinawa, a few weeks earlier. This was one of the bloodiest and most hotly contested encounters of the war. Over 30 Navy ships were lost to kamikazes. Thousands more died. The fighting reverted to WWI trench warfare. Hundreds died to gain a few yards a day…day after day.
Japan had several thousand airplanes on the mainland that were capable of being used for kamikazes against an invasion. No shortage of pilots/soldiers willing to give up their lives for the Emperor. On Okinawa, hundreds of soldiers and civilians willingly died rather than to surrender to the Americans. In nearly every single battle for 4 yrs, only handsful of Japanese soldiers surrendered…
Part 2
No other army in the war or any other western war had similar #s.
The Japanese were ready to fight…by the millions. Altho we’d been bombing the mainland nonstop for months, they were still manufacturing more planes than they were losing. While we were decimating their cities, they weren’t giving up. While their navy was virtually nonexistent, their subs were still sinking our ships (read about the Indianapolis, the cruiser than delivered one of the A bombs…it was torpedoed and nearly half its crew was lost to sharks for the 4 days that it took for anyone to notice they were missing).
It’s revisionist history to think that we had a choice. The Japanese had just waged one of the most vicious campaigns in history. Read about the Rape of Nanking. Read abut the 1,000,000 Filipinos lost in the last few months of the war AFTER MacArthur invaded/returned. A million!!! In a few months!
And you wanted soldiers like GN and his buddies to invade? And face a populace willing to die? To die for an Emperor who’d been given chance after chance to surrender and had refused? Whose troops fought to the last man on every island that we invaded? (and we leapfrogged over many merely because there was no need to invade and suffer losses).
Sure we would’ve won eventually…but consider how many MORE Japanese would’ve died in that invasion. Fewer Japanese died from the two A-bombs than from any invasion.
And before you say…well the Emperor and Imperial Army were ready to surrender…read a little about the coup that almost occurred when the Army found out the Emperor might budge and turn soft. Even if he lasted only another month, we probly would’ve killed another 100,000 or more in our ongoing bombings. After Iwo, our bombers had a much shorter flight time to all home islands of Japan. After Okinawa, our fighters were able to sortie to the home islands. Our air war was only ramping up. And how much credence could we lend what little intelligence was coming out from Japan about a potential, possible, undocumented surrender?
Sure, there are countervailing arguments. Perhaps the Russkie threat did encourage some in the military. But the invasion planning and staging were imminent. GIs and Marines and swabbies were soon going to die in unprecedented numbers. The Navy was going to lose far more than the 30 or 40 ships lost in Okinawa…cuz their ships would be so much closer to mainland and less time in the air for kamikazes to be shot down or intercepted.
YOU make the call. YOU decide to send more kids to die…mostly kids 5-8 yrs younger than you are now. After the country had lost about 200,000 DEAD so far (more, actually). And hundreds of thousands wounded. Watch the last hour of Band of Brothers…talk with WW2 soldiers…there was abject fear of going to the South Pacific…it was our Siberia…you went there to die. Sure more **** died than Americans…but too many Americans died. Any invasion would’ve likely resulted in corpses on both sides throughout the home islands far in excess of those created on the 6th and 9th.