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I haven’t seen the film yet so I don’t know if they get into this, but a large number of the scientists involved with the Manhattan Project were working because they were terrified that the Nazis would build a bomb before the Allies. When, for several reasons, that failed to happen, they were relieved that the bomb wouldn’t have to be used. They felt betrayed when it was used against Japan, who were not developing a bomb and who could have been defeated using conventional means.
the argument put forward was that continuing the war (with a possible drawn-out ground invasion of japan) would cost more lives than demonstrating 2 nukes.
Continued firebombing (which absolutely would not have stopped, and would’ve increased in intensity) alone would have killed far more than the bombs did.
I always see it posed as “we either nuked Japan or we invaded”, but the nukes were absolutely used in preparation for a land invasion. Nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki fit into the highly controversial US strategy of strategic bombing Japanese industry prior to a land invasion, and they were not even the most deadly of our strategic bombing campaigns against Japan (the fire bombing of Tokyo was worse). A proper invasion of Japan post introduction of nuclear bombs commanded by one of our most infamously nuke happy commanders, Douglas MacArthur, planned to have US troops marching through the radioactive wasteland formerly known as Japan slaughtering anything that resisted them. It wasn’t an either or, we weren’t nuking Japan as an alternative to a land invasion, we were nuking them in preparation for a land invasion
Yes. that was the argument put forward. Similar arguments have been put forward for almost every military and major terrorist action ever taken. People can subscribe to the justifications, or not, as they see fit. The real thing to be cautious about is if you accept such justifications but only when your country is the one making them.
They could have dropped the bombs on the coast or a non populated area as a warning, and act if they didn’t surrender though. That’s a demonstration, dropping it in a city/town was not, that was a masacre.
They dropped the first one on a city and that didn’t get the point across, what would bombing a beach do?
the plan was always to drop at least 2, to show it was not a one-off trick.
The usa looked at Nazis and went “wtf only we get to be like that” and thenattacked nuked Japanese civilians
