That's the official pretext / party line of the US, to self-justify the nuclear bombings (as if they ever could be justified).

The reality is the Japanese were dead scared (also of the incoming Soviets) and were looking to surrender. They just didn't want an unconditional surrender, but to save some face/dignity.

And that was, to the US, unacceptable while the USSR was closing in on Japan from the other side, and they had two perfectly good bombs they wanted to test and send a clear, post-WWII-era message.

I wouldn't call dropping two nuclear bombs on civilians (men, women, and children) a concern for the human toll. Not even conventional bombing (which had gone on for a while) was needed at that point, Japan was giving up the ghost and just wanted to save some face.

Exactly, Firebombings in Japan resulted in about twice as many human casualties than with Little Man and Fat Boy combined.

Before the 1st bomb the United States called for the unconditional surrender or "face prompt and utter destruction". Japan's response was their intent to fight on to the bitter end. After the first bomb Truman called for Japan's surrender, or "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth."

To no avail, and after the second bomb was detonated Emperor Hirohito called for accepting the terms of the allies, but even the surrender, in hindsight, was probably lucky as there was a failed coup, which if successful would have lead to the continued and ongoing armed conflict.

Arguably, the US was right. If I understand correctly, the US was determined to break Japan's militaristic social organization, to prevent another war. They needed unconditional surrender to do so. And, in fact, Japan has not been aggressive after World War II. They didn't re-arm and start another war, with hundreds of thousands of more (at least) casualties.

So the moral calculus is really not as simple as what you say.

The justification was it ended the war faster and reduced further death and destruction.

The Japanese were not planning on surrendering before the any atomic bombs were dropped. They were not planning to surrender after the first atomic bomb was dropped. They only just started to waver after the second.

Dropping the atomic bombs saved lives, both American and Japanese (and others), over the alternatives.

The declaration of war by the Soviet Union decided the end of the war. Japan wouldn't have had time to build their own bomb and they would have surrendered anyway.

In fact it is not even proven that the bombings had any meaningful impact to the decisions to surrender. If the Japanese didn't surrender after having whole cities firebombed, it is insane to think the atomic bombings would have had any more impact on moral.

The US did not use the atomic bomb for humanitarian reasons, to end the war earlier or other such other lies. They did it a a show of strength, targeted at the Soviets.

It is sad that even after so many years, the same propaganda lies get repeated. Why are people still defending the use of the atomic bomb?

When 75 million people have died across the world and nations destroyed, I don't think it's unfair to demand the unconditional surrender of the belligerents. Even by today's morality.

The USA was pushing to an unconditional surrender of Japan, well aware that it was one of the few things the Japanese would deny for a surrender. Surrender was already in negotiations, it was just the unconditional part the Japanese were against to save some face with their population.

The USA wanted to drop the bomb, not negotiate, there was this new weapon that could show which nation has the biggest dick around and there was a willingness to use it as a showcase to the Soviets, to the world. And so the USA dropped the bomb.

There were other avenues to explore, Japan was already aware it was going to lose, continuing the blockade of Japan would obliterate their industrial production capacity as Japan doesn't have much natural resources, they wouldn't be able to leave the island under siege, it would've taken longer but an amphibious assault wouldn't necessarily be needed to force them into a negotiated surrender. The USA pushed the unconditional surrender as the only option exactly to have casus belli to drop the atomic bomb.

It's pretty naïve as well to believe the narrative that was pushed forward to justify dropping the bomb, it's part of American propaganda and something I wish Americans would learn from their past, the same as Japan does not educate their citizenry on the abominations they did during WW2, the USA does not educate its people on the absurdity of dropping atomic bombs and instantly vaporise hundreds of thousands of people just to show the world it had a new big dick.

No, it was very mixed opinions even among high militaries about the decision. Some people saying that the war was in fact over, and the losses would have been less just waiting out the Japanese. You can have different opinions about this, but it is not a fact that it is the utilitarian perspective to nuke.

It worked. It didn't have to happen twice. It shouldn't have been used like a human experiment.

> It might take months to make and deliver more.

Wait until you are prepared. Or you can stop with a bomb. The US was preparing for 10 bombs until the end of the year.

> Thousands were dying every day on both sides.

No, such number of non-combatants were dying only in Japan.

> The US leaders decided a demonstration was too risky, what if it failed?

No, the bombing succeeded. No need for second one. Also Japan was ready to surrender two months before Hiroshima.

>Meanwhile, tick, tick, thousands more would die every day while the US dawdled.

The bombing in Tokyo is also known as one of the most inhuman bombing ever recorded. Bombing never happens like a natural disaster. If the US does not take such action it will never happen.

The whole point of using both bombs was to demonstrate not only that it had been achieved but also that it was easy to repeat indefinitely, since the consensus among German and Japanese scientists seemed to be that atomic bombs were impractical to implement in a reasonable timeframe. Had only one been used, or so the thinking went, the suspicion would have been there that it was a one-off thing.

Moreover, by most accounts, use of the atomic bomb didn't really change the behind the scenes politics of the Japanese leadership, though it may have accelerated things. The faction who wanted to sue for peace continued to do so and the military continued to advocate continuation of the war even after both bombs were used.

Those aren't terms. On a simple, likely over discused level, the Japanese leaders were against the removal of the Emperor. If the US had provided terms accepting a figurehead role for him they may have been willing to discuss peace.

>Keep in mind they were dropping leaflets warning the target cities' population of imminent doom for days before the bombings.

Though leaflets were dropped in Japan, they did not list Hiroshima as a target and they were not dropped in Hiroshima.

> If you had a weapon you knew could end the war and lead to much, much less casualties on your side why not use it? leader would prefer the death of hundreds of thousands of his own soldiers (and millions of civilian casualties) in a total war because nuclear somehow makes it less ethical?

Again, those weren't the only options available. It's entirely possible their weapon could have ended the war without using it on cities.

So now ask yourself:

Is it ethically better to use conventional weaponry to kill more people over a longer time? Conventional weaponry was used to firebomb Tokyo in March 1945; more people died in that one series of day/night raids than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

And they're saying this was better.

They're also claiming that having a Japan "blockaded and starving" while we waited them out is ethically better.

However difficult it is to precisely target an atom bomb, starvation is even more difficult to use as a weapon (as they're proposing): it doesn't obey rules of engagement, you can't direct at military objectives... hell, it would actually preferentially kill civilians, starting with the weakest, since the military would ensure they received higher rations.

And this is always how this argument devolves: People suggesting things which are actually even more cruel since they find it axiomatic that there is no worse thing you can do to someone than to use a single very big bomb to kill them instead of a million tiny little cumulative cuts.

(Edited to correct the subject proposing the bomb-'em-all argument).

As far as MacArthur, he and his staff were certainly not alone in their estimate of the political situation in Japan. FDR's military aide, Adm. Leahy, also thought that the bomb was unnecessary, as did Adm. Nimitz in Honolulu.

On the other hand, Leahy also thought the bomb would never work (he even used his "expertise in explosives" to support that argument).

And both FDR and Truman had been briefed regarding the two proposed upcoming invasions (of Kyushu and then Honshu) that the American and Japanese casualties would be monumental.

MacArthur was always thought he was the politician as much as he was the general; it's the reason he was fired from his service in the Korean War despite his absolutely brilliant orchestration of the Incheon landings to save the war effort for the U.N.

He's not even wrong in this regard though: Using the atom bomb was not absolutely militarily essential. As your article mentions, we could simply haved starved them all to death instead, like the ethical and noble creatures that we are.

"Such an action" is easily rationalized by realizing that in the context of total war, against a fanatical and brutal enemy, dropping atomic weapons on Japan was more humane than the results of letting the war drag on for many more months.

The only ones who don't understand that are bleeding-heart revisionists.

Yes, although the situation is now understood quite differently. The atom bomb gave Japan's leaders a critically necessary (due to their culture) way to both save face and surrender.

Their need for a way out was desperate. Not particularly because of the US (& UK), whose invasion of southern Japan they felt well-prepared to fight. (Inch-by-inch, and to the death.) But because of the Soviets, who the Japanese had assumed would say neutral, per the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact (signed 13 April 1941, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_Neutra...).

Unfortunately, the Soviets declared war against Japan on 7 August 1945. Two days later, they invaded Japanese-held Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, northern Korea, etc. The Red Army, with 1.5 million men, quickly inflicted massive defeats on the Japanese army - and parts of the latter were retreating in panic. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manchuria_Operation_map-e... for some sense of the speed and scale of this offensive.)

Hence Japan's decision, on 15 August, to surrender. Neither their ability to hold off the US in the south, nor their willingness to absorb hits from the new American bomb, would matter one bit if the Red Army quickly conquered Japan from the north and west.

I absolutely would argue in favor of this. In fact, I would argue that it would have been morally just to kill every last Japanese person, military or not, if Japan refused surrender (which was part of the Emperor’s plan for self preservation). Remember the context: 1) Japan attacked the U.S. to initiate hostilities and 2) Japanese resistance became more fierce, fanatical, and deadly (ex: suicide bombings by both military and civilians) as the U.S. approached mainland Japan.

The U.S. was on solid ground in its conduct of any form of bombing up until a Japanese surrender-including massive conventional bombing campaigns and atomic bombings. Japan launched an unprovoked attack on the U.S. at Pear Harbor to initiate hostilities. Fighting, as the U.S. approached mainland Japan, became more fierce and costly. Any number of dead Japanese—military or civilian, was better than one more dead U.S. serviceman.

This was a popular myth that Truman started. In fact, if we’d told the Japanese we would let them keep their emperor, they almost certainly would have surrendered. The Soviets had just entered the war in the Pacific and we wanted to end it before they captured much territory. Ironic since the Japanese had no intention to risk a Soviet occupation either.

Some factions in the Japanese civilian government were willing to surrender with varying amounts of conditions. That doesn’t mean the “Japanese” were willing to surrender nor does it mean that these conditions would have been acceptable to the Allies.

Even after 2 atomic bombs were dropped there was an attempted military coup to prevent the Emperor from surrendering.

>...What they were not ready for, was an unconditional surrender. (And, in the end, they surrendered conditionally!

No, they accepted the Potsdam declaration.