Hiroshima and Nagasaki A Justified End to an Endless War

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: A Justified End to an Endless War On December 7th, 1941 the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan. This unprovoked assault on our nation’s soil forced Congress to take action with a formal declaration of war on Japan. With the country’s entry into World War II, a secret venture was implemented by the government. The clandestine project would employ some of the greatest scientific minds in history, including renowned physicists Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein. The plan was codenamed, â€Å"Manhattan,† and its goal was the development and production of the most destructive weapon known to man: the atomic bomb. Over the course of the next four years, from December 1941 to July 1945,†¦show more content†¦Truman, that the decision on the first use of atomic weapons fell† (41). At this point in the war the Manhattan Project was just three months away from its first successful test and the w ar in Europe was coming to a close. However, despite having some limited knowledge, President Truman was relatively unaware of the true potential that the Manhattan Project possessed. Alonzo Hamby states that, â€Å"Harry S. Truman had been President of the United States for less than two weeks on April 25th, 1945, when Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson delivered to him a full report on the most extensive and secret American enterprise of the Second World War† (19). Consequently, numerous meetings about the bombs, casualty predictions, and targets were held in an effort to quickly inform the new President about the various capabilities of nuclear warfare (Kross 41). Although the bombs offered the promise of a quick victory, there were also a multitude of meetings with Truman regarding options that did not include the weapons. The main alternatives discussed were blockades and other more passive methods of weakening Japan. However, these approaches would have been extreme ly time consuming, led to a drawn-out conflict, and caused more deaths as cited by an author in American Heritage who states, â€Å"What often goes unremarked is that when the bombs were dropped, fighting was still going on in the Philippines, China, and elsewhere. EveryShow MoreRelatedThe Rights Of Man And Of The Citizen2592 Words   |  11 PagesIn 1938, at the beginning of the second world war, the population of the world was 2.3 billion people. Of those 2.3 billion, 60 million people died. That is 0.2 percent of the population. Of this 0.2 percent, .07 died in the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That is 220,000 people. Human rights are the rights that every person is born with. During the time of the enlightenment, the terms of human rights were outlined. Since then, laws have been passed detailing the correct treatmentRead MoreThe Japanese War Of Japan1971 Words   |  8 Pagesand dishonoring their country and empire . This inherent Japanese nature justified why the Japanese seldom used reason when making war time decisions. Although the Japanese were in dire straits they initially showed no intention of surrendering. Not using the atomic bomb would have forced the United States to launch a full invasion of Japan’s home islands, and this would have killed far more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo alone killed some 120,000 JapaneseRead MoreEssay about nuclear weapons advocate peace2192 Words   |  9 Pageshave lived since 1945 without another world war precisely because rational minds†¦extracted a durable peace from the very terror of nuclear weapons.† (Luttwak, 1983). Moreover, Robert Art and Kenneth Waltz both extrapolate that â€Å"the probability of war between American and Russia or between NATO and the Warsaw Pact is practically nil precisely because the military planning and deployments of each, together with the fear of escalation to general nuclear war, keep it that way .† (Art, Waltz, 1983) YetRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pages Agricultural and Pastoral Societies in Ancient and Classical History Jack Metzgar, Striking Steel: Solidarity Remembered Janis Appier, Policing Women: The Sexual Politics of Law Enforcement and the LAPD Allen Hunter, ed., Rethinking the Cold War Eric Foner, ed., The New American History. Revised and Expanded Edition E SSAYS ON _ T WENTIETH- C ENTURY H ISTORY Edited by Michael Adas for the American Historical Association TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS PHILADELPHIA Temple