by Hannah Russell

Created on: September 02, 2010   Last Updated: January 09, 2011

In the political arena, suggesting atomic war is career suicide.  But is it always wrong?  The atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki mark the current extent of atomic war in world history.   Americans look back at these events and invariably think, “should we have done it?”  These events marks the beginning of an era of nuclear war which still continues today, even if no more bombs have been dropped.   It was shocking.  It was drastic.  No one wants to think about radiation poisoning, skin melting at the mere heat, the destruction, the death and all the cancer that later followed.  But was it justifiable? If it weren’t as drastic as it was, it wouldn’t be justifiable.  It was a drastic attempt to shock a never-surrender country into surrendering.  It was drastic; but it was also justifiable.

Death tolls were mounting quickly both on the side of the Allies and the Axis, (reduced at this point to the Japanese). President of the United States, Harry S. Truman—Roosevelt’s apple-pie running mate, serendipitously turned president- was in a tight spot.  He knew that he needed to end the war for the good of the Americans, its Allies and the Japanese.  The problem was that the Japanese were not ready to surrender.  Their cultural beliefs left them with a never-surrender attitude.  So, Truman needed to convince them that the United States could destroy Japan entirely in order to save human lives; the atomic bomb did this.  The intentions of the bomb justified the death and destruction of the bomb—the bomb was dropped to save lives.

It is difficult to think of the sheer shock of the bomb as a merciful alternative. But, considering that the Firebombing of Tokyo, just prior to dropping Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cost approximately 100,000 lives and severe damage alone, it really was.  Very liberal estimates of Hiroshima and Nagasaki place immediate death at 150,000.  A rough estimate of the total number of Japanese killed during WWII lies around 2,000,000 soldiers and almost 400,000 civilians. Truman did not want to see this pattern continue, as he was afraid Japan would fight to the death, right down to the last Japanese child.  And so, he dropped the bomb, hoping that Japan would believe the US had more (which it did not) and that the US could effectively wipe out Japan immediately.  

Japan believed the bluff, and surrendered.  The Allies could go home, and Japan did not continue to throw human resource at a war effort.  Economically, it was a short-run loss for a long-run gain.  We don’t like to calculate lives like that. All lives are precious. But the deaths of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were necessary evils to save other lives. Since St. Augustine’s "The City of God," the Christian World has looked to every place they can to find meaning and moral justification in their wars.  Are still looking for it with Hiroshima and Nagasaki?  Perhaps.  But maybe we found it. s

Learn more about this author, Hannah Russell.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.