Was the use of a nuclear bomb to end WWII necessary?
819896
After allied forces had pushed the Japanese back to their mainland, they still refused to quit fighting.\n\nRefusing to surrender gave Harry Truman (assumed the war time presidency at Roosevelt's death) two choices. Either invade Japan on the ground at the cost of thousands upon thousands of Americans and Japanese lives or drop a bomb and kill thousands of Japanese. \n\nI have a tendency to think Truman already made the decision to drop the bomb but, don't think he thought he would need two!\n\nThe reality: A horrible destiny for a proud people that were lead by a vicious war machine and a  misguided emperor. Thousands of Japanese and their off spring affected for years after.\n\nWas it necessary?
1157223
Hey EBP, welcome to my fair country! Yeah lots of stuff about nuclear s*it at the moment, Tony Blair thinks it is our next big source of energy and there's a lot of arguing going on.\n\nAs for nuclear weapons I really don't know what's going on, but I don't really see why we need them- if we didn't have them, nobsoy would suddenly think, 'Hey! The UK have scrapped their nukes- let's bomb them!', because we still have friends overseas who would step in and push the button for us. \n\nNuclear weapons are a thing of the past. My opinion, for what it's worth, we all learned from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nobody will ever have the balls to push the button again as I think it really would mean the end of the world.
107422
Japan was duly warned by Pres. Truman, but the Emporer refused to back down.  I would say his callous disregard for diplomacy called for a squashing attempt to prove that an end was necessary.  However, it is sad that the technology used was so harmful to so many, and placed such a great limit on the longevity of the entire planet.
674029
Absolutely NO, the war is over.\n\nEDIT: Not even Iran, there is no reason whatsoever to EVER use an atomic bomb.
653074
The Ultimate War... However, one cannot assume that just because a country has a nuclear warhead they will use it... They haven't yet. America was the developer of the nuclear bomb, and we are also the only ones to have used it in a war (i.e. WWII). And we used it twice... Cuba is screaming at us, "Listen to me! We have nukes!" But they won't do shit with them. Russia, the Cold War, this Long War... All just government propaganda to get you to go along with gas prices and avian bird flu. Pride is not about nationality, it's about being a human being and being alive, for that matter... Just because your country says that you have a nuclear bomb doesn't mean they're going to use it... Just save it for a rainy day, I suppose. Just so that when everybody is dropping the bomb, that one little country (we'll call it Kerplakistan) can join in and not feel left out. If every country had a nuclear weapon, though, America would be bombed first, and we have more nukes than there are countries in the world! In conclusion, it may bring world peace, world destruction, or a wholly new world order.
1156042
Pearl Harbor led to the aerial bombardment of civilians....at hiroshima and nagasaki. Toward the end of the war, the Japanese turned down the Potsdam demands for unconditional surrender, even tho they were making overtures for peace through their emmissaries in Sweden.\n\nThe kamikazi and suicidal attackes at Iwo and Okinawa led the US to believe that hundreds of thousands of lives were at stake if they assualted Japan itself, therefore, to end the war quickly it was decided to use the a-bomb to save further American lives.\n\nAnd finally, the US wanted to end the war quickly before the Soviets had a chance to attack Japan and gain hegemy in the Orient, similar to the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe.\n\nOppeneimer and other American nuclear scientists advocated for using the bomb to end the War more quickly. Other scientists wanted a demonstration in the Pacific Ocean to show the Japanese leaders the devastation of the new weapon. Since there were not alot of A-bombs in existence, the US leaders didn't want to take a chance on the 'demonstration' failing, therefore it was decided to use it against a Japanese city.\n\nPrior to the bombing, leaflets were dropped on the cities informing the populace to flee. Anyway, ever since, the world has been staring into the dark abyss of nuclear holocaust.
608439
How could it not be a nuclear war.  A "world" war assumes that differences cannot be settled by political means.  If the object is victory, then can you assume that every means possible would be used to achieve victory.  Do you fight a world war, knowing that you didn't do everything possible to win?  If both sides go to war with the cruel illusion that victory at all costs was the motto, then, of course, nukes will be used.  \n\nIf tactical nukes are the only means to stop overwhelming numbers of conventional armies, then NATO and the US have already committed to that strategy in the Fulda Gap and the 38th Parallel.  Once one tactical nuke is used, there's no stopping the use of strategic nukes.  A chain of events leading to nuclear showdowns, hair trigger responses, and faulty communications will ultimately be the legacy of WW III.
469665
There has been a lot of revisionism about the nuclear bombs and, while I don't like the silly answers put forward by our conservative friends here, this revisionism simply does not hold up to scrutiny.\n\nJapan was beginning to look for ways to settle for peace without being held responsible for the war or their own attrocities committed, and had started to place some figure heads in high office, but the Japanese government was nowhere near ready to surrender unconditionally. After all, Germany was considering the same sorts of things in 1943 so long as they could keep their conquered territories and could keep their gas chambers, but I don't think anyone would have thought that was a good deal. This would have meant letting the Japanese continue to slaughter Chinese, Indonesian and Western slaves on a massive scale after the fighting ceased.\n\nThe figures given for the two bombs earlier are way out of line, the nearest estimates consistently show a death toll for both bombs totalling right around 100,000. While this is certainly a lot of people in two days, that must be looked at in perspective. This is fewer people killed than in the 2-day firebomb raid on Tokyo, fewer than in the 3-day firebomb raid over Hamburg. For more than a year, the Army Air Force had been bombing Japanese cities with populations of fewer than 250,000 people simply because all of the real cities had already been reduced to ashes (Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been intentionally left untouched so that when the A-Bomb was finally ready to be deployed there would be pristine targets and the full potential of the weapon could be experienced by the Japanese). Millions of people were without shelter just a few months before winter was about to start. What little Japanese merchant and intercoastal fleet there was had long since been destroyed and Japan was no longer able to move food or fuel from island to island.\n\nJapan had already shown in the island campaigns against Saipan and Okinawa that their military was more than willing to either manipulate civilians into committing suicide or else outright killing them rather than surrender to the Western Allies. There was no reason to believe that this would not have occurred in the home islands as well. What few air resources the Japanese military retained were being hurled at the American fleet in waves of Kamakaze suicide flights.\n\nWhy do we feel that it is wrong for people to die from irradiation, but is is all right for three times as many people to die from exposure, starvation, infectious disease and suicide?
327262
Because no one else would.  Everyone knew how bad Hitler was, and they were powerless to stop him.  Since the discovery of nuclear bombs, the US has actively been trying to prevent WWIII, by stopping every country that could use them, or in the case of Viet Nam, stop a twisted ideology from taking hold.\nSometimes we're wrong.  But no one ever said we were perfect, least of all us regular Joes and Janes.
1106162
Yes , I agree. There is no purpose for any bombs. Nuclear weapons have only one use and that is to kill people, and I just do not believe that death can bring peace to the world.
692421
from http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/node143.html 'when I talked to Churchill  he unhesitatingly told me he favored the use of the atomic bomb.' \n\n"It would nevertheless be wrong and imprudent to entrust the secret knowledge or experience of the atomic bomb, which the United States, Great Britain, and Canada now share, to the world organisation, while it is still in its infancy. It would be criminal madness to cast it adrift in this still agitated and un-united world. No one in any country has slept less well in their beds because this knowledge and the method and the raw materials to apply it, are at present largely retained in American hands. I do not believe we should all have slept so soundly had the positions been reversed and if some Communist or neo-Fascist State monopolised for the time being these dread agencies. The fear of them alone might easily have been used to enforce totalitarian systems upon the free democratic world, with consequences appalling to human imagination. God has willed that this shall not be and we have at least a breathing space to set our house in order before this peril has to be encountered: and even then, if no effort is spared, we should still possess So formidable a superiority as to impose effective deterrents upon its employment, or threat of employment, by others. Ultimately, when the essential brotherhood of man is truly embodied and expressed in a world organisation with all the necessary practical safeguards to make it effective, these powers would naturally be confided to that world organisation."\nSinews of Peace Address by Winston Churchill http://www.hpol.org/churchill/
27529
The war in Europe was all but over. We just needed to test the bomb and to show off for the world.
500842
Hiroshima was the first Japanease city that was hit with an Atomic Bomb which ultimately led to the end of the War of course after we hit Nagasaki.  Even though those attacks are said to be brutal many agree that it saved millions of lives if we would have had to do a total land invasion of Japan.
1036071
If you could get one down there, it would likely melt before detonation. If you could solve that problem, then the result MIGHT depend on the yield of the weapon... but it would have to be a few million times stronger than today's strongest weapons, since the immense molten iron core of the earth handles pressures and forces far in excess of anything we will ever experience, and probably stronger than anything we could ever create in the next five thousand years. Nukes are only scary for fragile surface creatures in a relatively tiny area, not for fiery iron spheres that are the size of the moon.
774531
A nuclear weapon is a weapon which derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions of fission or fusion. As a result, even a nuclear weapon with a relatively small yield is significantly more powerful than the largest conventional explosives, and a single weapon is capable of destroying an entire city.\n\nIn the history of warfare, nuclear weapons have been used only twice, both during the closing days of World War II. The first event occurred on the morning of August 6, 1945, when the United States dropped a uranium gun-type device code-named "Little Boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The second event occurred three days later when a plutonium implosion-type device code-named "Fat Man" was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. The use of these weapons, which resulted in the immediate deaths of around 100,000 to 200,000 individuals and even more over time, was and remains controversial — critics around the world charged that they were unnecessary acts of mass killing, while others claimed that they ultimately reduced casualties on both sides by hastening the end of the war. This topic has seen increased debate recently in the wake of increased terrorism involving killings of civilians by both state and non-state players, with parties claiming that the end justifies the means (see Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a full discussion).\n\nSince the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for testing and demonstration purposes. The only countries known to have detonated such weapons are (chronologically) the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France, People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Various other countries may hold nuclear weapons but have never publicly admitted possession, or their claims to possession have not been verified. For example, Israel has modern airborne delivery systems and appears to have an extensive nuclear program with hundreds of warheads (see Israel and weapons of mass destruction), though it officially maintains a policy of "ambiguity" with respect to its actual possession of nuclear weapons. Iran currently stands accused by a number of governments of attempting to develop nuclear capabilities, though its government claims that its acknowledged nuclear activities, such as uranium enrichment, are for peaceful purposes. South Africa also secretly developed a small nuclear arsenal, but disassembled it in the early 1990s. (For more information see List of countries with nuclear weapons.)\n\nApart from their use as weapons, nuclear explosives have been tested and used for various non-military uses.
374127
Yes.  It was necessary to open another front against Germany.  The Soviet Union and Germany were basically slugging it out on the Eastern Front, but the introduction of American and British troops into Western Europe drew resources away from the Eastern Front, allowing the Soviet Army to advance farther.  The war would have lasted about two to three years longer without the D-Day invasion and probably cost 2-3 million more lives (not counting more lives lost in Nazi death camps)
789612
Ok and you can find articles on how to build nuclear weapons on the internet do that mean you have one or even have the capacity to make one in your basement? So what l am sure he was trying from the 90's to build one but that don't mean he had one and we had to rush to war to stop him from using it.