The Pros And Cons Of Atomic Bombs
Was it necessary to drop the atomic bombs?
The only military use of atomic weapons has been on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and almost certainly brought a prompt conclusion to WW2. However, the question of whether it was necessary is still hotly debated 70 years after the event. The answer is no it wasn’t necessary, although it is not as simple as you may think because if I had just been a soldier fighting in New Guinea or if I was a POW starving on the Thai-Burma railway [1] then answer is yes it was necessary. Necessary can have various meanings though such as indispensable or requisite, but also mean acting from need. The question becomes very problematic or ambiguous if one uses both meanings as again we get a yes and no. …show more content…
Perhaps and this is a hypothetical conjecture but it has to be remembered there was intense scientific interest in nuclear power and destruction. All the military powers had held investigations and Germany came very close to developing this capacity. The USA through the top secret ‘Manhattan Project’ developed this weapon and it was so secret that when President Roosevelt died in office his successor (Harry Truman) only became aware of the project then. Then arose the problem of the Soviet Union entering the war against Japan on the 8th of August 1995 [5], the Soviets were quickly becoming a super power. The alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union during World War II developed out of necessity, and out of a shared realisation that each country needed the other to defeat Germany and the Axis. They had the common goal of defeating fascism but as that goal was achieved the Soviet Union and USA had no uniting cause. There had already been small amounts of tension with Soviet soldiers working alongside American soldiers in the war and now there large attack on Japan threatened the world with more communism which Americans disliked. So, a new president and the new problem of an emerging super power of the Soviet Union entering the war in Asia could have been a catalyst to use atomic weapons. Not only did it conclude the war but it also demonstrated to the Soviets the USA’s
The only military use of atomic weapons has been on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and almost certainly brought a prompt conclusion to WW2. However, the question of whether it was necessary is still hotly debated 70 years after the event. The answer is no it wasn’t necessary, although it is not as simple as you may think because if I had just been a soldier fighting in New Guinea or if I was a POW starving on the Thai-Burma railway [1] then answer is yes it was necessary. Necessary can have various meanings though such as indispensable or requisite, but also mean acting from need. The question becomes very problematic or ambiguous if one uses both meanings as again we get a yes and no. …show more content…
Perhaps and this is a hypothetical conjecture but it has to be remembered there was intense scientific interest in nuclear power and destruction. All the military powers had held investigations and Germany came very close to developing this capacity. The USA through the top secret ‘Manhattan Project’ developed this weapon and it was so secret that when President Roosevelt died in office his successor (Harry Truman) only became aware of the project then. Then arose the problem of the Soviet Union entering the war against Japan on the 8th of August 1995 [5], the Soviets were quickly becoming a super power. The alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union during World War II developed out of necessity, and out of a shared realisation that each country needed the other to defeat Germany and the Axis. They had the common goal of defeating fascism but as that goal was achieved the Soviet Union and USA had no uniting cause. There had already been small amounts of tension with Soviet soldiers working alongside American soldiers in the war and now there large attack on Japan threatened the world with more communism which Americans disliked. So, a new president and the new problem of an emerging super power of the Soviet Union entering the war in Asia could have been a catalyst to use atomic weapons. Not only did it conclude the war but it also demonstrated to the Soviets the USA’s