Atomic Bomb Dbq

“America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, imagination and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.” Harry S. Truman. The United States in the event of war will not stand still and fight ineffectively while losing thousands of lives but rather build and find more effective solutions to winning the war at hand, either way it’s war. The United States most definitely should have dropped the atomic bomb in 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, the atomic bomb was the most efficient and effective solution to ending the war faster while saving the most lives, time, expenses and resources. Also let us not forget the Japanese were the first to bomb our home land with no sympathy. Ultimately, the atomic bomb was

the key factor in ending World War II, without this technology one could only imagine how long the war would of went on and the extra countless lives it would of taken.

Consider the case of Japans ancient tradition of never surrendering “For Japanese to even discuss capitulation is seditious” , this shows without the bombs the war would be long and gruesome.

In consideration, Japan was given many opportunities to surrender and they refused even when the war was practically over and meaningless, as a result, the bombs were their decision and consequence. For instance the United States offered a surrender so the war could be over but shown here they refuse, “It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. They promptly rejected that ultimatum.” This clearly shows how far and extended the war would of gone if the United States did not drop the atomic bomb and even then it took two bombs for the Japanese to come to reality and stop fighting. Without the bombs the time duration of war would have been long and bloody. Overall, the amount of lives and endless supplies for war would have been way more compared to the fast solution of dropping the bombs. Because of Japans fierce fighting, the bombs were the most reasonable and necessary option at this

point.

In addition, even though it costed a lot of time and money to build these bombs in the Manhattan Project it was not used because it would be criticized of a waste if wasn’t used, but instead these bombs were used solely to end the war faster and to help the United States win while saving the most lives.

The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in attempt to weaken our forces at the time of neutrality and at the time of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki it was in our best interest to bomb these highly military productive cities to weaken their forces while hoping to provoke Japan to surrender in order to end the bloodshed. For instance, President Truman said, “In deciding the use of this bomb I wanted to make sure it be used as a weapon of war, in the manner prescribed by the laws of war” , this represents that the bomb was used properly on a city of military personnel, and for the sole purpose to end the war. The United States was not the only one who accepted this action but also Winston Churchill of Great Britain agreed it should be done. For example, “I talked to Churchill, he unhesitatingly told me he favored the use of the atomic bomb if it helped aid the end of the war” , this helps understand in their situation dropping the bombs was the best case scenario and the most reasonable way in ending the war

quickly.

Furthermore, without the atomic bomb the war would have consisted of over a million causalities on both sides, which is more than the atomic bomb killings combined. In particular, an article states “Japan was reeling from months of conventional US bombing, but military leaders refused to surrender. A US invasion of Japan was to exact a million American and Japanese causalities, each” . To put it another way, without dropping the atomic bomb, the war would have had an extensive amount of deaths. In comparison, the atomic bomb did not kill nearly as many as one million as stated here, “A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb” , and this is just for Hiroshima. When this is taken in account this ultimately justifies the use of the atomic bomb, nevertheless the bomb was the best instrument in ending the World War II.

In conclusion, the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the best and most reasonable choice compared to its alternative of having a war consisting of prolonged catastrophic amounts of warfare. When taking in account of all the previous mentioned pros of dropping the bombs it outweighs its other option as more war, and in this case the United States found this to be evidently true and successfully ended the war with the best results.