2006-12-10 13:20:22 · 29 answers · asked by . 1 in Politics & Government ➔ Military
NO!
What you will hear is a big yes but think about the victims: men, women, and children...children. Not military.
It was cruel and unjust. America had to drop the bomb because they were tired from fighting WWII (like everyother country) and just choose the best shortcut.
While it saved numerous America lives, it came at the cost of the deaths of thousands of children, some of whom would have grown to be better leaders of Japan.
The bombs were sick.
2006-12-10 13:32:53 · answer #1 · answered by Descent 2 · 1⤊ 6⤋
Mainly it depends upon the objectives. If the objective is to totally end the fighting and hostilities, then dropping the bomb was necessary. If the objective is to keep Japan from imperializing all of the Pacific rim, then no, dropping the bomb wasn't necessary (see third paragraph).
Yes,and no. Nuclear weapons were necessary to end the war. Unfortunately, it took two of them to ultimately end it. Gen Curtis LeMay was in charge of the bombing campaign in the Pacific and his motto was to win no matter what. If we would have had more atomic bombs we would have dropped them too. After Okinawa, which was the bloodiest campaign in the Pacific, it was speculated that an invasion of Japan would cost over 1 million lives, military and/or civilian. The Japanese would not have given up, period. Many of the Japanese Army and Navy still believed in the Bushido code, hence the Kamikaze attacks and the bonsai charges on Okinawa. By visiting the broad destruction on the entire Japanese populace, we considerably shortened/ended the war, which was the War Department's main objective.
On the other hand, nukes weren't necessary. Japan was pretty well beaten in the Pacific theater. Containment was an option, as Japan was expelled out of the countries it conquered. By keeping the Japanese confined to Japan the balance of power would have been restored throughout the Pacific. However, Japan being restricted to just Japan would have made no sense in that some speculate Japan began the agressive campaign in the Pacific due to lack of natural resources and freezing of Japanese assets by American banks. Dropping the bomb was the coup de grace in that it humiliated the proud Japanese while ending the war.
More importantly, nuclear weapons have PREVENTED more wars. With today's nuclear powers having to deal with MAD (mutually assured destruction), having nukes will ensure everyone will think twice before launching ICBMs or dropping bombs.
2006-12-10 22:07:51 · answer #2 · answered by saegc7 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
More civilians were killed by America's island hopping campaign than by its nukes. If America had continued with conventional warfare, we could of eventually won, but we would of ended up with many more dead Not only would American and Japanese military members of faced death, many more Japanese civilians would of died from the siege of their country and then its piecemeal occupation by people fighting a war. The only way for WWII to end was by America proving that it could destroy the entire country of Japan. The nukes showed the most destructive capability possible with the smallest amount of damage possible.
2006-12-10 21:44:59 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
The Japanese with their desire not to give up. t was some hat similar to the Terrorist of today. There Kamikaze Airmen would dive into a ship or other target to reach there objective even if it meant their own life. It is unfortunate but it seemed the only thing to do was to drop the Atomic Bomb. It brought an end to a war that probably would have gone on for many more months killing 100;000 or more lives on both sides. it is sad that Nations have not learned to negotiate even after the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
2006-12-10 21:35:05 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
No they weren't necessary, but if not used the war could have lasted a lot longer or even worst- we could have been defeated very badly.. the use of them showed a very powerful prescence that no one else had during the time period.. and though the loss of lives were tremendous at the time.. it ended it!! thus saving us and several more lives.
2006-12-10 21:30:38 · answer #5 · answered by Tony 2 · 3⤊ 1⤋
YES! It worked. You win wars by attrition! Which means you kill as many as possible until the enemy has no longer the means or the will to fight! We haven't fought a war like that since WW2! We need to quit fighting PC wars, or just quit fighting!
2006-12-10 21:23:55 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
Ether nukes or we would have had to attack the mainland of Japan with troops causing hundreds of thousands more deaths than what we caused with the nuclear bombs
2006-12-10 21:22:20 · answer #7 · answered by Robert B 4 · 7⤊ 0⤋
Yes. We could have nuked them or we could have sent troops in and watched while millions upon millions of people died. Mostly civilians, whom of which experts estimated %80+ would have died.
2006-12-10 21:32:51 · answer #8 · answered by Tim 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No, they weren't. But hundreds of thousands of American GIs would have probably died invading homeland Japan if the nukes hadn't been dropped.
2006-12-10 21:23:45 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
Were Nukes nessecary? no. we could have won the war with out them, it would have taken longer, costed an estimated 1,000,000 US soldiers lives and many times more in Jappanesse lives, they were training Women to Fight off the american invaders with spears, we would have had to fire bomb every city in japan ect. in fact a single fire bombing raid on tokyo cost more lives than the bomb on hiroshima
But in my opinion it was a good desicion to drop the bombs
2006-12-10 22:01:21 · answer #10 · answered by Kenny S 2 · 3⤊ 1⤋