At 8:15 AM on August 6, 1945 an atomic bomb was detonated over Hiroshima, Japan. Approximately 78,000 civilians were killed on that day. Six months later the death toll had risen to about 140,000 people.There are many arguments in favor of dropping the bomb just as there are many arguments against it. What's clear is that in the context of 2007 we are not in a good position to judge the actions of countries that had been at war for many years.
The most important lesson of Hiroshima is that war is hell and many innocent people die. It's all very well to enter into a war with the best of intentions—as the Japanese did on December 7, 1941—but it's foolish to pretend that when you start a war there won't be any suffering. When you do that you can really say that the victims of Hiroshima died in vain.
The killing and maiming of civilians is an inevitable outcome of war, no matter how hard you might try to restrict your targets to military objectives. Before going to war you need to take the consequences into account and decide whether the cost is worth it.
One of the many mistakes in Iraq was the naive assumption that it would be a clean war with few casualties and no long-term consequences for the Iraqi people. Yet today, the numbers of innocent lives lost in Iraq is comparable to the numbers lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And what is the benefit for Iraq that outweighs the cost in human lives? Is it "freedom" and "democracy"?Hiroshima was not a glorious victory. It was ugly, heartbreaking, and avoidable. War is not an end in itself, it is the failure of peace. War is not an instrument of your foreign policy—it is an admission that you don't have a foreign policy.
[The top photograph shows the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945 (Photo from Encyclopedia Britanica: Hiroshima: mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, 1945. [Photograph]. Retrieved August 7, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online. The bottom image is taken from a Japanese postcard (Horoshima and Nagassaki 1945). It shows victims of the attack on Hiroshima.]
As horrific as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, I don't know why they are more horrifying than other forms of mass attack on civilians (Dresden, London, Stalingrand, Berlin, Moscow, Jericho:) )
ReplyDeleteBut I don't know if I owe my very existence to the bombings on Japan. My father was in a naval boot camp when the attacks happened and was waiting to be assigned when the Emperor surrendered. Had the war gone on much longer, perhaps he would have been a casualty and I might never have been born.
Not for the bombings, but just saying it may have been life-giving for me.
Hiroshma avoidable? Perhaps. But in the absence of multilateral cooperation, is war always avoidable to the unilateral agent? Look, I’m not ball of knowledge on the World War II, but for the Americans in 1945 the unilateral Japanese options seemed to be this: Drop the Bomb, attack conventionally, contain it, or leave Imperial Japan to its devices after attempting to negotiate terms. My lack of imagination probably fails to acknowledge other options, but of those I can conceive they all entail suffering and death - although the latter option seems to be the biggest unknown (could it have lead to China vs Japan?). I know that I have a tendency to pessimism and cynicism, but it seems to me that at certain junctures all courses available to us can at times run bad, very bad. We chose one bad choice and then we are left wistfully pondering counterfactuals.
ReplyDeleteThe decision to drop the bombs was not solely an American one. The atomic bomb program was undertaken by the US, the UK and Canada with all three nations contributing and under the terms of the deal the agreement of all three governments was required. All three did of course agree.
ReplyDeleteMatt Penfold said,
ReplyDelete...the agreement of all three governments was required. All three did of course agree.
Yes they did, on July 4, 1945.
"It's all very well to enter into a war with the best of intentions—as the Japanese did on December 7, 1941..."
ReplyDeleteWTF?
The Japanese entered the war with "the best of intentions"?
You've got to be kidding. Either that, or your wording is very poor and you meant we entered the war with the "best of intentions."
The Japanese went to war to protect the results of their expansionism and to conquer even more territory. They had invaded China and made considerable conquests in the 1930s. It had signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The U.S. had imposed, among other sanctions, a complete oil embargo in response to Japan's aggression, its invasion of China, its move into French Indochina after the fall of France, and numerous other actions. Because the Japanese was dependent upon the U.S. for 80% of its oil revenue and its reserves would run out in two years without a new source, it decided to go to war, not just with the U.S. but to strike at the Dutch East Indies.
Say what you will about the Japanese attack, that perhaps the U.S. blind to the power of the Imperial Navy or of the likelihood of a sneak attack, but you can hardly say that Japan went to war with "the best of intentions." Besides, Japan had been at war for several years by 1941, having brutally invaded China and subjected its population to numerous atrocities, the most famous of which was the Rape of Nanking.
"...its oil revenue..."
ReplyDeleteOoops. "revenue" should read "supplies."
orac complains,
ReplyDeleteSay what you will about the Japanese attack, that perhaps the U.S. blind to the power of the Imperial Navy or of the likelihood of a sneak attack, but you can hardly say that Japan went to war with "the best of intentions."
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor it was not their intention to precipitate the destruction of their homeland. They thought that a quick blow to the Pacific fleet might cause the Americans to see reason and reach an agreement with Japan. Such an agreement would concede most of the western Pacific to the Japanese sphere of influence.
Almost every country that starts a war has the "best of intentions," meaning they don't think they are going to lose or suffer.
They don't necessarily have the best of intentions toward their enemies. Perhaps that is what's confusing you?
War is not an end in itself, it is the failure of peace.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Also, the advent of effective weapons have perhaps more than most factors transformed organized warfare back towards engaging more of the populations as in old tribal wars.
I don't see that longrange or largescale weapons have made as much difference in remote policy makers or close combatants ability to withdraw empathy. As evidenced by the campaign against terrorism, torture is still a consideration. So on this aspect it seems to be business as usual.
The Iraqi conflict enhances the failure of modern warfare since it shows that contained warfare, as in the initial attack, is also becoming increasingly efficient. Until and if something changes to again take most civilians out of the picture, modern attackers take a larger responsibility on their shoulder. Or, as the case may be, guilt.
Great blog. The image is of course the Plutonium bomb over Nagasaki - just a detail.
ReplyDeleteI think with the threat of Russia entering Siberia against the Japanese that time was of the essence and probably played a role in the decision.
I agree with Mike that Dresden, et al. bombings, including the fire bombing of Tokyo, were equally horrific, not to mention other atrocities against civilian populations.
With over 4 million Iraqi's relocated and what appears to be over 500,000+ civilian deaths since 2003, it doesn't appear we've learned too much since '45.
Anonymous says,
ReplyDeleteGreat blog. The image is of course the Plutonium bomb over Nagasaki - just a detail.
An important detail nonetheless. Thanks. My source had mislabeled the photograph. I have replaced it with a legitimate photograph of the Hiroshima detonation.
"War is not an end in itself, it is the failure of peace."
ReplyDeleteThat may well be the case in general, but I'm convinced that Iraq is indeed war as an end in itself. I'm convinced that the motive for it was war profiteering pure and simple. Once the troops were engaged in Iraq, there was of course no turning back and that means that what would have qualified as windfall profits for defense contractors like Halliburton will now be guaranteed for many years to come. Those who instigated this war by selling it using fear-laced arguments had no good intentions in mind. Theirs was profit motive pure and simple.