The Atomic BombThere has been a long standing debate on why the atomic bomb was used todefeat Japan. The threat of Russian advancement in Europe and in Asia wasenough to worry the top officials in the United States and British governments. Wherever the Russians moved through they took for themselves.
The imminentinvasion of mainland Japan and the allied casualties that came with it were alsoa factor in the decision to drop the bomb, as said in document A. The droppingof the bomb was not entirely used to stop the Russian advancement. If the allied forces had invaded mainland Japan, many lives on bothsides would have been lost. Most probably more than were lost in the bombing ofHiroshima and Nagasaki put together. The tactics that the allies had used up tothis point had cost hundreds of thousands of lives onboth sides.
This waswhen the Japanese only had maybe two or three thousand men on an island; whereason the mainland millions of people who would fight until their death to protecttheir country. Can you imagine if the Americans invaded mainland Japan wherethey had not only soldiers to fight against but the citizens of Japan loyal toHirohito?Massive destruction, immense loss of life, and prolonging of the waruntil late 1946, as stated in document A, would result from invading on footinstead of using the bomb. Revenge also played a role in the decision to bomb Japan. The Japanesewere not following the Geneva convention in regards to treatment of prisoners ofwar.
Which says that the prisoners are not to be put through torture of thepsychological or physical nature. The Japanese did these things anyway, theywould decapitate American prisoners, or they would shove bamboo shoots undertheir fingernails. The American government also wanted revenge for the surpriseattack on Pearl Harbor. No warning was given by the Japanese to the Americansand no war was declared until after the incident. The Russian territorial expansion definitely played a factor in thedropping the bomb on Japan.
The Soviet Union had already taken Poland and manyother countries duringthe war. The Soviets were helping the Chinese with thewar against Japan and later would get railroads in China and Manchuria whenJapan completely surrendered, as stated in document D. As said in document E,the Americans did not want the Russians to get involved in the war against Japan. The most obvious reasons would be to preventthe Russians from expanding anymore and to keep them out of Japan where they would hamper the peace process andgain even more territory. As president Harry Truman says in his radio address, document H, all ofthe countries involved were trying to create the atomic bomb to use for theirefforts. Fortunately the Americans won the “race of discovery”.
If the Germanshad won that race they probably would have used it continuously in Russia andBritain until Hitler got what he wanted which was world domination and theextinguishing of the Jewish and others and the ascent of his “superior race” ofGermans. The dropping of the atomic weapon on Japan was not entirely to haltSoviet expansion although it did play a major role.
