Resolved: The Atomic Bombings of Japan were justified.

I thank Pro for such a detailed opening argument, I will now state mine. Unnecessary The debate is whether the atomic bombings of Japan (note the plural, both Nagasaki and Hiroshima have to be justified to meet the BoP) had a good (which I take to mean morally justifiable) reason for being carried out. My first argument will assert that there was not a good reason to drop the two atomic bombs as it was militarily and politically unnecessary in ensuring Japanese surrender. Firstly, the declaration of war by the USSR on Japan on the 8th August 1945 (1) completely removed any chance of Japanese victory as they would be literally caught between the two most powerful nations in the world, they could not win a war on two fronts. Indeed, as soon as the USSR declared war Prime Minister Suzuki immediately stated 'let us end the war'. (2) This goes to show that the declaration of war by the USSR would have caused Japan's surrender, the use of the atomic bomb was unnecessary. Furthermore, the reason that the atomic bomb was used was, effectively, to kill such a large amount of civilians that the Japanese government would be persuaded to surrender. However, the conventional fire-bombing of Japanese cities killed more civilians just as efficiently as the atomic bombs did (3). Considering that the atomic bombings would lead to surrender by inflicting mass-civilian casualties then it was clearly unnecessary, as the same result would be achieved by fire-bombing. Finally, if Pro takes the line of thought that Japan surrendered out of fear of the atomic bomb, then this result would be achieved through a demonstration of the bomb that did not involve slaughtering thousands of innocent women and children. The US could have dropped the bomb on a pacific island whilst showing it to Japanese envoys, this would achieve the same result (which was to demonstrate the power of the USAAF and the potential disaster that could happen if used against Japan) without the huge amount of civilian deaths. Immorality My second argument will assert that the innate immorality of atomic bombing prevents reasons of military advantage from justifying it. The use of an atomic bomb contravenes Just War Theory, notably the following criteria of jus in bello (conduct within war). (4) 1. Distinction - 'The acts of war should be directed towards enemy combatants, and not towards non-combatants caught in circumstances they did not create.' 2. Proportionality - 'Combatants must make sure that the harm caused to civilians or civilian property is not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage' 3. Malum in se - 'Combatants may not use weapons whose effects cannot be controlled' Therefore the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki does not adhere to Just War, and thus it was a war crime. Interestingly, General Robert McNamara wrote: 'LeMay said "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?' (5) This highlights that even some Americans thought the bombing immoral, surely the fact that the bombing lead to US victory does not make it moral? Nagasaki bombing was unnecessary My final argument focuses on the bombing of Nagasaki, and how it was unnecessary even if we accept that the bombing of Hiroshima was necessary. The use of an atomic bomb would bring about Japanese surrender for either or both of two reasons: 1. Infliction of incalculable damage on civilians 2. A warning of USAAF bombing potential Reason 2 was achieved at Hiroshima, and I am being generous in saying this because, as I have said earlier, the same result could be achieved by demonstration and not by bombing a populous city. Reason 1 would be extenuated by the bombing of Nagasaki, but an atomic bomb was not needed to inflict incalculable damage because firebombing was shown to have achieved this aim. So, the use of an atomic bomb on Nagasaki was unnecessary as it would not make the Japanese more likely to surrender. One could argue that it hastened surrender, but the Nagasaki bomb was only three days after the Hiroshima bomb (6) so the USA did not give the Japanese government enough time to acknowledge the impact of Hiroshima There is consequently no evidence to suggest that the bombing of Nagasaki was actually necessary to ensure Japanese surrender. (1)http://www.history.com... (2)https://books.google.co.uk... (3)http://nation.time.com... (4)http://en.wikipedia.org... (5)http://www.errolmorris.com... (6)http://en.wikipedia.org...