Debate: Atomic Bomb
Side: justified

The atomic bombs should have been dropped. As the Japanese were people who despised ultimate surrender and felt incredible amounts of pride for their country, their surrender from the war would not come easily.The mass deaths of Japanese citizens and soldiers was unavoidable. Even with the threat of "prompt and utter destruction" in the Potsdam Declaration, Emperor Hirohito ignored the document. While peace negotiations were incredibly brief, it is unlikely that the Emperor and military would have allowed more time for negotiations, or even paid attention to other negotiations. Other alternatives to the bomb drops were violent alternatives, such as Operation Downfall. The invasion would call for the capture of a third of one of Japan's main islands, Kyushu. The second part of the invasion would involve invading part of Tokyo. Estimated American casualties varied from 105,000 over 120 days (for the first part of the invasion) to 1.7 through 4 million casualties to conquer the entire country. The same study as the latter one also estimated 5 to 10 million Japanese casualties. Japanese authorities demanded that the civilians aid in defending their homeland, which explains the large number of Japanese casualties; simply disobeying the military was unheard of.  When the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the city had received no warnings of attack. There were no warnings for the second bombing either, other than an air raid warning which was quickly canceled. Japan had assumed in both bombings that the small amount of planes were simply flying reconnoissance missions; there was no outlying evidence to worry about a weapon of such mass destruction. This is the only aspect of the situation that I disagree with. With weapons that would cause such a large amount of deaths and injuries, warning citizens ahead of time and allowing them to evacuate their homes would have been more humane than forcing them to their deaths, or, for the survivors, suffering the rest of their lives from the burns and nuclear aftermath. However, thinking back on the alternative of invasion, it seems as though the deaths and suffering were, and are, a necessary sorrow.  While the civilians could arguably have been innocent of any of the crimes that the country committed, there were few options for ending the war. As Pearl Harbor gave as evidence, the military was not afraid of suicide bombing missions, and the atrocities committed in Manchuria and Nanking display even more horror. Even if civilians held low opinions of the war, would the military and Emperor allow the country to surrender? How long could the country last as its military attempted to kill everything in sight, and how long could peace reign? When the military and Emperor were told of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they surrendered quickly, even agreeing to disarm themselves. Overall, I believe that the dropping of the bomb was justified. Every alternative to this would lead either to millions of deaths or war in the future. For most circumstances, I would be against the usage of nuclear weaponry; however, with such constraints as there were during World War II, it seems to be the least sorrowful ending of the war.Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfallhttp://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/ c06.html http://www.ralphmag.org/AQ/japan-ww2.html