What were the reasons given for the US decision to drop the atomic bomb?

Answer 1

Surrender Japan!Basically, Japan was the only country that did not surrender to the United States and it's allies. Germany had already given up their arms due to massive soldier casualties, and Japan was the final enemy left at large for America. After Americans had tested the Atomic Bomb in the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, they decided one way to get the final defeat from Japan was to drop the atomic bomb on them. After the first bomb was dropped Japan did nothing, then the second bomb struck and that is when Japan admitted defeat.

Overall, Japan held out the longest, and America wanted a surrender from them. Which they got in a very dramatic and outrageous way.

It was also to save about a million lives of Allied military in an invasion of Japan.

NOT TRUE! that a truck load of B.S thast what they WANT you to believe

we KNEW japan would surrender (we sent them a video of the test and told them what it was disigned to do) we needed a place to test the plutonium and uranium fission bombs on a residential area. they thought japan would be he perfect place. it was an awful event indeed, but when would we get the 2nd chance to test the bomb. we couldn't have done it on Germany as there where many innocent Jews that could die in the process. we have OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS PROVING THIS. so it IS NOT wrong. don't believe me? use the freedom of information act and go to a government building in Washington D.C and find out yourself.

Answer 2

The US dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima as a demonstration of the irresistible power of the forces Japan was facing, and to give the Japanese civilian government leverage over the military to force a surrender (a way to save face).

Due to vast cultural differences between Japan and the US, the idea of "surrender" was not commonly shared. To the Japanese, "Surrender" was to lose one's identity as a human and to fail utterly. To an American, it was for the government to capitulate and to dissolve their military. Japan was exhibiting behavior that to a Western mind was beyond comprehension (including mass suicide attacks as well as extreme treatment of prisoners and civilians), giving rise to the idea that the only way to deal with Japan was with "Total Surrender". This of course caused the Japanese military to react even more desperately resulting in even more extreme behavior.

Additionally, the United States was running out of time and money and was facing 1 to 2 million casualties if the homelands were invaded. These figures were derived by looking at the number of casualties suffered by the US Military in the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Several theories have been forwarded that the US should have acted differently. One popular theory is that the US could have simply embargoed Japan and starved the Empire until it surrendered. This brings up the question of how many more Japanese would have died as a result of this strategy than died in the two attacks.

Given that at the time the President and most of the Military assumed that they just had a much more powerful bomb, the decision was pretty straight forward.

Unfortunately, there was much more collateral damage than anticipated.

Answer 3

Most historians agree that using the atomic bombs on Japan at the time the US did so ultimately saved many lives, potentially millions.

In hind-sight, although the result was terrifying, it did lead to a much earlier end to the War in the Pacific than otherwise would likely have been possible.

Ultimately, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives; probably millions of them.

Answer 4

Most arguments given for using the bombs have been disproven one way or another. The latest and best scholarship on the surrender, based on Japanese records, concludes that the Soviet Union’s unexpected entry into the war against Japan on Aug. 8 was probably an even greater shock to Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima two days earlier. As Stanford historian Barton Bernstein has noted, the U.S. Joint War Plans Committee predicted in mid-June 1945 that the invasion of Japan, set to begin Nov. 1, would result in 193,000 U.S. casualties, including 40,000 deaths. Not 500,000 deaths. But not using the bombs and invading causing any deaths would not have gone over with the public very well.
Truman’s secretary of state, James Byrnes, hoped that the bomb might prove to be a “master card” in subsequent diplomatic dealings with the Soviet Union — but both were disappointed. In September 1945, Byrnes returned from the first postwar meeting of foreign ministers, in London, lamenting that the Russians were “stubborn, obstinate, and they don’t scare.”

Answer 5

The bombs were dropped, not to end the war but to warn Russia that the US had atomic bombs, could deliver them and didn't care about the killing of thousands of innocent civilians and their own people (prisoners of war) as long as they proved a point.If the right outcome was to prove your country is homicidal super power, it was a right decision.

Answer 6

An instant war victory, or letting the world see the strength of the U.S. would be the most obvious.

Answer 7

it was the only way to end the war in japan. the only way they would listen seeing as they ingored an ulitimatium given by the Potsdam Declaration

Answer 8

when fdr died his vice president took over and did not have much experience in dealing with that sort of problem and wiping out two entire cities was supposedly the best solution