The effects of the atomic blasts that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 led to the final unconditional surrender of the Japanese Empire. I've heard it said in a 1974 episode of the documentary "World At War" that the bombs ("Little Boy" and "Fat Man") were used unnecessarily, that they were just done to show Joe Stalin that we had a bomb that could destroy whole cities and he better take note. (Stalin already knew about the bomb courtesy of spies he had at Los Alamos like Klaus Fuchs and declared war on Japan after the A-bombs fell to get his share of the spoils of Japan's empire in China and Korea.) Others have stated that it took the threat of a third bomb on Tokyo to get the Emperor and his government to agree to terms.
Harry Truman, who never knew of the Manhattan Project apparently until the death of President Roosevelt in April, 1945, steadfastly refused to apologize to the Japanese for ordering the bombs to be dropped. The estimates of the deaths of American and Japanese casualties that would have fallen if an invasion of the Japanese home islands had been lauched are much greater than the 180,000 lives (mostly civilian) lost in the horrific blasts meted out to the citizens of two cities. The lingering after effects of the bombing killed thousands more and crippled people for the rest of their lives.
But the introduction of atomic warfare did something else of course. It made a new weapon of technology capable of altering the thinking of all the leaders of all the major nations of the world. Over sixty years later and nuclear technology now is such a threat that even the possibility of a rouge leader having such a bomb has been determined to be a cause for war. Look only at the Iraqi invasion, where American and British intelligence sources trumpeted that Saddam Hussein had just such a weapon. But ofcourse they were wrong. It goes to show you can overestimate your enemy threat potential now as badly as leaders in the democratic world underestimated Hitler and Japan's potential in the 1930's.
Just the possibility of a nuclear capability laid the ground work for a war that the American President and most members of the Senate believed was justifiable in the Spring of 2003. The public at large got behind this effort, so much so that a poll by the New York Times showed that a majority of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11/2001. He wasn't. Not even Dick Cheney could say that. Yet the fear drove the public on. There is a school of thought called "The One Percent Doctrine" (from a book by Ron Suskind) that goes that even if there is a one percent chance of a major terrorist attack, many in Washington feel we must try to stop it. Where does that lead? And who determines the one percent, and what if he or she is wrong and we have to go about nation-building in Iran and Pakistan? At what cost, to what sacrifices, at what disruptions of millions of lives, do we commit to a present day ground/air war at the mere chance of a future WMD attack?
The atomic specter has altered our whole world. More Americans are willing for their neighbors to be spied on by our own government. How much of our peace of mind we are willing to trade for the loss of our civil liberties in this or some future administration is uncertain.
Of course, you don't need a A or H Bomb to kill people. Newsweek in its latest edition estimates most of the American soldiers killed in Baghdad and its outer provinces are now killed by Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) --devices so cheap that you can kill someone "for the price of ordering a pizza", or use it to lure soldiers or Marines to help another soldier or Marine and then blow up a few more Americans.
This war was not about getting puny but lethal bombs away from desperate guerrillas: what drew American soldiers to be in easy harm's way is the "better totally safe than really sorry" factor of an atomic or dire chemical mass-death device in the hands of an enemy not strong enough to withstand our military power.
What ended a war in August 1945 started another one in April of 2003. In between we have lived in fear and apprehension from nations that have atomic bombs and our too strong to be dealt with by a conventional attack, even of the new "shock and awe" variety.
So V-J Day is long over, and thank God World War II, with its 50 million other deaths in combat and concentration camps, didn't last any longer. But we dare not look for Al-Queda agents and tribal sheiks and Islamic zealots and Pakistani militants to all gather on a American battleship one day and sign an unconditional surrender.
Pictured: The A-Bomb Dome, Hirsoshima>
" In 1945, the A-Bomb Dome was a government building in the bustling neighborhood of Sarugaku-cho. A nearby photo displays the destruction of the atomic blast. Sarugaku-cho was leveled, save a few trees and telephone poles, and the Dome's structural girders and brick walls. Today, the dome is surrounded by a fence, a lawn and sculpted hedges, and it is lit at night. An aura of that fatal day remains, however, in the rubble at its base, and in its empty, exposed interior."
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