American benefit of Hiroshima bombing - your opinions

In My Humble Opinion
1

After looking through this thread and realizing that I’ve got a paper due in a few days on the US benefits of Hiroshima I was wondering what other Dopers feel are some of the benefits of the bombing.
As for me I believe that obviously one benefit is the fact that it saved many American soldiers life when compared to a ground invasion.

Second it was good on the US for economic reasons. We were one of the few (if not only) countries involved in the war that had our homeland basically untouched. Once the war was over our factories and means of production could be focused on producing stuff for our civilians and not for the war effort.

Another positive affect that it had was the sense of security it gave the American public knowing that their military was the only one that possessed atomic weapong capabilities (at least for awhile).

Then there is payback for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. While we didn’t know about Pearl Harbor we did give them warning with the Potsdam Proclomation.

So Dopers I beg you do you think there are any other large benefits to the US?

p.s. I just want other Dopers opinions on the matter. I’d rather this not turn into any kind of debate.

2

And we’d rather you did your own homework, bucky.

3

And I’d rather you not jump to conclusions. I’m done with my paper. It’d be a pain in the ass to go back and edit just to throw in extra stuff. I just want to see if there is anything I’d missed. Since I’m a history major I’d thought it be enjoyable to see what other people thought of something this big.

4

Easy mistake to make on my part considering your opening statement, wouldn’t you say?

5

I think you may have overstated the “payback” part. By 1945, just about everybody in the entire world just wanted it to end. Contrary to what some people would like you to believe, the U.S.A. was involved, at least indirectly, as long as the Commonwealth and the French were. In the early days, that just meant producing food and war materiel, as well as the shipping necessary to get it all to Europe. Seven years of rationing, overwork, sleeplessness, killing and dying wears on people.

I also think you may have overlooked some long-term “benefits.” The Soviets were aware of the Manhattan Project before it produced the first fizzle. In the immediate post-war era, the fear of American nuclear capability kept them from annexing everything up to the French border, from the Netherlands to the Mediterranean. They had the conventional forces to do it, and we wouldn’t have been able to stop them.

When their spies brought the A-bomb technology to them, it created a global “Mexican Standoff.” After that, actual military action was limited to regional “proxy wars” instead of the conflagration that could have happened.

When I was a kid, we worried about World War III, in which the USA and the USSR would hurl bombs at each other and destroy the earth. It never happened, and more importantly, we didn’t waste ourselves in a “conventional” war. We had diplomatic and economic competition instead.

That was a contest we could win. People suffered, people died. It was better than the alternative.

I think that the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine actually worked.

If you look at all the stupid, pointless things we did since 1945, you have to admit that no one was willing to do the Ultimate Stupid Pointless Thing.

The term “A-Bomb” I used earlier seems quaint now, but it utterly terrified people in the fifties and sixties.

A few schoolday air raid exercises are better than lying in the mud, trying to stuff your intestines back in.

For sixty years.

[sub]Note to the Moderators:
I’m afraid that I went off the beam here, but I got really passionate about halfway through. I’m calm now, but I’m going to post it anyway. It’s just my opinion.[/sub]

6

A real reason is that the Soviet Union was ready to enter the war against Japan. If they had, then they would have occupied Japanese territory. The US wanted a Japanese surrender BEFORE Russian entry into the war and Japan to surrender to the US.

7

Good point. Although a fair amount of the reading I’ve done lately about the Japanese side said that they basically wanted nothing to do with a peace treaty of any sort. In fact according to the military they wanted every last man, woman, and child to fight to the death. They didn’t want to give up rather they wanted to basically have every last person die. I’m pretty sure it was all about honor for them.

And as for the US involvement well it’d be silly for anyone to try and say that the US wasn’t involved. But was the involvement worthy of being sneak attacked?

8

Sneak attacks - didn’t they do similar at Port Arthur and Darien, c. 1905 - Russo-Japanese war, or am I misremembering? Been a awhile.

9

And, of course, the Soviets did declare war on Japan a few days before the surrender, and seized not only the southern half of Sakhalin Island (held by Japan since the Russo-Japanese war) and the Kuril Islands. They also occupied parts of Manchuria which they were obliged to vacate and restore to China after the surrender.

The concern wasn’t limited to the occupation of physical territory (surely the Soviets wouldn’t have found it any easier to invade Japan proper than we would). It was directed at wanting to minimize Stalin’s say in the post-war restructuring of Asia. The less Soviet blood spilled and effort expended, the easier it would be to ignore their demands in terms of borders, governments, etc.

10

Every now and again you get someone who has it straight. The Bomb had everything to do with the Soviets and little to do with the Japanese. It may also have been a demonstration project to intimidate the Soviets in post-war negotiations in Europe.