Talk:Nuclear attacks against Japan

Reexamining prior dialogue

It's been a while, but, as I remember, I split this from a much larger air war article simply for size reasons. It still, however, reads like an essay to me, with much pushing of Stimson as the fundamental policymaker: not universally agreed. The author and I disagreed.

Further, it doesn't really address the development of the U.S. nuclear weapon, British cooperation, Soviet espionage, and German and Japanese programs.

Is this retrievable or should it be restarted? Howard C. Berkowitz 00:27, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Stimson material

I moved this here for discussion; it is by no means universally believed that Henry Stimson was so responsible for U.S. policy. If this is the case, I'd like to see some more accessible, and indeed more recent citations. These are appear to be historical sources, and there is little from the views of nuclear strategists or professional military literature. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:29, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

===Stimson's vision===

In retrospect it seems likely that the impact of continued blockade, relentless bombing, and the Russian invasion of Manchuria would have somehow forced the Japanese Army to surrender sometime in late 1945 or early 1946 even without the atomic bombs (though not without very large numbers of Japanese casualties.) But Stimson saw well beyond the immediate end of the war. He was the only top government official who tried to predict the meaning of the atomic age--he envisioned a new era in human affairs. For a half century he had worked to inject order, science, and moralism into matters of law, of state, and of diplomacy. His views had seemed outdated in the age of total warfare, but now he held what he called "the royal straight flush." The impact of the atom, he foresaw, would go far beyond military concerns to encompass diplomacy and world affairs, as well as business, economics and science. Above all, said Stimson, this "most terrible weapon ever known in human history" opened up "the opportunity to bring the world into a pattern in which the peace of the world and our civilization can be saved." That is, the very destructiveness of the new weaponry would shatter the ages-old belief that wars could be advantageous. It might now be possible to call a halt to the use of destruction as a ready solution to human conflicts. Indeed, society's new control over the most elemental forces of nature finally "caps the climax of the race between man's growing technical power for destructiveness and his psychological power of self-control and group control--his moral power."

In 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria Stimson, then Secretary of State, proclaimed the famous "Stimson Doctrine." It said no fruits of illegal aggression would ever be recognized by the United States. Japan just laughed. Now the wheels of justice had turned and the "peace-loving" nations (as Stimson called them) had the chance to punish Japan's misdeeds in a manner that would warn aggressor nations never again to invade their neighbors. To validate the new moral order, the atomic bomb had to be used against civilians. Indeed, the Japanese people since 1945 have been intensely anti-militaristic, pointing with anguish to their experience at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Was Stimson then guilty of a crime (as many Japanese now believe)? Perhaps, but it has to be recognized that he moved the issue to a higher plane than one of military ethics. The question was not one of whether soldiers should use this weapon or not. Involved was the simple issue of ending a horrible war, and the more subtle and more important question of the possibility of genuine peace among nations. Stimson's decision involved the fate of mankind, and he posed the problem to the world in such clear and articulate fashion that there was near unanimous agreement mankind had to find a way so that atomic weapons would never be used again. Thanks in great part to Stimson's vision, they never have been used since August of 1945.

Howard C. Berkowitz 23:29, 29 May 2009 (UTC)