Counter Argument 1

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  “Tokyo’s aim was to inflict such damage and casualties on the attackers that the Allies would be convinced of the futility of further fighting and of the wisdom of negotiated peace.”¹
  

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  The Japanese Government from the Emperor Hirohito to the Moscow Ambassador Sato tried to negotiate surrender “it is His Majesty’s heart’s desire to see the swift termination of the war”².
  
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  Supposedly the Japanese people, as a consummate of over 100 million, were going to commit national suicide in the name of their Emperor.³
  

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  “The Joint Chiefs ‘saw no prospect of surrender until the army leaders acknowledged defeat’ either actual or through the realization that the military’s survival was at stake.”⁴
  

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  Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson: To extract a genuine surrender from the Emperor and his military advisers, they must be administered a tremendous shock which would carry convincing proof of our power to destroy the empire. Such an effective shock would save many times the number of lives, both American and Japanese, than it would cost.⁵
  
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  “It was thought that the effects of the bomb on such a target would make the maximum impression on the military and civilian rulers of Japan. Any more sparing course was deemed by Stimson and his associates on the Interim Committee to involve a ‘…serious danger to the major objective of obtaining a prompt surrender from the Japanese.”⁶
  

Hundreds of thousand of Japanese lives would have been lost whether the atomic bomb was dropped, or by any other alternative in the effort against the war. The battle of Britain is an example, in which over 146,777 civilians were killed or seriously injured.⁷ Also the air raids in Germany cost approximately 300,000 civilian lives, and injured almost 780,000 more.⁸ These examples all show the costly effects of conventional bombings. With a suppressing amount of causalities that would have come from conventional bombings the atomic bomb was necessary in order to prevent a longer war that costs more in money and possibly more in lives. However, it is not for certain that conventional bombings would have resulted in a higher death toll.

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  “The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey published its conclusion that Japan would have likely surrendered in 1945 without atomic bombing… and without American invasion.”⁹
  

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  William D. Leahy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated: “My own feeling is that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”¹⁰
  

Thus if one makes the broad assumption that the atomic bomb was the capital approach to ending the war, one must consider the impact and consequences the atomic bomb used in the 1940’s created for the next 40 years.

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  On Aug. 8, 1945 Admiral William D. Leahy wrote in his diary: "there is a certainty that it [the a-bomb] will in the future be developed by potential enemies and that it will probably be used against us."¹¹
  

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  "The increasing effects of air-sea blockade, the progressive cumulative deevastation wroght by strategic bombing, and the collapase of Germany (with is implications regarding redeployment)… The entry of the U.S.S.R. into the war would together with the foregoing factors, convince most Japanese at once of the inevitability of complete defeat" ¹²
  

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  “My conclusion, with which the naval representatives agreed, was that America’s least expensive course of actions was to continue to intensify the air and sea blockade and at the same time continue to occupy the Philippines. I believed that a completly blockaded Japan would then fall by its own weight."¹³
  

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  During the Okinawa battle there was about one American casualty for every four Japanese casualties which would be translated to over 528 000 Japanese casualties for an invasion of Kyushu.
  
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  Truman, at that time, “hoped there was a possibility of preventing an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other.”¹⁵
  

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  “…a Naval blockade was strangling Japan’s ability to import oil and other vital materials and its ability to produce war materials…by the beginning of September [1944], Japan was almost completely defeated through a practically complete sea and air blockade.” ¹⁶
  
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  “His sea power is so badly depleted that it is no match for any one of the several task forces we could put into action. His air power is in a bad way. He has a lot of airplanes-probably more than he had a year ago- but he has lost his element of flight, squadron and group leaders and his hastily trained replacements haven’t the skill or ability or combat knowledge to compete with us… “¹⁷