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“Exactly 80 years since an atomic bomb was used in war for the first time, thousands bowed their heads in prayer in Hiroshima on Wednesday… The western Japanese city of Hiroshima was levelled on Aug. 6, 1945, when the United States dropped a uranium bomb nicknamed ‘Little Boy’, killing about 78,000 people instantly. Hiroshima was the headquarters of some military units and a major supply base during World War Two…
“It was followed by a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki three days later, and Japan's surrender on Aug. 15. Representatives from a record 120 countries and territories including nuclear superpower the United States, and Israel, which neither confirms nor denies having nuclear weaponry, attended the annual ceremony at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park for the milestone year.” Reuters
Many on both sides argue that the bombings were a necessary evil:
“Many modern critics assume that the Bombs (we will hereafter capitalize them) represented the worst possible outcome of the war. This is not so. At the rate people were dying in Japan — especially prisoners in Japanese hands — more victims would have perished than the 100,000 (a conservative guesstimate) who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the struggle continued for even a few weeks longer…
“There is [also] a myth that commands support among a modest faction of modern historians that in August 1945 the Japanese were ready to quit. This is untrue… The Tokyo war party believed Japan still held an important card — the capability to savage an invasion of the mainland, inflicting casualties that the squeamish Americans would find unacceptable.”
Max Hastings, Bloomberg
“The end of the war made unnecessary a US invasion that could have meant hundreds of thousands of American casualties; saved millions of Japanese lives that would have been lost in combat on the home islands and to starvation; cut short the brief Soviet invasion (that alone accounted for hundreds of thousands of Japanese deaths); and ended the agony that Imperial Japan brought to the region, especially a China that suffered perhaps 20 million casualties…
“Bequeathed with untold power by the new weapon, it is telling that we used the bomb to bring an end to a terrible war and didn’t use it to dominate Europe, or for other cynical purposes. Instead, our nuclear umbrella became part of a security arrangement that endured for decades, defending the free world from the Soviets and preventing the re-occurrence of world war.”
Rich Lowry, New York Post
Other opinions below.
“Recent years have seen threats of Russia using a ‘tactical’ nuclear weapon in Ukraine and a military conflict between India and Pakistan that US officials believed could have gone nuclear. The governments making these threats aren’t suicidal; if they were contemplating nuclear use, it’s because they thought it would help them win. In response to growing threats, the United States has been updating its own doctrine and arsenals…
“This year’s Hiroshima anniversary is a moment for somber reflection on the risks humanity has put itself under. But a more optimistic view is that the world is also marking 80 years without any other country actually using these weapons… Getting to the 100th anniversary with that record intact may prove even more challenging.”
Joshua Keating, Vox
“Even as the great powers rush to build a new generation of nuclear weapons, there is no consistent dialogue among Russia, China, and the US about their nuclear postures or nuclear intentions. Meanwhile, nuclear weapons advocates in the US… are aggressively pushing for a return to some of the riskiest practices of the Cold War era, from multi-warhead, long-range nuclear missiles to larger stockpiles of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, to above ground nuclear testing…
“These measures risk dragging us back to the attitudes that prevailed in US national security circles before the peace movement of the 1980s transformed Ronald Reagan from the man who called the Soviet Union the ‘evil empire’ and joked that the bombing would start in five minutes to the one who publicly acknowledged that ‘a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.’”
William D. Hartung, The Nation
“Even after the first bomb, even after Hiroshima was obliterated, half the Japanese leadership still refused to surrender. They were fully prepared to sacrifice the civilian population to preserve their ‘divine’ Emperor’s regime. It took not just Hiroshima but Nagasaki to force the decision for peace… The shock of atomic defeat broke the spell of imperial mythology…
“Japan didn’t become a smoldering wasteland or a Soviet slave state. It became an ally. A democracy. A powerhouse. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, far from being monuments to ruin, are today bustling cities, filled with life. That’s not because we withheld the bomb. It’s because we used it, and then had the moral clarity and civilizational charity to rebuild what we had broken, better than before.”
Rod Martin, Substack
“Despite efforts from the Biden administration to engage in further arms control discussions, Russia suspended its compliance to the New START treaty in 2023. And in Jan. 2025, Russia publicly dismissed U.S. proposals for additional nuclear talks as ‘deceptive.’ As recently as February, Trump voiced interest in denuclearization talks with both Russia and China. Still, our adversaries show little interest in coming to the table…
“Over the last 15 years, every president has tried to engage in nuclear nonproliferation talks with Russia, China, and even North Korea. And every time, our enemies lie, cheat, or refuse to even have a preliminary discussion…
“So long as our adversaries have and continue to build weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. has no option but to build an arsenal that can deter them.”
Anna Gustafson, Daily Signal
