The United States had invested an enormous sum of money into the project to build the bomb. 2$ billion was invested into its creation. It was the most expensive weapon ever built and to this day remains one of the most destructive in our solar system. Why would anyone invest 2 billion dollars into some thing that they do not intend to use? As Stimson states in Harpers Magazine the people of the committee said they could not just demonstrate the power of the bomb to Japan they had to actually use the bomb on an inhabited city. He said the committee unanimously agreed to these terms “The bomb should be used on a dual target, a military installation surrounded by adjacent housing close to other buildings most susceptible to damage and it should be used without prior warning” (Stimson, 100). Based on the unanimous decision of the committee to drop the bomb on targets that where going to be most affected it made it seem almost like a test. See how much damage the atom bomb could really do and observe its results.
The United States could garner a gargantuan amount of political and military power if they could unveil their bomb and show its real destructive power. By dropping the bomb the U.S. could show the U.S.S.R. and Stalin who the dominant super power of the world would be. Stalin having a firm stance on political issues and not budging at all at the Post Dam conference could obviously be swayed by such a show of power. That is one of the things the U.S. wanted to show the most. They had battled Japan and they did not want the U.S.S.R. being one of the occupying forces. “The purpose of the bombings was to intimidate other countries, above all the Soviet Union. In other words the US decision to use atomic energy for military purposes was meant to produce a diplomatic and psychological impact, and this has since involved the world in a nuclear arms race” (Vadim Nekrasov).
C. Evaluation of Sources
The source “The Roots of European Security” by the Soviet historian Vadim Nekrasov originated from a Russian historian born in the times of the Soviet Union. The purpose of this particular part of the book was to try and get sympathy from the different readers about how the U.S. was trying to make a power house move and a grab for power. Its purpose was to also bring about a feeling of almost impending doom that we are all now involved in a perpetual nuclear arms race. The value of this source is an opinion from the other side of the fence. The U.S. just wanted to use the bomb for political gain. The limits of this source are that it does not really describe the general opinion of the entire population of the U.S.S.R. but only from one group of people.
The source “Why America Dropped the Bomb” by Donald Kaga was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It has originated because of the large protest for dropping the first nuclear arms. The purpose of this piece was to talk about how tragic the event was and to discuss other possible alternatives to dropping the bomb. The primary value of this source brings up an old saying “hindsight is always 20/20” meaning that sitting here from this standpoint I can analyze the mistakes in diplomacy and think of negotiations that would have ended the war without dropping the bomb. The limit for this source is that it is far to biased in its standpoint. It seems that Kaga is saying even if it meant the U.S. loosing he would not agree with dropping the bomb.
E. Conclusion
The bomb was dropped onto Hiroshima and later onto Nagasaki for many reasons. The primary reasons where the U.S. had very great potential for lose of troops if they had to conventionally invade Japan, The U.S. invested Billions into the project and they wanted to see what their new weapon was capable of on a live city, and also because of the potential gain in political power it could give the United States. Owning the bomb could be the difference in strength between the Soviets and the U.S.
Works Cited
Alperovitz, Gar. "Hiroshima: Historians Reassess." Foreign Policy (1995).
Kaggen, Donald. "Why America Dropped the Bomb."
Stimson, Henry L. "The decision to use the atomic bomb." Harpers Feb. 1947.
"What were the reasons for dropping of the bomb?" Angel Fire. 11 Oct. 2008. <http://http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/hiroshima/q1.html>.
