What are your thoughts on nuclear weapons and their use?

Yes, the atomic bombings were awful and it would have been great if we hadn't had to use them, but it would have been worse in the long term if we hadn't. If we had had to invade Japan, it would have cost many more millions of lives, both theirs and ours.

They're pretty useful. I use one every day!

👍

I don’t think they were justified to use. But to be fair, the war probably wouldn’t have ended if the US didn’t use the bombs.

It's very unfortunate that they had to be used, but I really think they were warranted. Had Japan not surrendered before a land invasion, hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides would've been lost.

Now this is an interesting article I read awhile back about the effects that the USSR entering the war had on Japan's surrender. You don't have to read it, just making it available.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/

Now as for continuing to keep nuclear arsenals, I think it is necessary because many other countries (some of them untrustworthy) possess such weapons. In a perfect world, no country would have them. But really, in a perfect world, we wouldn't need a military at all.

i think it was horrible that they had 2 be used, but they kinda had to be. japan bombed us, when we were trying to stay out of the war. we weren't going to just kill off japan.

idt they'd b warranted these days tho b/c we have so many atomic bombs that if WWIII started, the earth would just be uninhabitable. The H-bomb, nuclear bomb, atomic bomb, etc. I just read a book about a hypothetical WWIII where on 1 day, all of america's big cities got bombed in it & the world turned chaotic. Ppl committed suicide, & some survivors weren't sure their family members were alive.
I'm very concerned that'll b the world if we have another WW, so idt they'd b justified right now unless someone used them on us 4 no reason.

Agreed, H-bombs are actually over 1,000 times (or more) as powerful as the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

If it did come to all out nuclear war, all the big cities would be targets so really the only safe place would be wayyyyy out in the country, preferably far enough from a big city to best avoid the fallout.

ye. in the book i read, very few places in america were even inhabitable. it was terrible. idt anyone would want that... everyone became selfish and cold-hearted. they said it would take america 1,000 yrs 2 recover from that one day. i rlly hope the world nvr gets to where it got in that book... lol

Let's say if we all launched them at each other. We can just say sayonara to our world and lives.

Why would we do that when trees, dogs, cats, crows, ravens, etc. exist?

Exactly, why?

It was a pretty cool song from the Utimate Sin album. 🤘😎

not in my opinion

It caused climate change.

I do not think they are justified. The A-bomb may have helped won the second world war, but in the long run, they are inventions of nihlisism that may well lead to worldwide destruction .

Both my grandparents served in the Pacific Theater (U.S. Army and Marine Corps) and may have been a part of any land invasion of Japan that was to occur.

Had they gone, I might not be here today.

So, I don’t have great standing to complain about those bombs being dropped.

And now you call yourself "kamikaze"...? Great perspective, I find that the sense of self preservation tends to drive people's opinions :)

My grandfather also served in the Pacific theater, albeit later in the war. He never saw any action that I know of, but was stationed in Guam. I'd love to go there some day just to see where he was during that time.

My grandfathers shot these guys out of the sky. Now I take my SN after them.

Ironic

Most would agree patriotism, bravery, and self-sacrifice are admirable in service of the right cause.

Imperial Japan was not that cause, however. Japan’s deranged military leadership kept fighting long after the war was hopelessly lost from their perspective, which is part of what made the bombs necessary.

I have read that there was no “decision” to use the bomb. It was taken for granted that they would be used as soon as they came online. After all the time and expense and hard work sunk into the Manhattan Project, setting them aside was not a real option.

There was debate about whether to drop the first atomic bomb in an out-of-the-way area as a demonstration of force to try to force the Japanese to resign.

However, that option was rejected because it would have potentially given the Japanese time to prepare, adapt, and psychologically ready themselves. Striking an abandoned field may have also been interpreted as a sign of ineptitude rather than strength.

So, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets.

The rest is history.

War is hell, but when the adversary is relentless, fighting to the end is sometimes the only way to achieve peace.

Personally I would have targeted a military base, whatever

i think america just needed to get the point across to japan, and back then nuclear bombs were dropped from planes, they didn't have nuclear submarines and launch sites, and tokyo had good air defense systems, but i think the bomb drop was necessary to end the war

Meanwhile the US wages endless war all over the world. I wonder what it would take to make them stop, and I doubt a bomb or two would do it.

Extinction bombs are very dangerous and I really don't think that burning innocent people alive with radioactivity can really be justified with much of anything, especially since Hitler may or may not have already offed himself (correct me if I'm wrong here).

The war in Europe was already over by that point. As for Hitler offing himself, I think he fled to Argentina, as we have no proof of his death, the skull Russia claimed to have turned out to be a woman's.

I don't doubt that the Soviets lied in the first place, and knowing the thing about the skull I definitely think he escaped to Argentina to live out the rest of his life on....drugs. So fun.

Well gosh, that plot has certainly thickened.

Also, I think that nuking just one city full of innocent civilians probably would have been enough to get Japan to back down.

But it was not. They did not believe in surrender. And they believed we only had 1 bomb. We really only had 2. But the 2nd one convinced them it was not a single prototype. Had they called our bluff after Nagasaki it would have been a long time before we would have a third. We estimated losing a million men storming their home islands Beaches. They would have lost even more. Both cities had military strategic significance.

Also the war was projected to last through1947

thats until the allies cracked the german codes and knew what they were doing (enigma machine)

That's fair.

It is necessary to have nuclear weapons as a deterrent to war - this is the ultimate "my gun is bigger." The issue is where countries start saying who can and can't have them. If one country can't have them, no country should.

The direct questions in the meme are much harder to answer, but my answer is yes, but actually, no

I think there is no present or future justification for using a nuclear bomb, especially as modern ones are even more destructive. Every person that is reasonably educated knows the catastrophic effect of doing so and the hope is that no logical person would even consider it - though it is scarily easy to imagine a mutual assured destruction use of one as a last resort (which leads back to the war deterrent reasoning).

I like having a BLAST! XD

idk i think for the most part they shouldn't ever be used