31st March 2015, 10:33 PM
The most dangerous moment almost certainly has to be the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, you're right, all through the Cold War there were moments like the ones you mention...
As for WWII, yeah, I definitely think that using the nuke was justified. The key is comparing the suffering that dropping those nukes caused, versus the alternative, invading Japan with an army. That would have caused more death and destruction than the nukes, there is no question. There also might have been a Soviet invasion of Japan, if it'd taken long enough, and it could have, so maybe Hokkaido today would be some North Korea-like state, or something? You never know.
Another thing to consider is that Japan had a very serious food shortage, and a MASSIVE famine was only averted in 1945-46 because of huge amounts of American food imports after the surrender. A prolonged war would have led to lots more civilian deaths from starvation.
Really, as awful as they were, the only way to say that the nukes were wrong is to say that Japan was going to surrender soon without either an invasion or nuclear attacks, and there just isn't any credible reason to believe that, unfortunately. The 'war party' in the Japanese government was too strong and too proud to back down until they were forced to by the use of nukes.
As for your point that no use of nuclear weapons during WWII might have made their use afterwards between the US and the Soviets more likely, though... huh, that's an interesting one. Not sure if I've heard that theory before; probably, but it's definitely interesting, and there could be truth to it for sure. It is true that most people did not fully realize how destructive nuclear weapons were until after seeing what actually happened when they were used in war.
As for WWII, yeah, I definitely think that using the nuke was justified. The key is comparing the suffering that dropping those nukes caused, versus the alternative, invading Japan with an army. That would have caused more death and destruction than the nukes, there is no question. There also might have been a Soviet invasion of Japan, if it'd taken long enough, and it could have, so maybe Hokkaido today would be some North Korea-like state, or something? You never know.
Another thing to consider is that Japan had a very serious food shortage, and a MASSIVE famine was only averted in 1945-46 because of huge amounts of American food imports after the surrender. A prolonged war would have led to lots more civilian deaths from starvation.
Really, as awful as they were, the only way to say that the nukes were wrong is to say that Japan was going to surrender soon without either an invasion or nuclear attacks, and there just isn't any credible reason to believe that, unfortunately. The 'war party' in the Japanese government was too strong and too proud to back down until they were forced to by the use of nukes.
As for your point that no use of nuclear weapons during WWII might have made their use afterwards between the US and the Soviets more likely, though... huh, that's an interesting one. Not sure if I've heard that theory before; probably, but it's definitely interesting, and there could be truth to it for sure. It is true that most people did not fully realize how destructive nuclear weapons were until after seeing what actually happened when they were used in war.
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