Stalin a bit of an arse? That is an understatement. He was probably the most evil man that ever lived. He killed milllions, and what's worse he did it mostly to his own people. But back to the close of WW2.

 Ill sum it up for you.

At the Yalta Convention Roosevelt bent over backwards to get Stalin to agree to invade Japanese held territory in North Eastern Asia, and if it came down to it, help invade Japan itself. Russian's invasion, they decided, was to start 90 days after the fall of Germany, whenever that would be. After Germany surrendered the big three got together again at the Potsdam Conference. It was then very clear what Stalin's intentions were. He had it in mind to bring every country that was even remotely within Russia's sphere of influence under his complete control. Truman (Roosevelt had since died) and Churchill both understood that Stalin's policy  would apply to East Asia as well if the war did not end soon. Thus the two made up their minds to have the bomb dropped before Russia's invasion, given that Japan did not already surrender by then. But it was only one of many reasons why they made the decision. If anything it hastened the nuclear attack.

88 days after Germany's fall, on August 6th, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima. Three days later Fat Man fell while Russia launched a full scale attack on Manchuria. On August 15th Japan surrendered. By the time the US landed on Incheon in September the Russians had already claimed all of Manchuria and the northern part of Korea. Manchuria they held on to until Mao Zedong won the Chinese civil war. Stalin then returned it to the Communist Chinese, but not before completely plundering the land. North Korea remained under Soviet control until Kim Il-sung went rouge sometime in the mid 60s. in any event both China and North Korea were screwed for decades to come, as were all the Easter Block countries.

Meanwhile Japan and Western Germany (which were reconstructed by the Allies) went on to become the world's 2nd and 3rd largest economies in the next few decades.

Good thing is that now all those poor Eastern Block countries can become reach and prosperous xD

I think the main reason we should NOT have dropped the bomb was that we had NO fucking idea how crazy it would be or what effects it would have on people, let alone for how many decades.  Once we landed there and got to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you know what the U.S. soldiers had to do?  They had to chase down half-dead Japanese with cameras and stop them from filming the devastation.  We didn't want a wave of Japanese documentaries and news footage to show the rest of the world precisely how bad it was.  In fact, we tried to destroy most of that footage as we censored their media for years.

Luckily... some of that footage was lost before it could be destroyed, and it was rediscovered after 30 or 40 years.  So now we actually have access to on-the-ground footage just a few days after the explosions.

And then the radiation poisoning created a new untouchable class of citizens, the hibakusha.  They're basically modern day lepers.  Everybody's afraid of them because we know nothing about radiation poisoning, and most people assume it's contagious and shun these people.

There are even 165 people known as "nijuu hibakusha" because they got hit by both nukes.

And of course there are the 20,000 Koreans who were in Hiroshima at the time... about 14% of the total death toll there.  Whoops!

As almost all of the able bodied people in Japan at the time were willing to die for the empire and willing to fight with any weapons possible I think the bombs saved millions of japanise lives and half as many non japanise lives. It was the best stratagy in every way. It is common belief that Japan would of fought to literally the last man if an invasion on to there soil was made by the forces of the world.

 What was done ended the war sooner and helped rebuild the world sooner. No grey area in my mind.

'belief' is the keyword here. Yes it is your belief that this is the case instead of scientifically proven fact. Because there's no way that you or anyone else to know for sure what every able bodied person among a population of 70 mln would do 55 years ago.

But lets just assume that your 'belief' is true. In that case every able bodied person in Japan was ready to die in resisting an invading and occupying army. Do you think that this is very uncommon? Wouldn't you think that people of any proud country like the U.S. for example, would be ready to fight for their freedom against an invading army? So in that case does this justify the use of overwhelming and uncontrolled destrucitve force against that population?

Germany was going to pay the west reparations after the war, but the policy was changed when they realised that it would be better to have a stronger West Germany to support the various allies' 'national' interest. I'm personally glad the Americans national interest was in helping the other allies recover because as a European my countries did well out of US policy.

However, instead of comparing US policy in Europe with Soviet actions we should look at the US actions in the western hemisphere. Things weren't so rosy there.

I don't think Stalin was the most evil person, but that's because I think evil is a useless term. He was clearly mentally imbalanced and his policies were disastrous, but many deaths came as a result of changes to the way the USSR was organised rather than purposeful killings such as in Germany. He may not have cared that these people died, but that is still different to genocide. I do know that he was a racist and a paranoid nationalist madman.

He probably believed that the sacrifice of these people was for a noble purpose (ie the ends justify the means, but in this case he didn't get the end he desired). Some people have justified the atomic bombs with a similar rationale but with a ending that could (but not absolutely) be seen as a better, happier one.

Some people believe that the kamikaze pilots are evidence of this fanaticism, not realising that pilot's families were threatened in order to force the pilots to commit plane-based suicide.

I'm justifying the bombs with reference to the impact it had on anime. Would we have the same apocalyptic themes in films such as Akira without the nukes? I doubt that.

QED.

:P

I love this thread.  You see, this is the great thing about internet forums, you get to see all these different views on a subject and how different cultures approach it.  

There are all sorts of different "facts" that contradict each other.  Either people remembering them wrong or were taught it differently.  I think it would be fascinating to sit down and look at how textbooks in different countries approach the same subject, like world war 2.  You never seem to get a complete picture, always being hammered with your countries views of the subject.

From my perspective, (American) the bombing was a well planned out action.  They looked at their options, weighed the different costs of life and the long term effects and chose the option that put America in the best situation.  You hear how estimates lives lost in an invasion would have been in the millions and how Russia could be sweeping in to take their chunk of the pie.  Can't really blame America for their choice really, sure it was terrible, but ultimately lives were spared.

It also potentially cut off what was shaping up to be a world war 3 with Russia, as the introduction of the A-bombs made both the USA and Russia pause and take a step back.  The result being instead of war you saw the awkward dance and politicking that was the cold war.  Neither side daring to make a move because the result would mean the destruction of both countries, and maybe the world.  

Thats my two cents anyway.  

1. It was the only option at the time as it saved who knows how many lives of allied soldiers. I think this is proven since Japan's rulers did not immediately surrender after the first bomb. That idea of being unable to surrender was demonstrated after the first bomb when everyone knew how massive the devastation was.

2. Those arguing on moral grounds must realize war in itself isn't moral and innocents die regardless. Therefore the choice in this was us or them and the US military chose them (to die) for obvious reasons.

3. Keep in mind that Japan is the reason US even entered the war.