There is a lot of revionist history going on lately regarding the a-bombing of Japan. I've always maintained that it was the right thing to do, regardless of the loss of civilian lives and the general inhumanity associated with atomic bombs.

I remember apu and I had a really good debate on this topic which pretty much ended in a stalemate (does it ever end in anything else?). However, Kristof has written an op-ed regarding the "rightness" in dropping the a-bombs which I find every interesting.

You never think about how the Japanese felt - you'd think they all thought the dropping was wrong, but we often forget that there are multiple factions within a country all vying for the "final decision."

In any case, this is an op-ed and as such shouldn't be taken as 100% fact. However, assuming this is true, I'd be curious to hear what your defenses against dropping the A-bomb.

Remember that Japanese warrior culture honored death, even against odds. The kamikaze attacks were clear examples of this - it is more glorious to die in battle than to surrender. By using the atomic bomb and killing innocent civilians, this had to undercut the warsome factions in Japan- there would be no honorable deaths once atomic bombs were being dropped and the military being decimated.

Speaking of warrior culture, I've been thinking about how prevalent our warrior culture is. I think that the United States has such a dominant warrior culture - I don't know of any other nation that glorifies (well, to use that word in an extreme sense) the armed services as much as the United States does. Everywhere else around you world you see less money being spent on maintaining a large military, yet in the United States you see a budget increase for the military.

Is a dominant military warrior culture really a positive thing?

Edit: I'll do 'blanket' responses to the comments left in response ...

Just an aside to those following the discussion:

I think there needs to be a clear distinction between the two schools of bombing; tactical and strategic bombing. Too many of us nowadays have grown up in the age of pinpoint bombing which leads many of us to believe that it was possible to break the will of the Japanese without mass civilian bombing.

Tactical bombing refers to the direct targetting of military targets to directly support other troops (e.g. striking Iraqi tanks with Hellfire missiles from helicopters would be considered a 'tactical air strike'). Strategic bombing refers to the attacking of secondary targets that are not directly related to the enemy's military. Bombing of power grids, factories, and to some degree, the bombing of civilians was considered 'strategic bombing' (during WWII). Lately our air power theory has mostly moved away from strategic bombing of civilians (firebombings of cities) mostly for political reasons and the fact that the bombing of civilians doesn't actually destroy morale...

Now, looking at the Japanese situation in 1945... the Japanese had been mostly beaten back to the home island, yet they were still holding out. Unlike the Germans, there was no easy land route from which the Soviets and the US (or Allies in Europe) could do a "pincher" move.

Although it's all theoretical, losses on the Japanese islands would of been in the "millions." I'm kind of skeptical of those numbers, seeing as to how taking down the Germany itself was relatively light-lossed (didn't even approach a million by the soviets, if i'm not mistaken)...

In any case, I ramble. The point here is like Will said, the will of the Japanese had not been broken. Winning a war is not about superior firepower and greater number of troops; it's the will to win. If your will can succumb against a superior enemy, you are not defeated. And this was exactly the case in Japan. The Japanese warriors still believed they could hold the home island (or at the worst case, sacrifice themselves with honor).

The atomic bombings showed the fruitlessness of fighting for the Japanese. As for the question of "why didn't we drop them on military targets?"

Well, think about that for a second. If you're the resilient Japanese, and the Americans drop an a-bomb on some deserted military base, it's not saying much. The Japanese public opinion had to see the firsthand horrors of continuing the war against an enemy with the a-bomb. And there is no better way to do this then dropping two a-bombs on two populated areas.

I'm also curious about the post-war situation in Japan had there been a land invasion. The Russians would of certainly taken an active role in taking as much away from Japan as possible ... would there have been a post-war Japan much like Germany? Who knows.

All I know is the Japanese being able to save face helped a lot in the reconstruction of the country. The quick knock-out blows of the atomic bombs helped both militarily and politically to get the Japanese out of WWII.