Purchase Solution

Motivational Factors in Authorizing Atomic Bombs

Not what you're looking for?

Ask Custom Question

World War II changed the U.S. as a nation, economically, socially and politically. The ultimate resolution of the war was the use of the atom bomb and the dawn of the nuclear age.

What factors likely motivated President Truman to authorize the use of atomic bombs against Japan in August 1945?

Purchase this Solution
Solution Summary

This is a discussion regarding the use of atomic bombs in WWII. Specifically, what factors likely motivated President Truman to use atomic bombs against the Japanese? Over 550 words of original text along with links to sources.

Solution Preview

- To save American and Japanese lives

The primary argument used to support the dropping of the atomic bomb was that it would save primarily American but also Japanese lives compared to a traditional amphibious invasion of the island of Japan. The Americans had encountered the Japanese on dozens of Pacific islands. They respected and somewhat feared the determination with which the Japanese defended land they controlled. The Americans had lost thousands of men dead and wounded in their attempt to extricate the Japanese from the foxholes and tunnel systems they had devised on Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal and other islands. The American command knew that the Japanese would fight with even more determination when their homeland was invaded and would have the additional advantage of knowing the terrain intimately.
It was rumored that the Japanese military leaders had ordered the murder of over 100,000 American prisoners of war if ...

Purchase this Solution
Free BrainMass Quizzes
Native American Removal

This quiz covers the history surrounding the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

German Wars of Unification

A short quiz to determine the student's knowledge of events and figures associated with the mid 19th Century German Wars of Unification

Atlantic Slave Trade

This quiz will test your knowledge on the Atlantic Slave Trade

The French Revolution

This quiz covers the first French Revolution of 1789-94.

The New Government Begins

The quiz is designed to test your knowledge of American history after a new government and Constitution are put in place.

View More Free Quizzes
Related BrainMass Solutions

  • Atomic bomb

    If so, is this more moral and less costly in human lives than dropping the atomic bombs?

  • Weapons of Mass Destruction & Global Impact

    This is what the atomic bombs did and the world saw the destructive power of atomic bombs - calling it the sum of all fears.

  • Radiation, chemicals, isotopes

    177781 Atomic Bomb Radiation, X Ray Radiation, Commercial Chemicals 1. What types of bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in Japans surrender at the conclusion of WWII? What isotopes were used in the bombs?

  • Genetics

    49566 Genetics What do we know about DNA damage caused by nuclear radiation (the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs)?

  • World Politics: "Spy Catcher"

    In the early 1950's H bombs were detonated by the United States and the Soviet Union followed by Great Britain and other nations. Within a decade there were enough nuclear bombs to essentially destroy all life on earth.

  • Radio telescopes and Nucleosynthesis

    Compare this to the fission process, where a heavy element nucleus breaks into two lighter nucleii and the mass difference is converted to energy - this what happens in nuclear reactors and atomic bombs. The sun is mostly hydrogen.

  • Meteoroid destruction calculation

    Express your answer in terms of multiples of the energy released by the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan on August 6,1945. (Hint: where M is the mass of the asteroid and V is its speed. 

  • Radioactive dating

    %Then there was a rise in CO2 with the advent of atmospheric testing of atomic bombs in the 1950s. This would make things carbon-dated from that time appear younger than their true age.

  • World War II and Cold War at Home and Abroad

    In the meantime, at home the US redoubled its own efforts in atomic research, elevating nuclear weaponry to a central place in its military arsenal.

View More Related Solutions