Just War and the Use of Nuclear Weapons

I just wanted to start off with a brief warning: A lot of the historical sources that I found do come with photos from the time which can be graphic and possibly triggering. I tried to pick sites that did not have as many of these pictures, but there are still a few.

Even though I know most of our class may not have done the readings that the other GSIs assigned, I was really interested in Dustin's discussion of just war (and I know that there is at least one other person in my section who is as well). One war I've always enjoyed discussing is World War Two, and more specifically, I tend to get into arguments with people over the justification to drop the atomic bombs in Japan to end the war. In general, I tend to be in the minority on this: I contend that this action was not necessary and was an excessive action. Part of this is based on the research I've done, but by the end of such arguments, both sides usually degenerate into personal feelings about the decision. After reading over Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars and attending Dustin's lecture, I have a clearer understanding of why this action can be considered unjust and that the term excessive can be applied.

  Found here

In Walzer's discussion of just war, he states that in a just war, "no one can be threatened with war or warred against, unless through some act of his own he has surrendered or lost his rights" (Walzer 135) and that "noncombatants cannot be attacked at anytime" (Walzer 151). Usually people justify many of the actions taken against Japan by saying that we were at war with their country. However in this quote Walzer says that someone must give up his own rights, showing this is a personal act. This means that civilians should be protected since they themselves have not given up their personal rights. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki go against this because they did affect civilians who did not surrender their rights in this way, and therefore should not be warred against. Some may argue that the bombs were more targeted at those cities because of the substantial military bases there, but this presents another problem: since the bombs had such a large impact, there was no way to discriminate between soldier and civilian. Another caveat that Walzer adds is that even if there is fighting near civilian areas, care should be taken not to harm them. By dropping the atomic bomb America did not take care to protect the people who were not actively involved in the war and therefore not subject to its violence, which violates this idea of just war.

Churchill, Truman, and Stalin at Potsdam where the end of World War II was discussed. Not directly related to the dropping of the atomic bombs, but I'm trying not to include non-graphic pictures. From this site.

Well, what if it's impossible not to harm civilians while carrying out military action? Walzer lays out some more general conditions that don't only have to do with civilians, and the one I thought was most interesting was the third:

3. "The intention of the actor is good, that is, he aims only at the acceptable effect; the evil effect is not one of his ends, nor is it a means to his ends."

In this case the acceptable effect was to get Japan to surrender, and based on this many people argue that the atomic bombs were necessary to achieve this end. However, I would like to bring up that Japan had already been bombarded with firebombing, Japanese morale was relatively low, and  the economy was suffering. Some sources even state that Hirohito was begging his cabinet to surrender by the beginning of August, but there seems to be much debate about this issue. This seems to suggest that perhaps the war would have ended sooner than America anticipated. Of course the plan was not going to be to just wait it out, but thinking about how much and the extent of the destruction the atomic bombs caused, this action seems to have done much more than just end the war. There were other ways America could have ended the war without unleashing this destructive bomb with its unknown medical effects on Japan. So what was the other intention, an intention that was perhaps not so good?

This action was not only made to end the war; America also wanted to intimidate Stalin and the Soviet Union. This means that American did not only aim at the acceptable effect. If the atomic bombs had just been dropped and ended the war, perhaps it would be a little trickier to argue this point because in that case the direct effect was achieved and utilitarian squabbles over numbers always make it hard to figure if there was an easier way to end it, but because there was a secondary goal in mind, the dropping of the atomic bombs does not line up with this clause.

And then the argument about proportionality comes back, even though it's one that Walzer tends to stay away from. How can we discuss proportionality when we can't discuss the what if's of history (that is we can't say what if Russia had launched a land invasion in Japan)? Well, what did the dropping of the atomic bombs cause? One could argue that if this hadn't happened, the Cold War would not be as intense as it was. By actively using nuclear weapons, America unleashed a terror upon the world, and this was a fear that the Soviet Union felt like it had to counter. And even though the Cold War never truly came to America and the Soviet Union launching nuclear war, there were still hot spots where even more people died. I suppose this did lead to another what if in that we don't know what would have happened with the Cold War if America did not use nuclear weapons in Japan, but at the same time, this was the inception of the cold war. Even though we can argue over the number of Japanese and American deaths during the war, considering the atomic bombs led to more casualties over the next 45 years or so, the atomic bombs were disproportionately violent, killed civilians, and therefore this was not a just act of war.

Just some of the absurdity that came out of the Cold War. This was also used in The Atomic Cafe which is a good documentary to check out if you're interested in history.