For those interested in arguments about whether the bombings were necessary, there's a good Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombi...

I do believe the bombings were a strategic show-of-force to the Soviet Union since they were coming out of the war as a global power; USSR were instrumental in ending the war.

> I realized that it actually did bring an end to the war

This may be the mainstream opinion in the US, but do note it's not the mainstream opinion in other countries. Alternative explanations include that the real purpose of the two bombs was to show the Soviets the nuclear might of the US (this view is suggested in the Hiroshima museum in Japan, but just in case you discount it because Japan is obviously not a neutral party, this opinion is also held in some countries in Latin America -- even some people in the US believe this). Even at the time, some people in the US army opposed the bombing and believed it had no military justification.

We had a discussion about this in high school, I think my junior year. Most of these types of discussions were very lopsided, so the teacher would usually have to encourage people to take the “bad/unpopular” position somehow. But this one was right down the line in my class and produced a lively debate. I still think about it, but my opinion hasn’t changed — it was the correct decision.

My school education about this was also essentially "bombs are bad, kids". The Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...) is actually quite enlightening in this matter. A lot of people seem to think that the Americans didn't try anything else before. Likewise most people don't realize how much more death there would've been on both sides if the US invaded Japan by sea.

I thought it was settled now that the entry of the Soviet Union in the Pacific theatre ended the war, not the two (!) atomic bombs - it's a sad fact that Nagasaki is so often forgotten.

The US had already destroyed mostly all Japanese cities. There was no large difference between a firestorm bombing and the bombs to Japanese cities. In Tokyo more than 700.000 buildings were destroyed and in one night more than 100.000 people killed by fire bombing.

The only difference was one of efficiency. It took 280 B-29 to kill 100k people in one night in Tokyo while it took 1 B-29 to kill 100k people in Hiroshima.

Even assuming it did bring an end to the war: was it really necessary to drop two bombs for that?

> Surely, we have the tools and desire, don't we? I hope.

Military conflicts through out the world since suggest we do not.

You've recreated the Ultimate Ideal from movie Hero (2002)

1. Mastery of a weapon and combat (the nuclear weapon)

2. Weapon not in hand, but in the hearts and minds (loyalty and devotion to the cause)

3. The ultimate ideal - the weapon disappears altogether, and the warrior is at peace with the world.

A quote from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Japan at the moment was seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of face. It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” There are more quotes, but basically everything you were taught about the necessity of wiping out hundreds of thousands of people in a flash was after the fact American propaganda to justify a war crime.

> Which if it had continued, could have consumed far more lives.

Everything along these lines are counterfactual excercises and a nice way of justify the crime of dropping nuclear bombs on cities full of civilians. I don't buy this. And something we all know is that history is told by the victors.

> [...] how do we get people to help themselves get out of the path to war?

Philosophically I find this revolting. Who are you, or me, or we to say what some other society should do? That should never be the goal and I don’t think anything good comes from starting with “other people are wrong, we should fix them.”

I realize I’m putting hyperbolic words in your mouth here but the point is nobody should be trusted with that kind of power.

> Surely, we have the tools and desire, don't we? I hope.

No, I don’t think we do. And if we did they would be more devastating than nuclear weapons. The closest thing is social media.

> and maybe actually more the non-horrific but relentless robotic support for the war (or obedience towards the emperor, government, etc) among the people

That is a lot of words to say "civilians trying to survive during a war".

To make it even worse, the war criminals, that ones that were part of the "horrors of the Japanese war machine" were spared by the USA after the war. Fearing an increase influence of Communism in Asia, the USA let the war criminals go unpunished.

Targeting civilians while sparing war criminals is hardly a moral stand point.

I've heard the idea that atomic bombs were the deciding factor in ending the war is in large part American propaganda. The fact is the Soviets had far superior divisions (in both manpower and fire power) lined up against the Japanese in Manchuria, and shattered them within weeks.

From wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War), "Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings were not the principal reason for Japan's capitulation. He argues that Japan's leaders were impacted more by the swift and devastating Soviet victories on the mainland in the week after Joseph Stalin's August 8 declaration of war because the Japanese strategy to protect the home islands was designed to fend off an Allied invasion from the south and left virtually no spare troops to counter a Soviet threat from the north. Furthermore, the Japanese could no longer hope to achieve a negotiated peace with the Allies by using the Soviet Union as a mediator with the Soviet declaration of war. That, according to Hasegawa, amounted to a "strategic bankruptcy" for the Japanese and forced their message of surrender on August 15, 1945.[39][16] Others with similar views include the Battlefield series documentary,[2][11] among others, but all, including Hasegawa, state that the surrender was not caused by only one factor or event."

> When I was young in grade school, and learned about the bomb, and its terrifying aftermath, pictures, scars, I thought that this was clearly a wrong against humanity to have been dropped on anyone. Clearly the visceral kind of "this should never happen" reaction that any average person would have. "How could we put the Enola Gay on a stamp to glorify this?"

This is captured very well in Leiji Matsumoto's "The Cockpit" anime short, where in the protagonist, a Nazi Luftwaffe Pilot, is faced with the dilemma where Nazis had access to Nuclear weapons before the Allies but ultimately told from the perspective of the Japanese and perhaps even the Hibakusha themselves as he was born in 1938 and saw the the War in Japan first hand in this lifetime. It's pretty heavy stuff but conveys how this technology should not be in the hands of Humans in their current form, as its not worth the risk of the inevitable usecases we've collectively created thus far.

> Now, my 3rd phase of thinking -- beyond any opinion on tactics or reaction or bombs in the moment of a war -- is how do we get people to help themselves get out of the path to war? Each and every one of us, who whether by support or indifference, or tacit approval, or compounded misinformation, or ego, get ourselves into situations that we look back 50 years from now and say, "what happened?".

Honestly, War, especially to that massive destructive scale is only capable under the Nation-State model, which is what initially got me interested in Anarchism: as a tool for effective Anti-war measures.

I just fear Humanity may never truly be able to accept a Social model in which the State model is entirely absent and unnecessary before these things occur again, look how close this US vs CCP rhetoric is stoking the flames of potentially WW3 (both nuclear capable) when we have a so many ongoing crises that need the collective focus of all of Humanity to come close to even trying to solve.

Sidenote: The bombing of Horoshima and Nagasaki took place after the US had effectively crippled the Japanese economy and supply lines in a nation with no natural resources of their own. Its often speculated about how much longer they could have put up a resistance, prolonging Japan's defeat, and what would ultimately create a near permanent occupation by the US, but the War effort and the manufacturing of these armaments to the level they had before was impossible by the time Fat Man and Little Boy entered the Pacific theater.

Moreover, the constant conventional bombing and air raids of Tokyo by Allies (Tokyo Daikushu) claimed more lives (that still stands to this day) than both Nuclear bombs combined at the time of it being dropped, but the tragic thing being that that Hibakusha and their descendants still suffer long after the Empire fell, but still live with the horrible birth defects and health issues to this day. The way the US via GE and Westinghouse imposed Nuclear technology on them was perhaps the most cloaked dagger to Humanity I have ever seen in the reconstruction phase of all the 'axis' nations when you see how devastating Fukushima is (at the hands of TEPCO/Abe Government) that continues to pour massive nuclear contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean to this day.

The lesson (hopefully) being, that no one 'won' and all of Humanity 'lost' as we probably embarked on a very dark and destructive phase of our Human Condition that we probably would have been better not knowing we were capable of as a Species. Just look at the tragic plight of the Marshall Islands in the race for other nations to be Nuclear capable as well.

> I realized that it actually did bring an end to the war.

Then you have been fed propaganda. The bomb had nothing to do with Japan surrendering.

There’s no consensus it ended the war. Rather the opposite. The Japanese generals had larger problems to consider, such as the fact that most targets were already rubble, and the fact that the Soviets were on their doorstep.

> horrors of the Japanese war machine, and maybe actually more the non-horrific but relentless robotic support for the war (or obedience towards the emperor, government, etc) among the people

When you think of the black ships of the Perry expedition, and then forward to the Japanese attack on England's Hong Kong colony, the French colonies in Indochina, America's colony in the Philippines (and Hawaii!) - then you see the above blurb is a perfect encapsulation of the western bourgeois mind.

A fascinating comparison with British steadfast resolve in the face of overwhelming force. Britons would fight on the beaches, and on the landing grounds and streets. They would never surrender, even against overwhelming odds.

Truly inspiring in comparison with the robotic obedience of the Japanese who would dig in to protect their island, whatever the cost may be.