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Obviously these folks couldn't predict the future. And if the bombs COULD end the war prior to an invasion — sure, that's a benefit. But if you buy into the "bomb or invade" framework, you're already prejudicing the results, and repeating a myth.
There were MANY reasons that US policymakers saw dropping the bombs as beneficial to US interests. (Real human beings, of course, can have multiple motivations, and many people were involved in this work, and so many motivations were mixed in.)
I'm not trying to imply that these were bad motivations or good motivations, as an aside. Even the one that is often trotted out as the "bad" motivation (show the Soviets who is boss, which Byrnes definitely expressed), is, as part of other motivations, not necessarily terrible.
Separately, the goal of my Tweetstorm was to emphasize instead of seeing it as "bomb versus invade," the real question is "bomb 2 cities with 2 bombs in 3 days versus a lot of possibilities." The *specifics* of what occurred were not dictated by strategy, and
those specifics matter in terms of human impact, perception, etc. (The thread is not really about whether the bombs should have been dropped, but contextualizing historical discussions about whether the *second bomb* in particular was strictly necessary, etc.)
And when I talk about alternatives (on which I have written at length), I am not necessarily saying any one of them would have lead to a better world. My goal, again, is to emphasize that there were more than two options (bomb vs. invade) on the table.http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2015/08/03/were-there-alternatives-to-the-atomic-bombings/ …
And not (to reiterate) because I think that one or the other was better, but rather to stimulate historical engagement beyond the simple "should they have dropped the bomb" story that most people know, which utterly lacks important nuance and is misleading.
3. You have, I think, overgeneralized the US attitudes towards bombing (conventional and atomic) at the top. There were several conflicting views. Again, Stimson is useful for demonstrating this — he clearly thought the area bombing in Japan was verging on war-crime territory.
He told Truman they were going to get the reputation for outdoing Hitler in atrocities — a pretty big statement to make to your boss, the President! I emphasize this because the "flattening" of historical attitudes into "everyone thought it was morally unproblematic" is wrong.
And by that I mean, demonstrably historically incorrect, a curious anachronism of its own, again as a way to dodge the question in the present day. Stimson (who exerted a lot of influence on the bombing decisions) *clearly* felt the atomic bomb presented new moral questions.
Truman himself *clearly* indicated, especially in the early postwar, that the atomic bomb presented severe moral hazards. That doesn't mean that they decided not to use it, obviously. But it does mean that we can't just wave it away as "this is how people thought in WWII."
4. Lastly — the reason to focus on the high-level discussions (which did, at times, explicitly reference popular opinion) is because these people made the decisions. It is important to focus on which decisions were made, and which were not, which is part of my overall point.
Decisions not made by Truman: whether or not to use the bomb. That was already in motion, clearly, and there was no question by anyone that Truman would intervene. Unsurprisingly, he didn't. The focus on that "decision" is, historians have known for a long time now, misplaced.
Decisions actually made by Truman: 1. Whether to tell Stalin much about the bomb (no). 2. Whether to modify unconditional surrender (no). 3. Whether the city of Kyoto should be bombed (no). 4. Whether to continue bombing after Nagasaki (no).
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