The Morality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 75 Years Later

National Catholic Register, 06 August 2020

Each year the anniversary invites remembrance of war and a renewed resolve to work for peace.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The cities hit by the only wartime deployment of the atomic bomb have stood ever since those fateful days — Aug. 6, 1945, for Hiroshima, Aug. 9, 1945, for Nagasaki — as symbols of the horrific power of nuclear weapons.

This year’s 75th anniversary — likely the last of the great World War II commemorations — would have garnered worldwide attention had the Tokyo Olympics gone ahead. The closing ceremony would have coincided with the Nagasaki anniversary.

Each year the anniversary invites remembrance of war and a renewed resolve to work for peace. And each milestone anniversary occasions reflection on the morality of the decision to detonate the atomic bomb in Japan.

The straightforward answer is that the mass targeting of civilians fails to meet the criteria for the just conduct of war according to the Catholic just war tradition. On making a distinction between combatants and noncombatants, the tradition is clear. The consensus of Catholic moral reflection on the use of nuclear weapons has reflected that; the mass killing of civilian populations is not morally permissible.  

Does it thus follow that President Harry S. Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was immoral? That highly controverted question has a more complicated answer. The key point raised by Truman’s defenders is that there were no credible alternatives to ending the war; or, in fact, that all alternatives to ending the war would have cost more lives, both of American and Japanese forces, as well as Japanese civilians.

Those are, of course, debatable — and long-debated — points. A most helpful guide to the debate is offered by Holy Cross Father Wilson Miscamble in his 2011 book, The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs and the Defeat of Japan. A noted historian at Notre Dame, Father Miscamble sketches the end of the Pacific War, drawing on scholarly resources but presenting them in an accessible way. He reminds readers of three critical factors that are often forgotten.

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