To the Truman administration the use of the Bomb served two purposes a demonstration of the terrible power of the split atom to be held against the entire world, and a means to quickly compel Japanese surrender and deny the Soviet Union a major role in the post war settlement. By 1945 Japan was a destroyed and starving nation desperately seeking a negotiated surrender and the Soviet Union was scheduled to enter the war in early August, eliminating the need for an invasion of the Japanese mainland. There is a broad consensus among serious historians that atomic bombings were not necessary to end the war with Japan. The question remains why did the U.S government decide to initiate the Cold War with the atomic bombings instead of pursuing a course of diplomacy and negotiated settlement? used this power to launch the Cold War against the Soviet Union, and initiated a nuclear buildup that has impoverished the entire world and brought us to the brink of nuclear oblivion. By the end of WWII Europe, the Soviet Union and the Japanese Empire lay in ruins, and the United States was in a position of unprecedented power in sole possession of the Bomb.
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki marked the crucial turning point in the history of the twentieth century. HIROSHIMA/NAGASAKI: AN HISTORICAL TURNING POINT
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