A Debate Without End

Defenders argue the bombs saved millions of lives by avoiding an invasion. Critics argue Japan was already beaten and the bombs were meant to intimidate the Soviet Union as much as to defeat Japan. The truth likely holds parts of both.

The aftermath is not in doubt. The bombings launched the nuclear arms race that defined the Cold War. Within four years the Soviets had their own bomb, and by the 1980s the world held over 60,000 nuclear weapons. Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not just end a war. They began a new kind of fear that humanity has lived with ever since.