How Influential Were the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the Japanese Decision to Surrender?

 

By Oliver Bloom

 

While reading Barry Blechman and Alex Bollfrass’s piece in Sunday’s Washington Post, for the PONI blog, I noticed their mention of a 2007 article by Ward Wilson on the role of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the surrender of Japan in World War II. Wilson, then an independent scholar and now a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, argues that it was the Soviet declaration of war on Japan, not the atomic bombings, that pushed the Japanese to unconditional surrender. He argues that the atomic bombings were not qualitatively different in the eyes of the Japanese leadership than the more than sixty bombings of other Japanese cities, and rather, it was only the Soviet invasion that forced Japan’s hand by removing any chance that the Japanese could negotiate anything but a complete surrender. Wilson’s article does more than explain an important element in American and Japanese history. As Wilson notes,

 

 

I always assumed that the nuclear bombings influence the Japanese leadership, Wilson’s thesis, and the ensuing consequences, are quite provocative.

 

Contrary to the common perception that the two atomic bomb attacks in August 1945 forced the Japanese to surrender and prevented a costly American invasion, in Wilson’s opinion, a close reading of what primary source documentation is available regarding the Japanese leadership’s thinking at the time suggests that the bombings had little effect. As Wilson argues, by the summer of 1945, the Japanese had two approaches towards ending the war: either they get the neutral Soviets to mediate a peace treaty, or they fight one last decisive battle on the Japanese home islands with the hope of inflicting so many casualties that the United States would be willing to agree to more lenient terms. By Wilson’s analysis, both of these options were still available after the bombing of Hiroshima, but neither was possible after the Soviet invasion. 

 

Wilson suggests that

 

 

If the devastation caused by the atomic bombings so profoundly affected Japanese strategic thinking, Wilson asks why did the conventional bombings not similarly affect their thinking. From Wilson’s reading of the limited primary source documentation available, the Hiroshima attack didn’t prompt a crisis in Japan (the Supreme Council—the highest body of military and political leaders—did not meet for more than two days after the bombing, the bomb was not the center of high level political discussions after the attack, the Emperor’s response to the attack was only to request more details and various offhand accounts don’t suggest that the Japanese were so shocked as to immediately push for unilateral surrender). On the other hand, Wilson sees the Soviet intervention as immediately doing just the opposite –prompting a crisis within the upper ranks of Japan’s government and military and a realization that they not only could no longer hope the Soviets would mediate a more lenient peace, nor could they launch an effective defense of the Japanese home islands.   

 

Wilson offers six reasons for why the original interpretation is wrong. First, he argues that there obvious appearance of causality between the August 6^th atomic bombing and the August 10^th unilateral surrender certainly suggested a link. Second, he suggests that the Japanese leadership actively colluded to mislead the Americans both to please their occupiers (knowing many within their ranks would be tried for war crimes) and to save face by obscuring the causes of defeat. Third, Wilson feels it was in U.S. interests to believe the bomb was decisive and to discount the role of the Soviets. Fourth, Wilson suggests that the Japanese systematically destroyed much of the documentation available. Fifth, Wilson argues that it was difficult for U.S. investigators to place themselves in the shoes of Japanese leaders. Lastly, and most broadly, Wilson feels that our perspective on nuclear weapons influences our thinking about their role and influence, and thus, since most historical scholarship regarding the Japanese surrender took place at a time when U.S. strategic thought placed a high value on the influence of nuclear weapons, the scholarship would conform to these beliefs. 

 

We will have to take Wilson’s word about this readings of the primary source documentation (I, for one, can’t read Japanese), but if his analysis is correct, then perhaps we would need to at least reconsider the value and influence of nuclear weapons. It seems generally agreed upon that nuclear weapons have a profound effect on leaders’ thinking, but were it to be the case that nuclear weapons were not profoundly different than large scale conventional bombings (which have been seen to have a limited effect – see, for example, Robert Pape’s Bombing to Win), then much of our understanding of nuclear weapons could be flawed. That is not to say, however, that large scale nuclear attacks have no influence. Ward Wilson is quick to point out that his scholarship applies only to very small nuclear arsenals (not, for example, the United States’ large thermonuclear arsenal), but then again, we are most concerned today about the relatively small arsenals of North Korea and Pakistan and future small arsenals in places like Iran. 

 

Does that mean I totally buy Ward Wilson’s arguments? No. I would want to see a more thorough analysis of Japanese thinking to be convinced that it was the Soviet invasion alone that convinced them to surrender (especially when there is alternative historical scholar that suggests the atomic bombings did have a profound effect; see for example, Sadao Asada’s “The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan’s Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration).  His analysis

 

I also don’t know if I accepted the argument that Japan’s leaders lied about the influence of the nuclear attacks to their American captors as to please their occupiers and save face, at least without more detailed proof. More importantly, the more widely accepted limits of conventional bombing (it’s unlikely that any country will suffer the sustained and largely indiscriminate conventional bombings of major population centers that Japan did in the spring and summer of 1945) make it unlikely that any country will become so used to heavy bombings that small-scale nuclear attacks will be not qualitatively different. What’s more, the influence of nuclear weapons is widely accepted that it seems only natural that decisionmakers will be profoundly affected by nuclear attacks, regardless of whether a nuclear attack is qualitatively different than conventional attacks. 

 

I hope Wilson turns his paper into a much longer manuscript and manages to flesh out his arguments more (and provide more primary documentation). But Wilson’s underlying point is clear—if so much of our thinking about nuclear weapons and their effects stems from so few actual uses, then we have to be sure our understandings of those few real uses is correct. If the effect of nuclear weapons in those few circumstances is in doubt, then our broader understanding of nuclear weapons and their influence, based so heavily on those few instances, is in doubt.