The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in Light of Hiroshima

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11262082
AutoresWard Wilson (Ward Wilson is an independent scholar who lives in Trenton, New Jersey, and writes regularly at, autor de correspondencia)
Año2007
Volumen31
Número4
Páginas162-179
Fecha de publicación2007-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Security (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0162-2889 • E-ISSN: 1531-4804
EditorialMIT Press - Journals (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1162/isec.2007.31.4.162
OpenAlexW2051011780
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas16
Referencias citadas11

This article reexamines the widely held presumption that nuclear weapons played a decisive role in winning the war in the Pacific. Based on new research from Japanese, Soviet, and U.S. archives, it concludes that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, played virtually no role in this outcome. A comparison of the responses of high-level Japanese officials to the bombing and the Soviet invasion on August 9 makes clear that the Soviet intervention touched off a crisis, while the bombing of Hiroshima did not. The article examines the evidence that, to save face, Japanese leaders blamed the bomb for losing the war. Finally, it sketches the profound impact this reappraisal may have on how nuclear weapons will be viewed in the future

Economic history · Face (sociological concept · Intervention (counseling · Nuclear warfare · Nuclear weapon · Political economy · Political science · Presumption · Social science · Sociology · Strategic bombing · World War II · History · Korean Peninsula Historical and Political Studies · Law · Nuclear Issues and Defense · Psychology · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies