What do Americans really think about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Bulletin, By Scott D. Sagan, Gina Sinclair | August 5, 2024

In mid-August 1945, within weeks of the end of World War II, Americans were polled on whether they approved of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An overwhelmingly high percentage of Americans—85 percent—answered “yes.” That level of approval has gone down over the years, with (depending on the precise wording of the question) only a slim majority (57 percent in 2005) or a large minority (46 percent in 2015) voicing approval in more recent polls.

This reduction in atomic bombing approval over time has been cited as evidence of a gradual normative change in public ethical consciousness, the acceptance of a “nuclear taboo” or what Brown University scholar Nina Tannenwald has called “the general delegitimation of nuclear weapons.”

This common interpretation of US public opinion, however, is too simplistic. Disapproval has indeed grown over time, but most Americans remain supportive of the 1945 attacks, albeit wishing that alternative strategies had been explored. These conclusions can be clearly seen in the results of a new, more complex public opinion survey, conducted for this article, that asked a representative sample of Americans about their views on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, examined alternative strategies for ending the war, and provided follow-on questions to determine how the public weighs the costs and benefits of different strategies.

Scratch beneath the surface, and the American public today, as in 1945, does not display an ethically based taboo against using nuclear weapons or killing enemy civilians, but rather has a preference for doing whatever was necessary to win the war and save American lives…………………………………………………………………………………………….

US public opinion in 2015 and 2024. A 2015 replication of the 1945 Roper poll found that 14.4 percent of Americans felt the United States should not have used atomic bombs at all, that 31.6 percent thought a bomb should have been dropped in a demonstration strike on an unpopulated area, but that almost no one (less than 3 percent) wanted to use more bombs before Japan had a chance to surrender.

For this article, we replicated the 1945 Roper poll again with a representative sample of 2,000 Americans on June 21, 2024, but then asked follow-on questions to help us determine what the public really meant when answering the survey. Such follow-on questions are necessary to understand the public’s deeper set of commitments and preferences. Did those opposing any use of the atomic bombs really support such a policy even if it meant ending the war without a Japanese government surrender? Or would they support dropping the bomb if Japan did not surrender? Would those who favor a demonstration strike today support bombing cities if the demonstration strike failed to compel Tokyo to surrender, or did they oppose atomic attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki under all circumstances? In short, what do Americans really think, now, about using nuclear weapons in 1945?

Options and alternatives. The percentage of respondents who said that the United States shouldn’t have used any atomic bombs at all increased from 4.3 percent in 1945, to 14.4 percent in 2015, to 36.7 percent in 2024. The percentage of respondents who preferred the demonstration strike option decreased from 31.6 percent to 20.9 percent. Public support for use of the two bombs, as the United States did in 1945, followed the same general trend, decreasing to 19.4 percent. But what do these trends reveal about US opinion? Our follow-on questions were designed to measure the public’s true willingness to use nuclear weapons and kill enemy civilians…………………………………………………

In short, when reminded of the Japanese refusal to surrender, the strong majority (82.33 percent) of those who originally favored the demonstration strike then accepted nuclear or conventional attacks on Japanese cities.

Why these preferences? The basic finding that over 36 percent of Americans said today that the United States should not have used any atomic bombs cannot reasonably be interpreted as an indication of a widespread nuclear taboo. It may be a positive trend, but it is not a robust opinion. Indeed, less than half of those respondents maintained that position after they were reminded (as was the case in 1945) that Japan had not accepted unconditional surrender prior to the atomic bomb attacks.

Instead, our 2024 Roper Poll replication provides three valuable insights about American public opinion. First, much of US public is, in fact, still supportive of the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Adding the answers from the different follow-on questions, reveals that 41.3 percent of all respondents were ultimately willing to use a nuclear bomb on one or more cities, and many more Americans (over 25% of all respondents) reported that they didn’t know what their preferences were in this wartime scenario. These findings are inconsistent with the existence of a nuclear taboo and underscore that large hawkish instincts lurk within the U.S. public.

A second novel finding relates to the public’s willingness to attack cities and thereby violate the basic law of armed conflict and the just war principle of non-combatant immunity. While only 41.3 percent of respondents were ultimately willing to use nuclear weapons against cities, many other respondents favored continuing the conventional bombing of Japan. Reasons given by respondents who had at first stated that they opposed nuclear attacks, but then favored continued conventional bombing once reminded that Japan had not accepted unconditional surrender included: “Because if humane tactics don’t work, then you gotta do what you Gotta do;” “Since they refuse to heed to the warning, then they deserve war;” and “If Japan doesn’t surrender than it’s time to show them what we can do.”

Altogether, adding advocates of conventional bombing with advocates of nuclear attacks, 51.25 percent of all respondents chose to attack Japanese cities and kills civilians on a massive scale. This shows that the non-combatant immunity principle, contrary to the claims of some experts, does not have strong “stopping power” at least among the public. These findings challenge the theories of scholars such as Charli Carpenter, Alexander Montgomery, Steven Pinker, Neta Crawford, and Ward Thomas, who posit that a decrease in willingness to use nuclear weapons is a result of broader acceptance of the just war principle of non-combatant immunity.

………………………………………………….. many responses in the 2024 Roper Poll revealed something else: a notable percentage of respondents (15.92 percent) cited their beliefs on the importance of US isolationism and avoiding any engagement in foreign affairs.

……………………………………………These findings about contemporary views of the 1945 atomic bombing are consistent with previous research demonstrating that large segments of the American public are willing to contemplate the use of nuclear weapons in a war against Iran, in order to avoid US military fatalities, or against a terrorist organization planning chemical weapons attacks on the United States. …………………………………

The American public does not hold a strong nuclear taboo and indeed, may be more of a goad than a constraint on any future president who is contemplating the use of nuclear weapons in trying wartime conditions. While the laws of armed conflict and just war doctrine may still be a constraint on nuclear use, their powers are more likely to exercised by the moral compass of individual political leaders or the legal training of senior military officers, not through the deeply problematic instincts of the American public. https://thebulletin.org/2024/08/what-do-americans-really-think-about-the-bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=DayNewsletter08052024&utm_content=NuclearRisk_WhatAmericansReallyThink_08052024