America Must Never Apologize for Dropping the Bombs on Japan

This week marks the 80th anniversary of President Harry Truman's fateful decision to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (respectively, Aug. 6 and 9, 1945). To date, those two bombings represent the only instances in which nuclear weapons have been deployed in war. At least 150,000 Japanese perished—a majority of them civilians. But the bombings were successful in achieving their intended effect: Japan announced its formal surrender to the Allies six days after the second bombing, thus finally bringing the bloodiest conflict in human history to an end.

For decades, ethical opposition to Truman's decision has mostly come from left-wing critics. That seems to be changing. Last year, Tucker Carlson claimed that nuclear weapons were created by " demonic " fo