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I've often found parallels between the death star and the atomic bomb. Both are weapons of incredible destructive power that would be difficult to use without d
by n0us 11y ago
I've often found parallels between the death star and the atomic bomb. Both are weapons of incredible destructive power that would be difficult to use without deliberately killing untold numbers of non-military citizens.
The justification for the use of the bomb in WWII can be debated but one interesting point I have heard is that for Truman to not authorize it's use would have amounted to political suicide. After pouring so much money and research into the project it would have been difficult if not impossible to then change course and say "well, we have this absurdly powerful weapon the likes of which the world has never seen before, and we know it could end the war in the pacific theater with near immediacy as well as likely establish The United States as the predominate world hegemon for years to come. We also spent years and billions of dollars developing it, but now we're just going to put it on a shelf and end the war another way." People would have been outraged. It's easy to look in hindsight and judge the morality of an act of war but often these judgements ignore the political motivations of those actions and only take into account the strategic benefit with respect to the cost of civilian lives.
With the death star there may have been a similar situation where the momentum behind the project was simply too great to build it then not use it, even if only to prove its power.
(For the record I have strong moral objections to the use of the bombs over Japan and don't mean to condone their use in the above comment, only to provide a short summary of a popular theory as to why they were used)
- jstepka 11y agowhile there may never be an identical 1:1 comparison, I agree with your analysis and find that it is interesting to use the two narratives as a comparison to understand how complex situations can run out. going a bit further, while reading the article i found myself doing a thought exercise of the empire being america and the rebels being isil/etc. do the current terrorist see themselves as the rebels do in starwars?
- scottjad 11y agoI don't think it would have been political suicide. The program was (presumably, I don't know the exact history) classified so the vast majority of people didn't know about it, and people who did wouldn't be able to talk about it publicly. It likely wouldn't have come out before his next election. Despite dropping the bomb he was very unpopular and wasn't expected to win a second term. Also, several of his top generals (Eisenhower and MacArthur) weren't in favor of using the bomb, and people have a tendency to rationalize whatever authority figures choose so people may very well have defended Truman as strongly as they do today.
- SamReidHughes 11y agoHe was vice president at the time, and see the Truman Committee -- he already had a good reputation regarding wasteful spending. People would certainly be more angry about the pointless wasting of American lives as the end of the war got delayed.
- transfire 11y agoFew people know that the USSR was invading Japan from the north at the time. If we had just pressed on a bit longer, the Allies would have won anyway. However, we would have had to split the spoils with the USSR. So dropping the bomb served two purposes 1) it ended the war a bit earlier so the Soviets were not needed, and 2) it sent a message to the world that we would do whatever it took (in this way it is just like the fictitious Star Wars event). Wonder why we bombed civilian targets? B/c we only had two bombs. If they didn't do the job it would have been too late (per point #1).
- n0us 11y agoWe also bombed civilian targets because the destructive power of the bomb was still relatively unknown and Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not yet been bombed as they were non military targets. If we had bombed an area that had already been attacked it would have been more difficult to assess the damage that the bomb was capable of and those two cities were "clean slates" so to speak. I can search for citations on this if you like but it's been quite a while since I read up on this so it might require some digging through my notes.
- iSnow 11y agoI believe it also was a weapons test on real targets, that's why the bombs were dropped over two major cities, not over the sea in the vicinity of Tokyo.