That's the pitfall these discussions invariably fall into - debating the morality of deploying rather than the wisdom of developing a capacity in the first plac

That's the pitfall these discussions invariably fall into - debating the morality of deploying rather than the wisdom of developing a capacity in the first place. The primary justification for secretly studying the feasibility of the fission chain reaction was the fear that Germany (not Japan) might be developing an atomic bomb of their own (an early form of the subsequent Cold War's 'can't prove a negative' about what weapons the Soviets might be developing).