商品簡介
Winters (Georgetown U.) assesses the morality of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in relation to the literature of just war theory and in terms of what he argues were the actually existing political and military realities of the conflict between the US and Japan. In doing so, he becomes perhaps the first author within the just war tradition to judge that deliberate targeting of masses of civilians was indeed necessary to an American victory, arguing that the only options available to coerce surrender from the Japanese emperor and cabinet were the atomic bombings or the invasions of the islands of Kyushu and/or Hokkaido by the Americans and/or the Soviets, which would have required the deliberate targeting of "vast hordes of civilians" mobilized for "suicidal defense of their homeland." The only other option would have been to fail to demand the dismantling of the Japanese empire by disarmament and occupation, which would have violated just war theory's insistence on the sovereignty of individual nations. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
