Yet, this is not to say that they were not conscious of the race with the Russians or the advantages of being able to demonstrate the destructive power of the new super bomb. Yet such a view has not been in doubt by most recent traditional historians, who have seen Truman as a practical statesman with one eye on the post-war world and already dealing with problems with Stalin over Eastern Europe. The administration evidently saw advantages in possessing and even using the new bombs, but the issue was what primarily motivated them to do so in August 1945 (Bastian, n.d.).

Those who dispute in favor of the decision to drop the atom bombs argue that massive casualties on both sides would have occurred in Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Japan. The U.S. side estimated losing many soldiers in the planned invasion of Japan, although the actual number of...
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