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The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, making it the first and only nation in history to launch an nuclear attack.

While the death toll of the bombing remains a subject of debate, at least 70, 000 people were killed, though other figures are nearly twice as high.

At least 40, 000 people were killed when the US dropped yet another atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days later, killing the city.

Initial impressions of the shocking impact on Japanese civilians appeared to be unimportant, with pollsters reporting that the bombing’s approval rate reached 85 percent in the days that followed.

To this day, US politicians continue to credit the bombing with saving American lives and ending World War II.

However, as the US commemorates the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima’s bombing, perceptions have gotten more and more conflicting. Americans are roughly evenly divided into three categories, according to a Pew Research Center poll last month.

Nearly a third of respondents believe the use of the bomb was justified. Another third believes it wasn’t. The rest are unsure of their choice.

“The trendline is that there is a steady decline in the share of Americans who believe these bombings were justified at the time”, Eileen Yam, the director of science and society research at Pew Research Center, told Al Jazeera in a recent phone call.

Americans have gotten less and less enthusiastic about this as time goes on.

Tumbling approval rates

Doubts about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the advent of nuclear weapons in general, did not take long to set in.

According to US author Kai Bird, who has written about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “from the beginning it was understood that this was something different, a weapon that could destroy entire cities.”

His Pulitzer-winning novel American Prometheus served as the inspiration for Christopher Nolan’s 2023 film Oppenheimer, which was based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning book.

Bird pointed out that, even in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, some key politicians and public figures denounced it as a war crime.

Albert Einstein, a physicist, and Herbert Hoover, a former president, were early critics of the bloodshed that occurred in the first decades.

Within days of the bombing, Hoover wrote, “The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul.”

The most widely accepted justification for the atomic attacks has become increasingly doubtful as historians have over time, claiming that they contributed significantly to World War II’s resolution.

According to some academics, other factors were likely to be more important in the Japanese’s surrender, including the Soviet Union’s August 8 declaration of war against the island nation.

Others have speculated whether the bombings were meant mostly as a demonstration of strength as the US prepared for its confrontation with the Soviet Union in what would become the Cold War.

In addition, Japanese survivors’ accounts and media reports helped to alter public opinion.

For instance, John Hersey’s 1946 profile of six victims occupied The New Yorker magazine for the entire year. It chronicled, in harrowing detail, everything from the crushing power of the blast to the fever, nausea and death brought on by radiation sickness.

A growing majority in the US was already in favor of the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by 1990, according to a Pew poll. Only 53% of people thought it was merited.

Rationalising US use of force

The impact of the attacks remained contentious in the US even after the 20th century.

The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC had planned a special exhibit for the occasion of the bombing anniversary in 1995.

But it was cancelled amid public furore over sections of the display that explored the experiences of Japanese civilians and the debate about the use of the atomic bomb. Even after it underwent extensive revision, US veterans’ organizations argued that the exhibit undermined their sacrifices.

The American Legion, a veterans organization leader, William Detweiler said at the time, “The exhibit still basically states that we were the aggressors and the Japanese were the victims.”

Incensed members of Congress opened an investigation, and the museum’s director resigned.

However, the exhibit was never made available to the general public. The Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb, was all that was left.

Erik Baker, a lecturer on the history of science at Harvard University, says that the debate over the atomic bomb often serves as a stand-in for larger questions about the way the US wields power in the world.

According to him, “What’s at stake is the role that World War II played in legitimizing the American empire’s history right up to the present day.”

Baker explained that the US narrative about its role in the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan — the main “Axis Powers” in World War II — has been frequently referenced to assert the righteousness of US interventions around the world.

There is no objection to the US doing what is necessary to defeat the “bad guys” today, he said, if it was justifiable for the US to go on war rather than simply go to war.

a resurgence of nuclear panic

But as the generations that lived through World War II grow older and pass away, cultural shifts are emerging in how different age groups approach US intervention — and use of force — abroad.

Young people, who are particularly sceptical of policies like US support for Israel’s war in Gaza, have a large share of their opinions.

The Pew Research Center discovered a significant generational gap in Americans regarding the issue of global engagement in a poll conducted in April 2024.

Approximately 74 percent of older respondents, aged 65 and up, expressed a strong belief that the US should play an active role on the world stage. Only 33% of the younger respondents, who range from 18 to 35, shared this view.

The ages of people in the Pew poll last month also showed stark age differences. People over the age of 65 were more than twice as likely to believe that the bombings were justified than people between the ages of 18 and 29.

The “most pronounced factor” in the results, according to Yam, the Pew researcher, outpacing other factors like veteran status and party affiliation.

A new heightened state of worry about nuclear weapons is also at the time of the Hiroshima bombing’s 80th anniversary.

US President Donald Trump, for instance, repeatedly warned during his re-election campaign in 2024 that the globe was on the precipice of “World War III”.

Trump remarked at a rally in Chesapeake, Virginia, that “the threat is nuclear weapons.” “That could occur tomorrow.”

“We’re at a place where, for the first time in more than three decades, nuclear weapons are back at the forefront of international politics”, said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow in the nuclear policy programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US-based think tank.

According to Panda, these worries are related to geopolitical tensions between different states, citing, for instance, the recent fighting between India and Pakistan in May.

Russia and the US, the two biggest nuclear powers in the world, have since exchanged nuclear-themed threats due to the conflict in Ukraine.

And in June, the US and Israel carried out attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities with the stated aim of setting back the country’s ability to develop nuclear weapons.

However, advocates for the US hope that the change in public opinion will spur international leaders to stop rattling nuclear weapons and work toward the end of them as the country approaches the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombings.

Countries with nuclear weapons claim that their arsenals discourage acts of aggression, according to Seth Shelden, the UN liaison for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. But he said those arguments diminish the “civilisation-ending” dangers of nuclear warfare.

He said that as long as nuclear-armed states place their own security precedence over others, they will encourage other countries to do the same.