2025/10/13 by Joshua Byun, Austin Carson · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Communism, Protests, Social Movements #Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration #Italian Fascism and Post-war Society
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0003055425101238
openalex publication_date 2025/10/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/13 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/16
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki reshaped international politics and the field of International Relations. But one question—“ How should the atomic bomb be used?”—has been largely overlooked in political science. This article recovers American deliberations on alternative nuclear use options before August 1945, including the “noncombat demonstration,” targeting military installations, giving advance warning, and striking more symbolically valuable cities. We develop theoretical insights on the value of staging violent spectacles and the emotive power of visible destruction. We then use a wide range of sources to show that U.S. leaders selected an ostentatiously lethal means of atomic debut due to concerns about conventional military inferiority vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, the desire to instill a widespread view of the bomb’s revolutionary character, and the imperative of shaping the postwar international order. This study advances our understanding of the post-1945 international order and the performative dimensions of political violence.