What were the reasons for the use of atomic weapons in 1945?

Question

What impact did the advent of atomic weapons have on the course of American and world history?

Answer 1

To bring the war to a close.

Answer 2

To get Imperial Japan to surrender without having to invade the island nation itself...This drastically reduced casualties for both sides.

As some others have already mentioned - Okinawa was very bloody with the inhabitants of that small island fighting to the death, or committing suicide versus surrendering to American forces.

Answer 3

We needed a way to kill a large number of japanese people, in a hurry.

Answer 4

It created a line that the US has vowed never to cross again.  A horrific force of power that should never be resorted to.

Answer 5

The Japanese people were fanatical warriors. Driven by their nationalism and devotion to their Emperor.

They are kinda like today's insurgents but 10x worse since insurgents use the public as a shield where as the Japanese public was a weapon.

When US forces took Okinawa the civilians attacked the US forces with everything they had ranging from rusty rifles, farming tool or even with their bare hands.

The Japanese also had a very strict honor code that they were bound to it was either victory or death. Unlike insurgents the Japanese attacks were more in the open and not under handed.

Answer 6

Publicly?  To end the war quickly.

Strategically?  To scare the living **** out of the world.  No one wanted to mess with us for a while after that.

The Impact?  Total backfire.  Yes, they ended the war, but now, the single largest acts of terrorism is forever linked with the United States.

On top of that, the world saw a new era, one where total annihlation became possible for the first time.