ABSTRACT
In August 1945, the most signifi cant innovation in the conduct of war in human history was revealed to the world. Two small atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing World War II to an abrupt end. The war ended not with the destruction of the Japanese main army on the fi eld of battle, not with the clash of mighty armies, but with two small nuclear devices and two lone B-29 bombers. These technologies caused many military thinkers to believe that armies were obsolete, that their value in future wars would be to mop up after airpower destroyed the enemy, and that a revolution in warfare had taken place, forever transforming the conduct of war. General Maxwell Taylor recalled discussing this new technology with Generals Marshall and Patton. He wrote:
General Patton and I looked at each other in silence, both meditating upon the awful
signifi cance of Marshall’s words. . . . What if we had had such things to clear our way across Europe? Think of the thousands of our brave soldiers whose lives might have been spared. Now, indeed, I thought, we have a weapon which can keep the peace and never again will a Hitler or a Mussolini dare to use war to impose his will upon the Free World. 3
Thus, before the atomic bomb was even used against the Japanese, it had created hopes and dreams for saving lives, for winning wars without ground combat, and for deterring future war. Eisenhower wrote:
All the developments in method, equipment, and destructive power that we were studying seemed minor innovations compared to the revolutionary impact of the atom bomb . . . . [E]ven without the actual experience of its employment, the reports that reached us after the fi rst one was used at
Hiroshima on August 6 left no doubt in our minds that a new era of warfare had begun. 4
In this new era, the role of armies was uncertain, and whatever part they played in future wars, their status would never again equal that achieved in World War II.
