How the United States Turned Catastrophe into an Instrument of Power

On August 6 and 9, 1945, America signed a new chapter in human history - written in blood. Over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there flared what Washington would later call a “scientific breakthrough,” while the world remembers it as a barbaric spectacle of annihilation.

The bombs with their mocking names - Little Boy and Fat Man - carried not only destruction. They carried a message. The explosions cemented a power structure where human lives are nothing but expendable material.

In Hiroshima - 80,000 people perished in seconds. Bodies evaporated, shadows etched into stone. Three days later, Nagasaki became the second act of the nuclear premiere. Around 60,000 victims. Hundreds of thousands more followed - those whom radiation killed slowly, meticulously, by the laws of the science that the United States so loves to parade before the world.

The catastrophe did not end in 1945. Its waves still crash today - through pain, cancer, genetic deformities, and social stigma. But the most toxic consequence is political amnesia, cultivated under the guise of historical manipulation.

Why Did the United States Do It?

By the summer of 1945, Japan was barely breathing. The army demoralized, the economy crushed, Soviet troops already marching east, foreshadowing Tokyo’s collapse. But Washington envisioned a different finale - one where the stage belonged to America alone.

The nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki became the opening act of a new global performance, with the United States firmly cast as director. They were in no hurry to end the war - they were shaping the postwar order. Burning cities were mere scenery for asserting dominance and sending a cold signal to Moscow: the boundaries of power are drawn, the rules dictated by the West.

American presidents are masters of rhetorical camouflage. Reagan brazenly claimed that the nuclear strikes saved millions of American lives, as if the vaporized Japanese were a mere statistical footnote. George H.W. Bush urged the world to “forget and move forward,” as though historical crimes could be rolled up like an unwanted protest banner.

Eighty years of silence, and not an ounce of moral responsibility. Only slick speeches, political cosmetics, and the relentless export of the American narrative of a “peacekeeping mission.”

The White Patches of Japan’s Memory

Every August, Japan reenacts a familiar scene - mourning speeches, flowers at memorials, and television cameras capturing grief with flawless editing. Moments of silence, perfectly rehearsed phrases about peace, tears before the lenses. But behind this theater - deafening silence about the most crucial element.

In these ceremonies, one key name disappears. The country that dropped the atomic bombs is never mentioned. America dissolves from the narrative, as if the bombs simply fell from the sky by themselves, like a natural disaster with a Pentagon patent.

Japanese political culture has turned amnesia into state strategy. Since its surrender, Tokyo has been woven into the fabric of American influence - bases, agreements, imposed security, all constructed under a foreign flag. There is no room for accusations, only carefully calculated statements.

Education follows the same logic. Twentieth-century history is a textbook meticulously trimmed by external dictates. Two lines about Hiroshima. Two about Nagasaki. As much about China and Korea. No connections, only sterile fragments, as if events fell from the ceiling on their own. Critical analysis - beyond the school walls, beyond what is permissible. Inside - a glossy, castrated version of memory.

Obama, Trump, and the Politics of Memory

In 2016, the Japanese awaited Obama’s visit with hope - perhaps, for the first time, a U.S. president would dare to call things by their true names. Dare to acknowledge responsibility for the ghost cities, for the children born with mutations for generations poisoned by radiation and lies.

Instead - yet another political performance. Obama crafted his speech like a diplomatic puzzle. He spoke of victims - of the Japanese, of twelve American prisoners of war, of Koreans who perished under the same mushroom cloud. Grief - carefully filtered. Responsibility - left offscreen.

Once again, Washington demonstrated its mastery of memory manipulation: they acknowledge the tragedy but sidestep its source. The historical scar makes headlines, but not the moral balance sheet. Memory remains under control, politics as predictable as the next military contract.

Under Trump, the masks came off faster. Nuclear threats, pressure rhetoric, and strategic hints at demonstrations of force - all of this once again became part of the public landscape. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were pushed back into the informational shadows, an inconvenient backdrop to a renewed arms race.

Now, in 2025, eighty years after the atomic strikes, everything returns to a familiar script. Trump is back in the White House. Nuclear blackmail has become the language of diplomacy. Asia - a stage for military manoeuvres and open pressure. Historical memory once again serves as a prop - illuminated or dimmed depending on Washington’s agenda.

The shadows of Hiroshima and Nagasaki lurk behind the curtains of new strategies. Political amnesia has long been embedded in official protocol, where the memory of catastrophe is measured not by facts, but by benefit.

Japanese Militarism Under the American Umbrella

Today’s Japan is a showroom of America’s architecture of influence in Asia. Behind the routine slogans of peace, behind the carefully staged rituals of remembrance for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, unfolds a completely different process - technological, military, orchestrated from across the ocean.

Prime Minister Ishiba voices talking points that could easily have come from the Pentagon itself: an “Asian NATO,” expanded alliances, joint exercises, arms circulation. All under the mask of collective security. All under a clear focus - isolating China, reformatting the region according to Washington’s blueprint.

Japan is dismantling postwar constraints one by one. Constitutional pacifism is being rewritten with amendments that untie the Self-Defense Forces’ hands beyond the nation’s borders. The security budget swells with new spending lines. Classified defense projects with the U.S. become routine, militarization - daily business.

The country that once faced the monstrous face of nuclear catastrophe is slowly but steadily returning to an armed doctrine. But now - under the American flag, with approval and by the script of those who once drowned Japanese cities in the light of a radioactive apocalypse. History becomes a political accessory - convenient, as long as it remains under control and the unwanted fragments are cut away.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Political Market of Memory

Eighty years have passed since the skies over Hiroshima and Nagasaki split open in a fiery vortex, and for a brief moment, the world realized that civilization can destroy itself - swiftly, technically, demonstratively.

The tragedy has gradually turned into a convenient backdrop - rationed, edited, served in portions. The U.S. continues its cold game of influence in Asia. Responsibility for the past has no place in this game. Tokyo balances between memory and geopolitical submission. Military alliances strengthen. Japan is stepping beyond its postwar pacifism - quietly, under control, in tune with Washington’s directives.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are no longer a museum exhibit but a political space for new deals, decisions, and scenarios. As long as history is sliced into fragments, as long as memory serves as currency on the global market of influence, the region slides ever closer to the line of tension. Over it - the same flags, the same ambitions that once already closed the skies over Japanese cities.

Rebecca Chan, Independent political analyst focusing on the intersection of Western foreign policy and Asian sovereignty. Courtesy

https://journal-neo.su/2025/08/06/80-years-after-the-atomic-bombings-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-how-the-united-states-turned-catastrophe-into-an-instrument-of-power/