Joshua Byun & Austin Carson| American Political Science Review
October 13, 2025
Stanton Nuclear Fellow Joshua Byun, along with co-author Austin Carson, argue that the extremely violent atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were orchestrated by US leaders to “help [the US] reshape widespread perceptions of relative power, thereby enhancing [the United States’] ability to shape the postwar international order” in their latest article "Performative Violence and the Spectacular Debut of the Atomic Bomb" in the American Political Science Review.
Abstract
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.