The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are invoked as a grim contrast within a discussion of retaliation and restraint. The passage sets soldiers’ conspicuous displays of deadly skill against harmless targets beside the decision to use the first two operational atomic bombs to destroy two cities, despite the strong objections of the leading physicists who had helped develop them.

Context: Retaliation and Restraint

The bombings enter a discussion of the First World War’s “live-and-let-live” system in the trenches. The local arrangements varied: some areas developed retaliatory strategies within the broader family of approaches associated with Tit for Tat, while displays of the capacity to retaliate helped maintain the threat that made such strategies effective.

Those displays could be carefully limited. Crack shots on opposing sides demonstrated their skill by firing at inanimate targets close to enemy soldiers, rather than shooting the soldiers themselves. The passage compares this controlled demonstration to the familiar Western-film gesture of shooting out candle flames: the threat was made visible, but the immediate act stopped short of killing.

The Contrast with the Bombings

Against that example of displayed but withheld violence, the passage raises the use of the first two operational atomic bombs. It emphasizes both the scale and the direction of the act: the bombs were used to destroy two cities, rather than being deployed as a spectacular demonstration of destructive power against harmless targets.

The contrast is sharpened by the stated opposition of the leading physicists responsible for developing the weapons. Their wishes, the passage says, were strongly voiced, yet the bombs were used against cities. The episode therefore marks a sharp divergence between the capacity to retaliate and restraint in exercising that capacity.

Significance in the Argument

The bombings are not narrated as a standalone account of the decisions, events, or consequences surrounding Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They function instead as a pointed comparison in an argument about how retaliation can be displayed, limited, and made compatible with continued coexistence. The trench example shows capability being signaled without direct attack; the atomic example brings into view a destructive use that the weapons’ developers had opposed.

That contrast also clarifies why forgiving strategies matter. Retaliation can prevent defection from going unanswered, but without limits it can sustain damaging cycles of mutual reprisal. The passage places the bombings beside this problem as its most starkly destructive counterpoint: a reminder that demonstrating power and using it to destroy are not the same choice.