Asian Affairs, 2016 Vol. XLVII, no. I, 1–31, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03068374.2015.1128682 THE DEVELOPMENT OF A DEATH CULT IN 1930s JAPAN AND THE DECISION TO DROP THE ATOM BOMB FRANCIS PIKE Francis Pike studied history at Cambridge and is a historian and economic and geo- political adviser. He lived and worked for 20 years in Japan, China and India and has advised financial institutions as well as governments in Japan, Australia, India, China, Singapore, Bangladesh, Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the United States. He is the author of Hirohito’s War: The Pacific War 1941–1945 (Bloomsbury, 2015) and Empires at War, A Short History of Modern Asia Since World War II (I.B.Tauris, 2010). Email:
[email protected] The atom bomb debate With recent atrocities by ISIS jihadists in Istanbul, Egypt and Paris, it is a timely moment to remember that death cults – the worship and glorifica- tion of killing and being killed – are not unique to the Islamic world. In recent history the West has had to deal with the death cults of other cul- tures. The outstanding example is Japan in the period leading up to and including the Second World War, when that country’s dearth cult was brought to an end by America’s atom bomb. There are few subjects in modern history as contentious as the decision to drop the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945. There is no doubt that the Pacific War came to an end soon afterwards with Emperor Hirohito’s announcement of surrender.