Americans are far more likely than the Japanese to expect another world war in their lifetime, according to AP-Kyodo polling 60 years after World War II ended. Most people in both countries believe the first use of a nuclear weapon is never justified.
Those findings come six decades after the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war claimed about 400,000 US troops around the world, more than three times that many Japanese troops and at least 300,000 Japanese civilians.
Out of the ashes, Japan and the US forged a close political alliance. Americans and Japanese now generally have good feelings about each other.
But people in the two countries have very different views on everything from the US use of the atomic bomb in 1945, fears of North Korea and the American military presence in Japan.
Some of the widest differences came on expectations of a new world war.
Six in 10 Americans said they think such a war is likely, while only one-third of the Japanese said so, according to polling done in both countries for The Associated Press and Kyodo, the Japanese news service.
"Man's going to destroy man eventually. When that will be, I don't know," said Gaye Lestaeghe of Freeport, Louisiana.
Some question whether that war has arrived, with fighting dragging on in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the US campaign against terrorism.
"I feel like we're in a world war right now," said Susan Aser, a real estate agent from Rochester, New York.
The Japanese were less likely than Americans to expect a world war, less worried about the threat from North Korea and less inclined to say a first strike with nuclear weapons could be justified.
"The Japanese people take peace for granted," said Hiroya Sato, 20, of Tokyo. "The Japanese people are not interested in things like war."
President Harry Truman decided to try to end the war by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later.
The first two atomic bombs killed tens of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; thousands more gradually died with severe radiation burns. Those bombings led to Japan's announcement on Aug. 15 that it would surrender.
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