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>And of course, the bottom line is that these bombings worked. All else is speculation. The imminent USSR invasion from the north played a significant part in

>And of course, the bottom line is that these bombings worked. All else is speculation. The imminent USSR invasion from the north played a significant part in the calculus of Japan's surrender. Too often the use of nuclear weapons alone gets credit, but there was a more complex political/diplomatic context surrounding _why_ they worked in the case. Links for anyone interested in reading more on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Enemy-Stalin-Truman-Surrender/dp/0674022416/ https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Enemy-Stalin-Truman-Surrender/... http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender/?page=full http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08... http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japa...

hga 10y ago
The imminent USSR invasion from the north played a significant part in the calculus of Japan's surrender. Well, it added to things falling apart at an accelerating rate in just about every way. I'm of the opinion that the USSR's actions didn't hurt in the least, but we have absolutely no way of knowing if they were critical, and if so, how much. Probably the biggest thing was making the Army look even more incompetent, when they needed to be squelched ... well, that had been needed for decades.... Because the real action was in far off Manchuria, which we were ever more effectively cutting off from the home islands. And it wasn't like the USSR had the ability to project serious power into the latter without our help (and even then there main effort was of course focused on Eastern Europe), there was no serious "imminent USSR invasion from the north" in the offing. At best, they could have taken a port on northern Hokkaido, which would have been utterly obnoxious after the surrender, but wouldn't change in the least the calculus of the Japanese plans to resist on the southern home islands where we were the critical threat. And where they had a real chance of "winning" as they perceived it (see Hell To Pay for lots more details) ... although that might not have turned out well given our chemical weapons capabilities, which those who didn't know about the Manhattan Project were ramping up. In fact, after the Navy busted those railway ferries than ran from it to Honshu (some had steam turbines and could do 17 knots!), causing a severe immediate transportation problem due to the lost coal supply, I seriously doubt Hokkaido's contributions to the war effort going forward could even be significant, especially since we were hardly finished in cutting the link between the two islands.
- sprafa 10y ago
  I do believe that the we have some idea of went on in the meetings involved leading up to the surrender, and that Manchuria was invoked as much or even more than the nuclear bombings.
  - hga 10y ago
    If both of those claims were the case (we really don't know that much about the meetings), the question of interpretation is still open, i.e. was this used to beat down the Army's resistance to surrender, since even more so than in 1938-9, the Red Army was going through them "like crap through a goose", to use the famous Patton quote. Everything I've read indicates that it was the second bomb, which indeed happened on the same day as the declaration of war, that really got the attention of the rulers of Japan, and got them serious about surrendering.

hga 10y ago

The imminent USSR invasion from the north played a significant part in the calculus of Japan's surrender. Well, it added to things falling apart at an accelerating rate in just about every way. I'm of the opinion that the USSR's actions didn't hurt in the least, but we have absolutely no way of knowing if they were critical, and if so, how much. Probably the biggest thing was making the Army look even more incompetent, when they needed to be squelched ... well, that had been needed for decades.... Because the real action was in far off Manchuria, which we were ever more effectively cutting off from the home islands. And it wasn't like the USSR had the ability to project serious power into the latter without our help (and even then there main effort was of course focused on Eastern Europe), there was no serious "imminent USSR invasion from the north" in the offing. At best, they could have taken a port on northern Hokkaido, which would have been utterly obnoxious after the surrender, but wouldn't change in the least the calculus of the Japanese plans to resist on the southern home islands where we were the critical threat. And where they had a real chance of "winning" as they perceived it (see Hell To Pay for lots more details) ... although that might not have turned out well given our chemical weapons capabilities, which those who didn't know about the Manhattan Project were ramping up. In fact, after the Navy busted those railway ferries than ran from it to Honshu (some had steam turbines and could do 17 knots!), causing a severe immediate transportation problem due to the lost coal supply, I seriously doubt Hokkaido's contributions to the war effort going forward could even be significant, especially since we were hardly finished in cutting the link between the two islands.

sprafa 10y ago
I do believe that the we have some idea of went on in the meetings involved leading up to the surrender, and that Manchuria was invoked as much or even more than the nuclear bombings.
- hga 10y ago
  If both of those claims were the case (we really don't know that much about the meetings), the question of interpretation is still open, i.e. was this used to beat down the Army's resistance to surrender, since even more so than in 1938-9, the Red Army was going through them "like crap through a goose", to use the famous Patton quote. Everything I've read indicates that it was the second bomb, which indeed happened on the same day as the declaration of war, that really got the attention of the rulers of Japan, and got them serious about surrendering.