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One small quibble, physics only shortened the war in the Pacific, getting the Japanese to agree to an unconditional surrender without an invasion of the Japanes
by stevenwoo 9y ago
One small quibble, physics only shortened the war in the Pacific, getting the Japanese to agree to an unconditional surrender without an invasion of the Japanese homeland and the concomitant estimated one million American casualties. The undamaged industrial might and natural resources available to the United States to continually contribute war fighting material to the frontlines help win the war in Europe and the Pacific theater more than anything else. The Pacific front was not the priority of the European front, we had a Germany first war plan even before the war started, the heavy dependence of Japan on imported natural resources made their defeat inevitable if America had the will to fight, especially after the first strike on Pearl Harbor did not work in the way the Japanese envisioned. It left America's carriers and most of the submarine fleet intact and did not crush America's morale.
- sizzle 9y agoSources needed
- thisrod 9y agoWhy the allies won would be a good start
- rf15 9y agothis is actually known in most of the world; that the US just cleanly won with raw superiority purely driven by what is good and right and no complex motives (including omitting the use of nukes to avoid having to do a proper invasion with their related losses and that they didn't want to join the party in europe, then were late to the party after things were already decided and THEN went home claiming they defeated the Nazis) is just the US-internal narrative. The other countries sadly didn't simply forget the political discussions that happened during the war period.
- stevenwoo 9y agoRead a lot of military history books when I was a child. Now I can google some things for a refresher - you can trust them or not, mostly wikipedia. There are many citations in the article about the US/UK strategy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_first https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_first The US oil embargo on the Japanese homeland had put them on their back foot before the war even started - and is often cited as a reason for the undelivered Japanese declaration of war prior to Pearl Harbor, and once we starting island hopping/pushing them off the Asian mainland they could only delay defeat and to make it as painful as possible for America to progress to discourage an invasion of Japan. Part of Germany's impetus for attacking on the Eastern front was the need for more fuel, the Allies had more in their homelands of the USA and the Soviet Union than was available to Germany. The somewhat disputed Yamamoto quote says it best(the movie version probably is what sticks in people's minds): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_attack_on_... The Soviets suffered more casualties than anybody to stop the Germans on the Eastern front and tying them up there helped reduce the German troops available for their Middle East push and beach/support defenses in France and Italy and the Soviets were able to build much of their own military hardware even after the German invasion but they still got our help, mainly for transport of material. We helped almost all the Allies, but most support went to the UK and Soviet Union. Kruschev quotes Stalin here: "He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. If we had had to fight Nazi Germany one on one, we could not have stood up against Germany's pressure, and we would have lost the war." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
- sizzle 9y agoThank you for the well thought out response. I've read a handful of books on the atomic bomb so this interests me. Have a upvote for your time.