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Your POV only works if you assume that Soviet Union invading Japan is an undesirable outcome for the Allies. Japan had good reasons to want to avoid a Soviet o
by pluma 8y ago
Your POV only works if you assume that Soviet Union invading Japan is an undesirable outcome for the Allies.
Japan had good reasons to want to avoid a Soviet occupation because they had only just recovered territory they had previously lost to Russia.
Was it in the US's best interests to escalate the use of force? Sure. But I'm not American and this isn't the 1940s so I see no reason to judge the decision on those terms.
- mc32 8y agoWith China in Civil war, it was paramount to bring over the Japanese to the new western alliance and keep it out of the forming soviet bloc.
- pluma 8y agoParamount to achieving what exactly? And in whose best interest? This sounds a lot like post-hoc rationalization. Are you trying to argue that a Japanese SSR would have tipped the scales so significantly the Soviets could have succeeded (and then done what exactly? start a nuclear war?)? Or that Japan itself would have been worse off (if so, why do you care if you're not Japanese?)? You'd think legitimizing such an unprecedented, traumatizing, unspeakable act like using nuclear weapons would require something more plausible than "well, we really didn't want them to be annexed by the Soviets".