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When I was young in grade school, and learned about the bomb, and its terrifying aftermath, pictures, scars, I thought that this was clearly a wrong against hum

• Hokusai 6y ago
  > and maybe actually more the non-horrific but relentless robotic support for the war (or obedience towards the emperor, government, etc) among the people That is a lot of words to say "civilians trying to survive during a war". To make it even worse, the war criminals, that ones that were part of the "horrors of the Japanese war machine" were spared by the USA after the war. Fearing an increase influence of Communism in Asia, the USA let the war criminals go unpunished. Targeting civilians while sparing war criminals is hardly a moral stand point.
• jacobush 6y ago
  There’s no consensus it ended the war. Rather the opposite. The Japanese generals had larger problems to consider, such as the fact that most targets were already rubble, and the fact that the Soviets were on their doorstep.
  • rbecker 6y ago
    This article elaborates that the bombings probably weren't necessary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24093814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24093814
  • valuearb 6y ago
    Strange, as the Japanese military mutinied when the Emperor ordered the surrender.
    • jacobush 6y ago
      Which in no way invalidates what I’m saying? Just a different outlook on how the war should be handled.
• eska 6y ago
  My school education about this was also essentially "bombs are bad, kids". The Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...) is actually quite enlightening in this matter. A lot of people seem to think that the Americans didn't try anything else before. Likewise most people don't realize how much more death there would've been on both sides if the US invaded Japan by sea.
  • renewiltord 6y ago
    It strikes me as odd that practically any victorious military finds all of its actions optimal. If it had not done as it did, then the outcomes would be worse. The regularity of the superiority of the action taken is fascinating. Curiously, this website has a large number of commentators that believe that luck is one of the biggest factors in startup success. Yet, in this other domain of antagonistic participants, war, the victor is always the better strategist, having seen through the flaws of his enemy. Mere luck plays no part here. A curious result to me. It appears that Man is elevated to supreme intelligence when tasked with war, and finds himself a mere leaf on air currents otherwise. Of course, I’m no peacenik. I have no problem over-bombing a population so I don’t really see Hiroshima and Nagasaki as tragedies. Since no one has an incentive to reveal the true minimum that would cause them to capitulate, it is usually a good idea when you’re almost winning to make sure you’re definitely winning. I have no problem with the death of those who would prefer my death. Just fascinated at how we conquer luck in this sphere alone.
    • the_af 6y ago
      > I have no problem with the death of those who would prefer my death What about those who have no opinion one way or the other about your death, or are incapable of having an informed opinion, such as very young children?
      • renewiltord 6y ago
        Well, this is a personal position so I don’t see the value in sharing it, but since you asked: I’d rather be alive and evil than dead and good. After all, alive and evil I can be redeemed and die good after a fulfilling life. If I win, presumably following generations will talk about my courage at having turned my life around and any detractors of mine will find themselves outdone by my supporters - who will either be more numerous or will have the ability to call my detractors hypocrites since they only exist by my actions. So the children will die if they must die. And they will live if it does not affect victory.
• senand 6y ago
  Even assuming it did bring an end to the war: was it really necessary to drop two bombs for that?
  • renewiltord 6y ago
    Conventional wisdom is that you have to prove you can do it on demand rather than it being a one and done. If you have one, it could be the last one. If you have two, you could have infinity.
    • eska 6y ago
      And the first one was likely to be a dud, thereby completely removing the psychological effect from further atomic bombs, of which there was only one for the next couple months.
    • throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      Wiping out one city in one single gigantic unprecedented flash was pretty convincing.
      • catalogia 6y ago
        Not to everybody it wasn't. Some Japanese officers wanted to keep fighting even after two cities were wiped out. (Three if you count the firebombing of Tokyo, which you probably should...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident As proven earlier with Operation Ten-Go / The Battle of the East China Sea, many in the Japanese military preferred spiteful suicidal attacks to surrender, even when the hopelessness of their situation was abundantly clear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ten-Go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ten-Go
    • claudiawerner 6y ago
      An interesting point here, in the Wikipedia article on the atomic bombings, that Japanese nuclear scientists reported to their government that the US could be expected to have between two and four more such bombs ready to go. They were under no illusions that the US had hundreds of these sitting around.
• Entwickler 6y ago
  I've heard the idea that atomic bombs were the deciding factor in ending the war is in large part American propaganda. The fact is the Soviets had far superior divisions (in both manpower and fire power) lined up against the Japanese in Manchuria, and shattered them within weeks. From wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War), "Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings were not the principal reason for Japan's capitulation. He argues that Japan's leaders were impacted more by the swift and devastating Soviet victories on the mainland in the week after Joseph Stalin's August 8 declaration of war because the Japanese strategy to protect the home islands was designed to fend off an Allied invasion from the south and left virtually no spare troops to counter a Soviet threat from the north. Furthermore, the Japanese could no longer hope to achieve a negotiated peace with the Allies by using the Soviet Union as a mediator with the Soviet declaration of war. That, according to Hasegawa, amounted to a "strategic bankruptcy" for the Japanese and forced their message of surrender on August 15, 1945.[39][16] Others with similar views include the Battlefield series documentary,[2][11] among others, but all, including Hasegawa, state that the surrender was not caused by only one factor or event."
  • purple-again 6y ago
    In the surrendering words of the emperor himself the atomic bomb is directly mentioned as one reason for the surrender.
    • catalogia 6y ago
      Words which almost weren't heard at all because some parts of the Japanese military attempted to prevent the surrender from being published.
    • edflsafoiewq 6y ago
      He also says: "Indeed, we declared war on America and Britain out of our sincere desire to ensure Japan's self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement." The Jewel Voice Broadcast should not be read uncritically.
• EarthIsHome 6y ago
  For those interested in arguments about whether the bombings were necessary, there's a good Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombi... I do believe the bombings were a strategic show-of-force to the Soviet Union since they were coming out of the war as a global power; USSR were instrumental in ending the war.
  • missedthecue 6y ago
    The fact that the military is still awarding Purple Hearts that were manufactured for the invasion of Japan tells me that it was more than justified. Japanese intelligence itself estimated 20 million casualties during an invasion.
    • pmachinery 6y ago
      Regardless of the number, there was no need to invade Japan. It was already defeated, and offering to surrender, before the USSR joined the fight. Totally surrounded/blockaded, no allies left in the world, bombed at will, what else could it do but accept defeat?
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • manfredo 6y ago
        Offering to surrender conditionally. Specifically, on the condition that it keep Korea and Taiwan (and maybe Manchuria, too), and that it's military government remain largely unchanged. This is was not a surrender that was acceptable to the Allies. This thread is being rate limited, reply in edit: Denying Korea and Taiwan is easier said than done. Remember that Japan essentially won the continental war against China. It's best equipped and most experienced troops are there. Japan is also in an optimal position to control ocean access to Korea. Any boats have to travel through the East China Sea, or sea of Japan to reach Korea. Both of which are in range of the thousands of kamikaze planes built for the purpose of destroying vessels that sail close to Japan. At this point, you're talking about conducting an invasion of a landmass even larger than the Japanese home islands, against better troops, and with more difficult naval access. It would undoubtedly incur substantially more losses than the 100 to 200 thousand inflicted by the atomic bombings. And to what end? A hostile military government would still be in power back in Japan.
• the_af 6y ago
  > I realized that it actually did bring an end to the war This may be the mainstream opinion in the US, but do note it's not the mainstream opinion in other countries. Alternative explanations include that the real purpose of the two bombs was to show the Soviets the nuclear might of the US (this view is suggested in the Hiroshima museum in Japan, but just in case you discount it because Japan is obviously not a neutral party, this opinion is also held in some countries in Latin America -- even some people in the US believe this). Even at the time, some people in the US army opposed the bombing and believed it had no military justification.
  • manfredo 6y ago
    Necessity and justification are two different concepts. Few believe it was necessary - the United States' overwhelming industrial capacity was bound to prevail over Japan. The state of the two countries warmaking capacity was totally lopsided by 1945. Thus it was not necessary to achieve victory. That is brought an end to the war with fewer casualties, both American and Japanese even moreso, is not a difficult claim to support. Japan planned to fight a defensive war against an amphibious invasion in order to negotiate more favorable surrender terms. The Japanese estimated that this would incur 20 million Japanese casualties, and this plan was approved. Even if we assume that Japan's war machine would collapse before this figure of lives lost was reached, it is almost certain that the death toll would be in the millions. Germany, without the advantage of being a mountainous island nation and having a lower population than Japan, fought on its own soil in 1945 to the effect of several million dead. Thus, it's almost certain that the atomic bombings resulted in an order of magnitude fewer Japanese lives lost than an conventional invasion.
    • hutzlibu 6y ago
      Yes, but maybe the bombs would have had the same effect, if dropped on actual military targets (or even unhabitated land, but close enough to demonstrate the power) instead of an civilian city. (a city with military production, sure sure, but they were choosen not because of military value, but because they were relatively undamaged, so the effect of the bombs could be studied. Concern for loss of japan civilian live was never an issue)
• rland 6y ago
  We had a discussion about this in high school, I think my junior year. Most of these types of discussions were very lopsided, so the teacher would usually have to encourage people to take the “bad/unpopular” position somehow. But this one was right down the line in my class and produced a lively debate. I still think about it, but my opinion hasn’t changed — it was the correct decision.
  • j-james 6y ago
    My Modern World History class in high school also did this. Our debate came down to whether or not directly / immediately killing hundreds of thousands of citizens was justified by potentially preventing even more dying in a subsequent invasion. The class was similarly split.
    • KingOfCoders 6y ago
      While instead the high school should have taught about false dilemmas.
• renewiltord 6y ago
  A fascinating comparison with British steadfast resolve in the face of overwhelming force. Britons would fight on the beaches, and on the landing grounds and streets. They would never surrender, even against overwhelming odds. Truly inspiring in comparison with the robotic obedience of the Japanese who would dig in to protect their island, whatever the cost may be.
  • jmknoll 6y ago
    I see the point you’re trying to make, and by no means am I saying that the British were without fault, but there is a very significant difference between the the British defending their liberal democracy from Nazi domination and a largely rural, largely uneducated Japanese population being conscripted into fighting a war of aggression on behalf of a totalitarian state.
    • goto11 6y ago
      Yes and no - UK was actually a colonial empire at the time of WWII and had conquered and subjugated more land and peoples than the Japanese ever managed. While the UK itself could be termed a liberal democracy, most of its subjects had no say.
  • quietbritishjim 6y ago
    * A rousing public speech is very different from actual policy. A sibiling comment to yours make reference to a plan by the Japanese, made in secret and actually started, that was known to cost millions of Japanese lives and wasn't even meant to secure victory but just better surrender terms. Your quotation doesn't come close to showing that the British would be prepared to do something similar. (In fact I'm sure I read about a plan Churchill had to surrender if Germans did make it onto British soil, but I'm not going to search for it now - the burden is on you to show that the British wouldn't have surrendered.) * Aside from broad policy, the difference in attitude is clearly shown by actions of individual soldiers. Individual Britons in theatre would usually be prepared to surrender if their situation was hopeless, as shown by the number of actual British PoWs in WW2, whereas this was much rarer for Japanese soldiers.
  • 6y ago
• kingkawn 6y ago
  A quote from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Japan at the moment was seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of face. It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” There are more quotes, but basically everything you were taught about the necessity of wiping out hundreds of thousands of people in a flash was after the fact American propaganda to justify a war crime.
  • ThrowawayR2 6y ago
    > "Japan at the moment was seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of face" Not really; some in Japan were seeking a surrender and some, notably nearly all of the Japanese military, were quite definitively not. Had the internal coup intended to prevent the surrender succeeded (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident), Eisenhower's quote would have been entirely false instead of a half-truth.
    • kingkawn 6y ago
      You know more than Eisenhower?
      • gen220 6y ago
        The Eisenhower quote is from 1963. He was not a general in the pacific theater, and was not involved in postwar Japan. IMO, his quote should be read as that of a politician (which he was, at that point, having served two terms as president), rather than that of a military general. It was not so cut and dry, as his words imply.
        • kingkawn 6y ago
          So you do think you know more than Eisenhower. Fascinating belief. The strategic bombing survey of 1946, subject to no objections about Eisenhower’s relative objectivity compared to your own, concludes that the Japanese government was well into the process of determining how to surrender, with predictable resistance from the military but endorsement by the Emperor as they were in the process of determining how to stand down. It also points out that the majority of the populace had already lost hope for the war effort, which is now the bomb’s justification. https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/united-states-strategic-bombing-survey-effects-atomic-bombs-hiroshima-and?documentid=NA&pagenumber=24 https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/united-...
• dylan604 6y ago
  > Surely, we have the tools and desire, don't we? I hope. Military conflicts through out the world since suggest we do not.
• ChomskyNormal4m 6y ago
  > horrors of the Japanese war machine, and maybe actually more the non-horrific but relentless robotic support for the war (or obedience towards the emperor, government, etc) among the people When you think of the black ships of the Perry expedition, and then forward to the Japanese attack on England's Hong Kong colony, the French colonies in Indochina, America's colony in the Philippines (and Hawaii!) - then you see the above blurb is a perfect encapsulation of the western bourgeois mind.
• antisthenes 6y ago
  You've recreated the Ultimate Ideal from movie Hero (2002) 1. Mastery of a weapon and combat (the nuclear weapon) 2. Weapon not in hand, but in the hearts and minds (loyalty and devotion to the cause) 3. The ultimate ideal - the weapon disappears altogether, and the warrior is at peace with the world.
• ekianjo 6y ago
  > I realized that it actually did bring an end to the war. Then you have been fed propaganda. The bomb had nothing to do with Japan surrendering.
• Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > When I was young in grade school, and learned about the bomb, and its terrifying aftermath, pictures, scars, I thought that this was clearly a wrong against humanity to have been dropped on anyone. Clearly the visceral kind of "this should never happen" reaction that any average person would have. "How could we put the Enola Gay on a stamp to glorify this?" This is captured very well in Leiji Matsumoto's "The Cockpit" anime short, where in the protagonist, a Nazi Luftwaffe Pilot, is faced with the dilemma where Nazis had access to Nuclear weapons before the Allies but ultimately told from the perspective of the Japanese and perhaps even the Hibakusha themselves as he was born in 1938 and saw the the War in Japan first hand in this lifetime. It's pretty heavy stuff but conveys how this technology should not be in the hands of Humans in their current form, as its not worth the risk of the inevitable usecases we've collectively created thus far. > Now, my 3rd phase of thinking -- beyond any opinion on tactics or reaction or bombs in the moment of a war -- is how do we get people to help themselves get out of the path to war? Each and every one of us, who whether by support or indifference, or tacit approval, or compounded misinformation, or ego, get ourselves into situations that we look back 50 years from now and say, "what happened?". Honestly, War, especially to that massive destructive scale is only capable under the Nation-State model, which is what initially got me interested in Anarchism: as a tool for effective Anti-war measures. I just fear Humanity may never truly be able to accept a Social model in which the State model is entirely absent and unnecessary before these things occur again, look how close this US vs CCP rhetoric is stoking the flames of potentially WW3 (both nuclear capable) when we have a so many ongoing crises that need the collective focus of all of Humanity to come close to even trying to solve. Sidenote: The bombing of Horoshima and Nagasaki took place after the US had effectively crippled the Japanese economy and supply lines in a nation with no natural resources of their own. Its often speculated about how much longer they could have put up a resistance, prolonging Japan's defeat, and what would ultimately create a near permanent occupation by the US, but the War effort and the manufacturing of these armaments to the level they had before was impossible by the time Fat Man and Little Boy entered the Pacific theater. Moreover, the constant conventional bombing and air raids of Tokyo by Allies (Tokyo Daikushu) claimed more lives (that still stands to this day) than both Nuclear bombs combined at the time of it being dropped, but the tragic thing being that that Hibakusha and their descendants still suffer long after the Empire fell, but still live with the horrible birth defects and health issues to this day. The way the US via GE and Westinghouse imposed Nuclear technology on them was perhaps the most cloaked dagger to Humanity I have ever seen in the reconstruction phase of all the 'axis' nations when you see how devastating Fukushima is (at the hands of TEPCO/Abe Government) that continues to pour massive nuclear contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean to this day. The lesson (hopefully) being, that no one 'won' and all of Humanity 'lost' as we probably embarked on a very dark and destructive phase of our Human Condition that we probably would have been better not knowing we were capable of as a Species. Just look at the tragic plight of the Marshall Islands in the race for other nations to be Nuclear capable as well.
• pmoleri 6y ago
  > Which if it had continued, could have consumed far more lives. Everything along these lines are counterfactual excercises and a nice way of justify the crime of dropping nuclear bombs on cities full of civilians. I don't buy this. And something we all know is that history is told by the victors.
  • magicsmoke 6y ago
    Tokyo was already firebombed and terror bombing of civilian cities was a tactic used by all sides in WW2. If bombing civilians is a war crime, then everyone in WW2 is a war criminal. As for the civilian getting bombed, whether the fire melting their flesh away has a hint of radioactivity is a really minor addition.
    • pmoleri 6y ago
      That kind of reasoning can be used to justify all kind of things that are considered crimes. Wipe out 200K in one action just to show power seems too much. I don't accept that the amount of creativity used to create weapons cannot be applied also to use them more wisely in ways that don't wipe out 200k.
• mulmen 6y ago
  > [...] how do we get people to help themselves get out of the path to war? Philosophically I find this revolting. Who are you, or me, or we to say what some other society should do? That should never be the goal and I don’t think anything good comes from starting with “other people are wrong, we should fix them.” I realize I’m putting hyperbolic words in your mouth here but the point is nobody should be trusted with that kind of power. > Surely, we have the tools and desire, don't we? I hope. No, I don’t think we do. And if we did they would be more devastating than nuclear weapons. The closest thing is social media.
  • loco5niner 6y ago
    It sounds like you are saying that it's wrong to say "war is bad, let's avoid killing each other". If true, your "philosophies" are in serious need of self-reflection.
• KingOfCoders 6y ago
  I thought it was settled now that the entry of the Soviet Union in the Pacific theatre ended the war, not the two (!) atomic bombs - it's a sad fact that Nagasaki is so often forgotten. The US had already destroyed mostly all Japanese cities. There was no large difference between a firestorm bombing and the bombs to Japanese cities. In Tokyo more than 700.000 buildings were destroyed and in one night more than 100.000 people killed by fire bombing. The only difference was one of efficiency. It took 280 B-29 to kill 100k people in one night in Tokyo while it took 1 B-29 to kill 100k people in Hiroshima.
• Ste_Evans 6y ago
  "how do we get people to help themselves get out of the path to war?" A good start would be to learn the facts. US-Japanese history didn't begin with Pearl Harbour. Edo-Japan was minding its own business before the Black Ships arrived. How many Americans know about the atrocities the US committed in the Philippines? The Japanese saw what was heading their way from the US and Europe.