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Not sure who, besides the Japanese at the time, have really criticised the outcome. Even now the Japanese seem to at least understand why it had to happen. It w

by avazhi 5y ago

Not sure who, besides the Japanese at the time, have really criticised the outcome. Even now the Japanese seem to at least understand why it had to happen. It was the difference between Nazi fascism winning global hegemony or not. I don’t think there’s a serious argument that it shouldn’t have happened.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
psd1 5y ago
I'm not well read on the topic, and I do tend to agree with you, but I can imagine an argument like: - nuclear threat is a serious cost to productivity and well-being - the bomb merely brought forward a conclusion that was already looking inevitable There's an obvious counter that some nation likely would have developed nuclear weapons independently - America was merely the first. Nonetheless, I think it's not a given that the bomb was a positive.
pegasus 5y ago
There are very convincing historical arguments on why the bomb was both unnecessary and also why it didn't in fact play any role in Japan's surrender (it sound unlikely, but conventional bombing raids were annihilating Japanese cities at such a clip that Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't even register as anything different with the decision-making group; they decided to capitulate when the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and all hopes of avoiding unconditional surrender were dashed). Google brings up plenty of reading material.
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  Listen to at least the end of the “Supernova in the East” episodes of Hardcore History.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  Those arguments decontextualize the war and are self-defeating in that the Allies were willing to give Dresden and other cities a treatment not much different from Hiroshima in the end. At the scale of 2 bombs, the a-bomb was wasn’t a revolution in war, that wasn’t going to happen until solidly in the mid 1950s where there was a large supply of devices that were practical use. Another factor was that the U.S. thought it was very possible we’d be going to war with Russia and was slow to demobilize so there was definitely the intent to intimidate the Soviet Union even that early.
- pegasus 5y ago
  Adding this link: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-08-05/hiroshima-anniversary-japan-atomic-bombs https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-08-05/hiroshima-a...
robbomacrae 5y ago
Plenty do criticize the outcome and with reasonable justification. Your reasoning doesn't take into account that when the nukes were dropped Nazi Germany had already unconditionally surrendered. Sure, it was too costly to invade Japan.. but in retrospect, blockading and sanctioning might have achieved the same goals without indiscriminately obliterating 200,000 innocents.
- flerchin 5y ago
  Germany did not unconditionally surrender until Hitler was dead and Berlin was overrun. Japan would have done the same. More than 200k innocents would have died.
  - robbomacrae 5y ago
    Hence blockade and sanction. No need to invade.
    - flerchin 5y ago
      More than 200k still would have died under that scheme as well.
      - user-the-name 5y ago
        Would they?
        flerchin 5y ago
        Yes
        user-the-name 5y ago
        And how do you know that?
        5y ago
pokepim 5y ago
[flagged]
GlennS 5y ago
Depends what you mean by "the outcome" here. If you mean developing the bomb, then fine. If you mean dropping the bomb, then that seems pretty controversial. I thought it was pretty well established that the USA knew Japan was willing to surrender, but dropped the bomb anyway?
- alecbz 5y ago
  > the USA knew Japan was willing to surrender, but dropped the bomb anyway? This is the opposite of what I usually hear? I've heard things about how Japan was getting ready to fight to the last man, starting to arm civilians. I have heard that the emperor was maybe willing to surrender, but that the country was essentially being run by the military leadership, who would ~never see surrender as an option.
  - GlennS 5y ago
    Well, that's what Truman said.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure the US thought that every man between 16 and 65 was going to be given a weapon and fight for every inch of Japanese soil. That at the time it was considered likely that we would have to fight a long war of attrition across the island losing hundreds of thousands of Americans and being forced to kill uncountable Japanese conscripts.
  - SamReidHughes 5y ago
    We never had to do that. We could have simply not invaded the main islands. Furthermore, we could have offered a peace agreement that ends the war without occupation of Japan.
IgorPartola 5y ago
That is wrong. The difference was how quickly Japan would lose the war after Germany was already a non-factor. The cost was how bloody the defeat would be and the calculation was that the bombs would result in fewer lives lost overall. Japan wasn’t going to win one way or the other.
lr1970 5y ago
> It was the difference between Nazi fascism winning global hegemony or not. I don’t think there’s a serious argument that it shouldn’t have happened. By the time nukes were dropped on Japan [0] in August 1945 nazi Germany was defeated, the war in Europe ended, Soviets attacked Japanese army in Manchuria [1] on August 9-th -- the day of Nagasaki bombing. Dropping bombs on Japan had one main purpose - to show the Soviets who is the boss and prevent them from invading and occupying Japan before the USA can do it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet–Japanese_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet–Japanese_War
- stdbrouw 5y ago
  That's a pretty bizarre reading of history. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan because Stalin had promised Roosevelt and Churchill at the 1943 Tehran conference, so this was not some sort of surprising or unwelcome development.
  - vkou 5y ago
    The surprising development was just how quickly the Manchurian front collapsed against the Soviet Union. The Kwantung Army, and Japan's ability to continue the war, even in a defensive capability completely fell apart in 7 days. Japan was utterly reliant on supplies and raw materials from its Chinese and Korean puppet states. Between that, and the amphibious attacks against Korea, the Kurils, and Sakhalin, the US was on a pretty short clock to end the war before communism had a chance to move in, and settle down. Stalin respected the pre-agreed partition of Europe, but neither Postdam, nor Tehran said very much about who would be in control of what part of the Japanese empire after the war... And in practice, this meant that when the war ended, possession, in the form of 'whose army is parked where' was nine tenths of the law. The United States was not at all interested in seeing an East/West Japan partition. North/South Korea was bad enough.
  - lr1970 5y ago
    It was not surprising for sure, but Truman who succeeded Roosevelt was not keen seeing Russians meddling in Japan when it was already on a brink of defeat and surrender. Nukes can cool off Stalin's appetite quite effectively.

by avazhi 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

psd1 5y ago

I'm not well read on the topic, and I do tend to agree with you, but I can imagine an argument like: - nuclear threat is a serious cost to productivity and well-being - the bomb merely brought forward a conclusion that was already looking inevitable There's an obvious counter that some nation likely would have developed nuclear weapons independently - America was merely the first. Nonetheless, I think it's not a given that the bomb was a positive.

pegasus 5y ago

There are very convincing historical arguments on why the bomb was both unnecessary and also why it didn't in fact play any role in Japan's surrender (it sound unlikely, but conventional bombing raids were annihilating Japanese cities at such a clip that Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't even register as anything different with the decision-making group; they decided to capitulate when the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and all hopes of avoiding unconditional surrender were dashed). Google brings up plenty of reading material.

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
Listen to at least the end of the “Supernova in the East” episodes of Hardcore History.
PaulHoule 5y ago
Those arguments decontextualize the war and are self-defeating in that the Allies were willing to give Dresden and other cities a treatment not much different from Hiroshima in the end. At the scale of 2 bombs, the a-bomb was wasn’t a revolution in war, that wasn’t going to happen until solidly in the mid 1950s where there was a large supply of devices that were practical use. Another factor was that the U.S. thought it was very possible we’d be going to war with Russia and was slow to demobilize so there was definitely the intent to intimidate the Soviet Union even that early.
pegasus 5y ago
Adding this link: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-08-05/hiroshima-anniversary-japan-atomic-bombs https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-08-05/hiroshima-a...

robbomacrae 5y ago

Plenty do criticize the outcome and with reasonable justification. Your reasoning doesn't take into account that when the nukes were dropped Nazi Germany had already unconditionally surrendered. Sure, it was too costly to invade Japan.. but in retrospect, blockading and sanctioning might have achieved the same goals without indiscriminately obliterating 200,000 innocents.

flerchin 5y ago
Germany did not unconditionally surrender until Hitler was dead and Berlin was overrun. Japan would have done the same. More than 200k innocents would have died.
- robbomacrae 5y ago
  Hence blockade and sanction. No need to invade.
  - flerchin 5y ago
    More than 200k still would have died under that scheme as well.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      Would they?
      - flerchin 5y ago
        Yes
        user-the-name 5y ago
        And how do you know that?
        5y ago

pokepim 5y ago

[flagged]

GlennS 5y ago

Depends what you mean by "the outcome" here. If you mean developing the bomb, then fine. If you mean dropping the bomb, then that seems pretty controversial. I thought it was pretty well established that the USA knew Japan was willing to surrender, but dropped the bomb anyway?

alecbz 5y ago
> the USA knew Japan was willing to surrender, but dropped the bomb anyway? This is the opposite of what I usually hear? I've heard things about how Japan was getting ready to fight to the last man, starting to arm civilians. I have heard that the emperor was maybe willing to surrender, but that the country was essentially being run by the military leadership, who would ~never see surrender as an option.
- GlennS 5y ago
  Well, that's what Truman said.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
HWR_14 5y ago
I'm pretty sure the US thought that every man between 16 and 65 was going to be given a weapon and fight for every inch of Japanese soil. That at the time it was considered likely that we would have to fight a long war of attrition across the island losing hundreds of thousands of Americans and being forced to kill uncountable Japanese conscripts.
- SamReidHughes 5y ago
  We never had to do that. We could have simply not invaded the main islands. Furthermore, we could have offered a peace agreement that ends the war without occupation of Japan.

IgorPartola 5y ago

That is wrong. The difference was how quickly Japan would lose the war after Germany was already a non-factor. The cost was how bloody the defeat would be and the calculation was that the bombs would result in fewer lives lost overall. Japan wasn’t going to win one way or the other.

lr1970 5y ago

> It was the difference between Nazi fascism winning global hegemony or not. I don’t think there’s a serious argument that it shouldn’t have happened. By the time nukes were dropped on Japan [0] in August 1945 nazi Germany was defeated, the war in Europe ended, Soviets attacked Japanese army in Manchuria [1] on August 9-th -- the day of Nagasaki bombing. Dropping bombs on Japan had one main purpose - to show the Soviets who is the boss and prevent them from invading and occupying Japan before the USA can do it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet–Japanese_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet–Japanese_War

stdbrouw 5y ago
That's a pretty bizarre reading of history. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan because Stalin had promised Roosevelt and Churchill at the 1943 Tehran conference, so this was not some sort of surprising or unwelcome development.
- vkou 5y ago
  The surprising development was just how quickly the Manchurian front collapsed against the Soviet Union. The Kwantung Army, and Japan's ability to continue the war, even in a defensive capability completely fell apart in 7 days. Japan was utterly reliant on supplies and raw materials from its Chinese and Korean puppet states. Between that, and the amphibious attacks against Korea, the Kurils, and Sakhalin, the US was on a pretty short clock to end the war before communism had a chance to move in, and settle down. Stalin respected the pre-agreed partition of Europe, but neither Postdam, nor Tehran said very much about who would be in control of what part of the Japanese empire after the war... And in practice, this meant that when the war ended, possession, in the form of 'whose army is parked where' was nine tenths of the law. The United States was not at all interested in seeing an East/West Japan partition. North/South Korea was bad enough.
- lr1970 5y ago
  It was not surprising for sure, but Truman who succeeded Roosevelt was not keen seeing Russians meddling in Japan when it was already on a brink of defeat and surrender. Nukes can cool off Stalin's appetite quite effectively.