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This was debated at the time. It was ultimately rejected: 1) What if the bomb didn't work? 2) What if the bomb was recovered by the Japanese? 3) What if they ig

This was debated at the time. It was ultimately rejected: 1) What if the bomb didn't work? 2) What if the bomb was recovered by the Japanese? 3) What if they ignored the demonstration? 4) What if a single Allied soldier died who would not have died if they had dropped it on a military target? I suggest the first two books of Richard Rhode's book "Making of the Atomic Bomb", which goes into this.

boomboomsubban 5y ago
The first two risks are unchanged, a failed and recovered Little Boy always carried the same risk. Three, what if they ignored the bombings? And four I think you misstated, but how do we know a single more allied soldier didn't die because we dropped it on a civilian target? I've read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb."
- rrss 5y ago
  The first two risks are only unchanged for a demonstration that was not announced to japan, and IMO a demonstration of a nuclear bomb without telling Japan to observe it would not have been effective. After the bombing of Hiroshima, Suzuki stated to the press that Japan would not surrender, which suggests to me that bombing the middle of nowhere as a demonstration would probably not have persuaded the Japanese government to surrender. Why would a non military demonstration have been more impactful than bombing a city?
  - gus_massa 5y ago
    Politicians tell bullshit all the time. If they say they will surrender in a week, it's very hard to convince the cannon folder to continue fighting while they negotiate some kind of amnesty for the top level generals.
    - mcguire 5y ago
      Those politicians were telling that to each other---the Supreme Council was deadlocked after Nagasaki and the Soviets had entered the war.
csee 5y ago
(1) and (2) make no sense. The bomb is more likely to be recovered by the Japanese if it is dropped on a city. (3) then you drop one demo and have two real ones if they don't surrender to the demo within a few days. (4) that sucks but that's how it goes, you can't seriously be saying it's justified to kill 200k Japanese civilians to save a small handful of allied lives in the intervening days while we wait for their response to the demo bomb.
- xibalba 5y ago
  > you can't seriously be saying it's justified to kill 200k Japanese civilians to save a small handful of allied lives I absolutely would argue in favor of this. In fact, I would argue that it would have been morally just to kill every last Japanese person, military or not, if Japan refused surrender (which was part of the Emperor’s plan for self preservation). Remember the context: 1) Japan attacked the U.S. to initiate hostilities and 2) Japanese resistance became more fierce, fanatical, and deadly (ex: suicide bombings by both military and civilians) as the U.S. approached mainland Japan.
  - csee 5y ago
    You would trade off 200k Japanese civilians for, say, 1000 allied lives? What ratio is morally justified? If you are arguing that a 200:1 ratio is acceptable, I believe this is a morally bankrupt perspective, given that the consequence of this is a genocide of a people who are otherwise perfectly normal without the broken software that was running in their minds and their society at the time, and given that it is a collectivistic perspective that assigns moral guilt to an entire civilian population (including children) instead of the specific individual bad actors that caused the situation. Regarding the latter point - on this premise that every single Japanese person shared moral culpability for what Japan was doing - it can't be squared with an understanding of what actually happened. I mean, the existence of children is a QED against it. But even just talking adults - At that stage the country was a fascist dictatorship, with multiple democratically elected leaders assassinated by the military (which was taken over by a fanatical fascist contingent in the 1930s) and a tremendous propaganda effort by the military to control all information and brainwash the general public into thinking they were doing good and just work overseas. Combine this with a poor, ignorant farmer population, and I don't think the simple moral prism that you're applying works.
rightbyte 5y ago
Surely the bombs would be of no scientific use after smashing to the ground?

boomboomsubban 5y ago

The first two risks are unchanged, a failed and recovered Little Boy always carried the same risk. Three, what if they ignored the bombings? And four I think you misstated, but how do we know a single more allied soldier didn't die because we dropped it on a civilian target? I've read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb."

rrss 5y ago
The first two risks are only unchanged for a demonstration that was not announced to japan, and IMO a demonstration of a nuclear bomb without telling Japan to observe it would not have been effective. After the bombing of Hiroshima, Suzuki stated to the press that Japan would not surrender, which suggests to me that bombing the middle of nowhere as a demonstration would probably not have persuaded the Japanese government to surrender. Why would a non military demonstration have been more impactful than bombing a city?
- gus_massa 5y ago
  Politicians tell bullshit all the time. If they say they will surrender in a week, it's very hard to convince the cannon folder to continue fighting while they negotiate some kind of amnesty for the top level generals.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    Those politicians were telling that to each other---the Supreme Council was deadlocked after Nagasaki and the Soviets had entered the war.

csee 5y ago

(1) and (2) make no sense. The bomb is more likely to be recovered by the Japanese if it is dropped on a city. (3) then you drop one demo and have two real ones if they don't surrender to the demo within a few days. (4) that sucks but that's how it goes, you can't seriously be saying it's justified to kill 200k Japanese civilians to save a small handful of allied lives in the intervening days while we wait for their response to the demo bomb.

xibalba 5y ago
> you can't seriously be saying it's justified to kill 200k Japanese civilians to save a small handful of allied lives I absolutely would argue in favor of this. In fact, I would argue that it would have been morally just to kill every last Japanese person, military or not, if Japan refused surrender (which was part of the Emperor’s plan for self preservation). Remember the context: 1) Japan attacked the U.S. to initiate hostilities and 2) Japanese resistance became more fierce, fanatical, and deadly (ex: suicide bombings by both military and civilians) as the U.S. approached mainland Japan.
- csee 5y ago
  You would trade off 200k Japanese civilians for, say, 1000 allied lives? What ratio is morally justified? If you are arguing that a 200:1 ratio is acceptable, I believe this is a morally bankrupt perspective, given that the consequence of this is a genocide of a people who are otherwise perfectly normal without the broken software that was running in their minds and their society at the time, and given that it is a collectivistic perspective that assigns moral guilt to an entire civilian population (including children) instead of the specific individual bad actors that caused the situation. Regarding the latter point - on this premise that every single Japanese person shared moral culpability for what Japan was doing - it can't be squared with an understanding of what actually happened. I mean, the existence of children is a QED against it. But even just talking adults - At that stage the country was a fascist dictatorship, with multiple democratically elected leaders assassinated by the military (which was taken over by a fanatical fascist contingent in the 1930s) and a tremendous propaganda effort by the military to control all information and brainwash the general public into thinking they were doing good and just work overseas. Combine this with a poor, ignorant farmer population, and I don't think the simple moral prism that you're applying works.

rightbyte 5y ago

Surely the bombs would be of no scientific use after smashing to the ground?