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The Japanese surrender in WWII due to sustained strategic bombing of civilian cities without a single troop landing in mainland Japan is a clear contradiction t

by boc 5y ago

The Japanese surrender in WWII due to sustained strategic bombing of civilian cities without a single troop landing in mainland Japan is a clear contradiction to this take.

ceejayoz 5y ago
We've got a sample size of one for "conflicts ended via nuclear explosions", though.
thatguy0900 5y ago
If Russia nuked Ukraine they might win the war on Ukraine, sure. Japan didn't even quit until there were two though. Would they have quit with no nukes and just firebombing?
- deleted 5y ago
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- thg 5y ago
  Japan didn't surrender because of anything the US did, but because Russia declared war on them (two days after Hiroshima and a day before Nagasaki). The US may just as well have dropped 10 more nukes and it wouldn't have changed anything. The Japanese didn't care whether it took a 1.000 bombs to destroy a city or a single one. Even more so, since they didn't know anything about the radioactive fallout and long-term effects. To them, it was just a bigger bomb.
jcranmer 5y ago
It's not a clear contradiction; it's one of only two cases that are arguable (the other one being NATO bombing of Serbia during the dissolution of Yugoslavia). It's noted that it's not clear how much the atomic bombings influenced the decision to surrender, versus the near-simultaneous declaration of war by the USSR on Japan. Furthermore, by the time Japan surrendered, it was clear that Japan had already thoroughly lost. Recall that similar bombing campaigns against the UK (Battle of Britain) and Germany utter failed to bring those nations any closer to surrender. In any case, compared to the actual theorists like Giulio Douhet who were, before World War II, arguing that attacking cities would cause the will of the nations to collapse before they fully mobilized, the actual results fell far short of the theorists.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  > It's noted that it's not clear how much the atomic bombings influenced the decision to surrender, My understanding is that communications between Hirohito and Stalin indicate that Japan was attempting to begin negotiation of a total surrender after Midway and that Truman's diary eludes to this moment. The main argument I've seen to contradict this is that they don't believe Japan wasn't actually going to accept a full surrender at this point.

by boc 5y ago

The Japanese surrender in WWII due to sustained strategic bombing of civilian cities without a single troop landing in mainland Japan is a clear contradiction to this take.

ceejayoz 5y ago

We've got a sample size of one for "conflicts ended via nuclear explosions", though.

thatguy0900 5y ago

If Russia nuked Ukraine they might win the war on Ukraine, sure. Japan didn't even quit until there were two though. Would they have quit with no nukes and just firebombing?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
thg 5y ago
Japan didn't surrender because of anything the US did, but because Russia declared war on them (two days after Hiroshima and a day before Nagasaki). The US may just as well have dropped 10 more nukes and it wouldn't have changed anything. The Japanese didn't care whether it took a 1.000 bombs to destroy a city or a single one. Even more so, since they didn't know anything about the radioactive fallout and long-term effects. To them, it was just a bigger bomb.

jcranmer 5y ago

It's not a clear contradiction; it's one of only two cases that are arguable (the other one being NATO bombing of Serbia during the dissolution of Yugoslavia). It's noted that it's not clear how much the atomic bombings influenced the decision to surrender, versus the near-simultaneous declaration of war by the USSR on Japan. Furthermore, by the time Japan surrendered, it was clear that Japan had already thoroughly lost. Recall that similar bombing campaigns against the UK (Battle of Britain) and Germany utter failed to bring those nations any closer to surrender. In any case, compared to the actual theorists like Giulio Douhet who were, before World War II, arguing that attacking cities would cause the will of the nations to collapse before they fully mobilized, the actual results fell far short of the theorists.

mywittyname 5y ago
> It's noted that it's not clear how much the atomic bombings influenced the decision to surrender, My understanding is that communications between Hirohito and Stalin indicate that Japan was attempting to begin negotiation of a total surrender after Midway and that Truman's diary eludes to this moment. The main argument I've seen to contradict this is that they don't believe Japan wasn't actually going to accept a full surrender at this point.