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> Yup, else they might try to decide to wait it out and build their own bomb. They were so much against surrendering many committed seppuku or regular suicide w

> Yup, else they might try to decide to wait it out and build their own bomb. They were so much against surrendering many committed seppuku or regular suicide when it happened and those were regular people. The declaration of war by the Soviet Union decided the end of the war. Japan wouldn't have had time to build their own bomb and they would have surrendered anyway. In fact it is not even proven that the bombings had any meaningful impact to the decisions to surrender. If the Japanese didn't surrender after having whole cities firebombed, it is insane to think the atomic bombings would have had any more impact on moral. The US did not use the atomic bomb for humanitarian reasons, to end the war earlier or other such other lies. They did it a a show of strength, targeted at the Soviets. It is sad that even after so many years, the same propaganda lies get repeated. Why are people still defending the use of the atomic bomb?

karmakurtisaani 4y ago
Perhaps the reason was partially also to make the Japanese surrender to the US, and not have Soviets split Japan as well.
_8j50 4y ago
I concede the argument about them wanting to build their own bomb, you changed my mind a bit. As for the rest, I never said the US had humanitarian intent. But the fact is millions more would have died by firebombing just not instantly like with a nuke. Yes, of course it was a show of strength but also to prevent more US casualties. It just so happened the result of nuking would also mean less japanese casualties as a coincidence. A long protracted campaign would have definetly lead to more casualties. Japan would have never surrendered and allowed an invasion of their land without basically every military aged male fighting to their death. It is not propaganda at all, nukes save lives in some situations but not in most. There is no morality in war, the moment a decision is made that allows for civilian collateral damage it becomes a immoral but the question is what is the alternative and are you the aggressor. Japan was the aggressor and their people would have fought for and willingly supported their emporer whom they consider their god. Ultimately, whatever the casualty on both sides it is the agressor who is responsible. The decision that led to the nuking of hiroshima and nagasaki was made by japanese military leadership and emperor. The argument against wmds you and many make naively is that regular people should not be targeted enmasse only as collateral damage. But in war, regardless of the type of government regular people have the responsibility to resist their government that is agressing against a foreign nation. They did not resist the emperor in japan, quite the opposite. As for children it was their parents that made decisinons or indecisions that endangered them. Yes, military targets should be the only targets but the exception is when that means killing a massive portion of your own military who are defending against an agressor. The US government had the responsibility to prioritize US military and civilian lives over any japanese lives because of both countries are sovreign and each is responsible for the safety and security of their people not people of other nations. This works both ways, when you support the US bombing syria or tolerated iraq invasion the US was the agressor and should their people become powerful enough to attack US civilians they are fully justified because it was civiliand that supported the killing of their civilians. You do not get to expect for your own children to go off and die in a war to avoid civilian casualties of a foreign sovreign state that is the agressor in a war and targeted your civilians to begin with. There is no question that had the Japanese or German obtained a nuke they would not hesitate before using it on america cities. It was a means to an end, it is not justifiable nor does it need to be in a war. Killing civilians as an act of agression or genocide is intolerable of course. But avoiding an enemy's civilian casualty is not a priority for a defending military. A large majority of americans thought so after 9/11 and the invasion of afghanistan as well. The Iraq war had popular support as well because americand were afraid they would be targeted by wmds. Here is an analogy that might help reason: If you get in a fight and in defending yourself you kill the other person. The only question is if you had any choice but to fight to defend your life and well being such as running away. If the other person dies you are not a murderer,they killed themselves by acting in agression even though your hand was the cause of death. You have no responsibility to limit your force because your own life is at risk. You don't have to consider what wi happen to that persons family as a result as well (although the law might wrongly sometimes). Nukes aren't special, firebombing and cluster bombs targeted civilians without discriminating. Both sides of WW2 used indiscriminant attacks like that. Nukes just happen to have an immediate and larger scale. It is not mote wrong to kill millions as opposed to hundreds of civilians to acheive a military goal. They are both just as wrong. My argument is, it is a correct decision to prioritize american military and civilian lives because each sovreign state is responsible only for their own people. So if it came down to a war with China for example, using nukes is justified if it means avoiding millions of dead americans, although the US is not a first use nation but i believe China is (could be wrong on this).
- cardanome 4y ago
  > Yes, of course it was a show of strength but also to prevent more US casualties. It just so happened the result of nuking would also mean less japanese casualties as a coincidence. A long protracted campaign would have definetly lead to more casualties. Japan would have never surrendered and allowed an invasion of their land without basically every military aged male fighting to their death. I explicitly do NOT subscribe to the fact that the bombing had any meaningful effect on whether and when Japan would surrender. That is the main point we should be arguing about. You completely ignore any actual points I was making in instead make up stuff like "Japan would have never surrendered". No, they would and they did. > “The vast destruction wreaked by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the loss of 135,000 people made little impact on the Japanese military. However, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria … changed their minds.” Source: 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... Now, you might maybe argue that the atomic bombs helped a bit pushing for unconditional surrender and keeping the Soviets out but that would be a vastly different point. As for the rest of you points, I don't get why you are trying to justify civilian causalities so much. Japan was not a democracy. It had no free press. The average Japanese person did not have much choice or influence. They were victims of the regime as well, regardless whether they were brainwashed to adore the emperor or not. Not to mention obviously there were Japanese people that were against the war, maybe not a relevant amount but it is silly to paint the Japanese people as an hive mind and imply collective guilt. Yes, civilian casualties are a fact of war but please don't try to justify them or imply civilians would ever deserve it. War is simply horrible and there is no justification. Yes, sometimes horrible things need to be done and yes nuclear threat can actually serve to keep peace but the atomic bombings of Japan have no justifications.
  - _8j50 4y ago
    > War is simply horrible and there is no justification. Let me start here, the first part of course. But there is a justification: self-defense. That is the primary reason any military force exists. > the atomic bombings of Japan have no justifications. They require no justification, it is war not a democratic or civil discourse. The only objective is to win not to be moral or just. That is why the military exists, to win wars not to appease the public. And this is precisely why afghanistan and vietnam were lost, because the US military tries to be moral and do right by civilians. It's their country, their problem period and it curs both ways. You and most others living ina democracy under the protection of a superpower are not grasping the concept of sovreignity and what it means to be at war. Sovreignity is not an idea on paper and it does not mean merely "independent". It means the safety, security and prosperity of all under a sovreign as well as the consequence of any action made by that sovreign are their own and no one else. You do not get to tell them what to do in their internal affairs and in return any action made by a sovreign good or bad are for all under the sovreign to bear. You can dislike the outcome as do I but you don't get to pretend sovreignity is nullified when it suits you. > Japan was not a democracy. It had no free press. The average Japanese person did not have much choice or influence This is what I mean! I don't care one bit about democracy in this context. We do not live in a golbal sovreign nation where countries are provinces. At the individual level it is very unfortunate what the outcome was, whether or not the people had power to resist is irrelevant, neither is their "brainwashing" (an arrogant dismissal of their beliefs by you) what matters is they are sovreign nation and their agression was as a nation not by rogue individuals. This means every man,woman and child bears the responsibility of the outcome. What if their own government bombed their own people? Stopping their government, refusing to fight in their military or support it with logistical needs is their own choice whether their government killed them directly or by attacking a foreign power and dooming them as a result, it ultimately bears reponsibility. Democracy works for the west and if they want it they will just have to figure it out on their own as a sovreign. Their ability to exist without interference from outsiders or having to answer to an outside power comes with the responsibility that acting in agression means the whole sovreign is responsible. There is no precedent or norm that a country must be democractic in order for it to be a sovreign or for the people to accept the consequence of whatever their government is (which is none of your business because sovreignity means self-determination among other things). To your firsr paragraphs, I was not avoiding your points but adressing them. Japan would not have surrendered: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan > Faced with the prospect of an invasion of the Home Islands, starting with Kyūshū, and the prospect of a Soviet invasion of Manchuria—Japan's last source of natural resources—the War Journal of the Imperial Headquarters concluded in 1944: We can no longer direct the war with any hope of success. The only course left is for Japan's one hundred million people to sacrifice their lives by charging the enemy to make them lose the will to fight.[9] As a final attempt to stop the Allied advances, the Japanese Imperial High Command planned an all-out defense of Kyūshū codenamed Operation Ketsugō.[10] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Operation_Ketsugō https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Operation... > While Japan no longer had a realistic prospect of winning the war, Japan's leaders believed they could make the cost of invading and occupying the Home Islands too high for the Allies to accept, which would lead to some sort of armistice rather than total defeat. The Japanese plan for defeating the invasion was called Operation Ketsugō (決号作戦, ketsugō sakusen) ("Operation Codename Decisive"). The Japanese planned to commit the entire population of Japan to resisting the invasion, and from June 1945 onward, a propaganda campaign calling for "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million" commenced.[48] The main message of "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million" campaign was that it was "glorious to die for the holy emperor of Japan, and every Japanese man, woman, and child should die for the Emperor when the Allies arrived".[48] While this was not realistic, both American and Japanese officers at the time predicted a Japanese death toll in the millions While of course they won't succeed in killing all of their own civilians they were comitted to killing a whole lot more than a few million people. Military planners and intel on both sides concluded millions would die on both sides. If we can agree that you and I do not now know better than they did then, what is our disagreement here? Both outcomes would have been horrible. Less people died with nukes.
wodenokoto 4y ago
> In fact it is not even proven that the bombings had any meaningful impact to the decisions to surrender. If the Japanese didn't surrender after having whole cities firebombed, it is insane to think the atomic bombings would have had any more impact on moral. If you look at which shaped fiction the most, there is no doubt that the nuclear bombings had a much greater impact than the fire bombings. So I don't think it is insane to say that a single bomb with the power of thousands regular bombs can cause a significant impact on morale, compared to the regular bombs.
- cardanome 4y ago
  Yes, it did have impact in fiction and also on the world stage, I already said that the main goal was to show strength and intimidate the Soviets. For this is served well. Did it impact the Japanese military leadership, which obviously did not care much about civilian causality, in their decisions much? No.
marketerinland 4y ago
This is is an alternative theory that has gained traction in some contrarian quarters; but holds little weight. The Soviets invaded territory that the Japanese held; and their actions did remove a possible pathway for Japan to stay in the war, sure. However - The US was the main game in the Pacific Theatre and their continuous, rolling campaign of victories - culminating in the bombs - was the primary cause of the end of the war. This is the general consensus and has been revisited.. and revisited .. and revisited .. mostly by those with a primary motive of discrediting the US for using the bomb. It’s easier to argue against the use of the bomb when you bluntly reject any positive outcomes; but first one must deal with reality. And the reality is not difficult to discern. The Soviets invaded Manchuria, meanwhile the US had already taken actual Japanese territory. While this absolutely made it much more difficult for the Japanese to allocate the resources needed to defend themselves on so many fronts, they were far more interested in defending their homeland than in keeping captured Chinese territory. If you were to consider two counterfactuals - - Soviets invade, bombs are not dropped - Soviets don’t invade, bombs are dropped Only one of these still leads to surrender. Manchuria was a sideshow compared to the real game. Editing to add - If you want any further proof, just look at who the Japanese actually surrendered to. There is nothing in their culture (then or now) which would cause them to surrender to anyone besides their actual victor.
- cardanome 4y ago
  First of all, we need to differentiate between surrender and unconditional surrender. Even before the Soviet entry of the war, the situation was hopeless for the Japanese military leadership. Their best case scenario was to somehow avoid unconditional surrender, they would have gladly taken any deal to end the war that avoided that. So a already devastating situation went from bad to worse when the Soviets entered the war. That was a absolute game changer in terms of strategy and made a conditional surrender pretty unlikely. So clearly were was no point in prolonging the war anymore. The atomic bombs didn't really enter into the equation. > If you want any further proof, just look at who the Japanese actually surrendered to. There is nothing in their culture (then or now) which would cause them to surrender to anyone besides their actual victor. There are obviously good reasons why the leadership preferred to surrender to the US. The Soviets probably would have pushed for bigger societal changes, requiring something like the de-nazification campaign in Germany.

karmakurtisaani 4y ago

Perhaps the reason was partially also to make the Japanese surrender to the US, and not have Soviets split Japan as well.

_8j50 4y ago

I concede the argument about them wanting to build their own bomb, you changed my mind a bit. As for the rest, I never said the US had humanitarian intent. But the fact is millions more would have died by firebombing just not instantly like with a nuke. Yes, of course it was a show of strength but also to prevent more US casualties. It just so happened the result of nuking would also mean less japanese casualties as a coincidence. A long protracted campaign would have definetly lead to more casualties. Japan would have never surrendered and allowed an invasion of their land without basically every military aged male fighting to their death. It is not propaganda at all, nukes save lives in some situations but not in most. There is no morality in war, the moment a decision is made that allows for civilian collateral damage it becomes a immoral but the question is what is the alternative and are you the aggressor. Japan was the aggressor and their people would have fought for and willingly supported their emporer whom they consider their god. Ultimately, whatever the casualty on both sides it is the agressor who is responsible. The decision that led to the nuking of hiroshima and nagasaki was made by japanese military leadership and emperor. The argument against wmds you and many make naively is that regular people should not be targeted enmasse only as collateral damage. But in war, regardless of the type of government regular people have the responsibility to resist their government that is agressing against a foreign nation. They did not resist the emperor in japan, quite the opposite. As for children it was their parents that made decisinons or indecisions that endangered them. Yes, military targets should be the only targets but the exception is when that means killing a massive portion of your own military who are defending against an agressor. The US government had the responsibility to prioritize US military and civilian lives over any japanese lives because of both countries are sovreign and each is responsible for the safety and security of their people not people of other nations. This works both ways, when you support the US bombing syria or tolerated iraq invasion the US was the agressor and should their people become powerful enough to attack US civilians they are fully justified because it was civiliand that supported the killing of their civilians. You do not get to expect for your own children to go off and die in a war to avoid civilian casualties of a foreign sovreign state that is the agressor in a war and targeted your civilians to begin with. There is no question that had the Japanese or German obtained a nuke they would not hesitate before using it on america cities. It was a means to an end, it is not justifiable nor does it need to be in a war. Killing civilians as an act of agression or genocide is intolerable of course. But avoiding an enemy's civilian casualty is not a priority for a defending military. A large majority of americans thought so after 9/11 and the invasion of afghanistan as well. The Iraq war had popular support as well because americand were afraid they would be targeted by wmds. Here is an analogy that might help reason: If you get in a fight and in defending yourself you kill the other person. The only question is if you had any choice but to fight to defend your life and well being such as running away. If the other person dies you are not a murderer,they killed themselves by acting in agression even though your hand was the cause of death. You have no responsibility to limit your force because your own life is at risk. You don't have to consider what wi happen to that persons family as a result as well (although the law might wrongly sometimes). Nukes aren't special, firebombing and cluster bombs targeted civilians without discriminating. Both sides of WW2 used indiscriminant attacks like that. Nukes just happen to have an immediate and larger scale. It is not mote wrong to kill millions as opposed to hundreds of civilians to acheive a military goal. They are both just as wrong. My argument is, it is a correct decision to prioritize american military and civilian lives because each sovreign state is responsible only for their own people. So if it came down to a war with China for example, using nukes is justified if it means avoiding millions of dead americans, although the US is not a first use nation but i believe China is (could be wrong on this).

cardanome 4y ago
> Yes, of course it was a show of strength but also to prevent more US casualties. It just so happened the result of nuking would also mean less japanese casualties as a coincidence. A long protracted campaign would have definetly lead to more casualties. Japan would have never surrendered and allowed an invasion of their land without basically every military aged male fighting to their death. I explicitly do NOT subscribe to the fact that the bombing had any meaningful effect on whether and when Japan would surrender. That is the main point we should be arguing about. You completely ignore any actual points I was making in instead make up stuff like "Japan would have never surrendered". No, they would and they did. > “The vast destruction wreaked by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the loss of 135,000 people made little impact on the Japanese military. However, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria … changed their minds.” Source: 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... Now, you might maybe argue that the atomic bombs helped a bit pushing for unconditional surrender and keeping the Soviets out but that would be a vastly different point. As for the rest of you points, I don't get why you are trying to justify civilian causalities so much. Japan was not a democracy. It had no free press. The average Japanese person did not have much choice or influence. They were victims of the regime as well, regardless whether they were brainwashed to adore the emperor or not. Not to mention obviously there were Japanese people that were against the war, maybe not a relevant amount but it is silly to paint the Japanese people as an hive mind and imply collective guilt. Yes, civilian casualties are a fact of war but please don't try to justify them or imply civilians would ever deserve it. War is simply horrible and there is no justification. Yes, sometimes horrible things need to be done and yes nuclear threat can actually serve to keep peace but the atomic bombings of Japan have no justifications.
- _8j50 4y ago
  > War is simply horrible and there is no justification. Let me start here, the first part of course. But there is a justification: self-defense. That is the primary reason any military force exists. > the atomic bombings of Japan have no justifications. They require no justification, it is war not a democratic or civil discourse. The only objective is to win not to be moral or just. That is why the military exists, to win wars not to appease the public. And this is precisely why afghanistan and vietnam were lost, because the US military tries to be moral and do right by civilians. It's their country, their problem period and it curs both ways. You and most others living ina democracy under the protection of a superpower are not grasping the concept of sovreignity and what it means to be at war. Sovreignity is not an idea on paper and it does not mean merely "independent". It means the safety, security and prosperity of all under a sovreign as well as the consequence of any action made by that sovreign are their own and no one else. You do not get to tell them what to do in their internal affairs and in return any action made by a sovreign good or bad are for all under the sovreign to bear. You can dislike the outcome as do I but you don't get to pretend sovreignity is nullified when it suits you. > Japan was not a democracy. It had no free press. The average Japanese person did not have much choice or influence This is what I mean! I don't care one bit about democracy in this context. We do not live in a golbal sovreign nation where countries are provinces. At the individual level it is very unfortunate what the outcome was, whether or not the people had power to resist is irrelevant, neither is their "brainwashing" (an arrogant dismissal of their beliefs by you) what matters is they are sovreign nation and their agression was as a nation not by rogue individuals. This means every man,woman and child bears the responsibility of the outcome. What if their own government bombed their own people? Stopping their government, refusing to fight in their military or support it with logistical needs is their own choice whether their government killed them directly or by attacking a foreign power and dooming them as a result, it ultimately bears reponsibility. Democracy works for the west and if they want it they will just have to figure it out on their own as a sovreign. Their ability to exist without interference from outsiders or having to answer to an outside power comes with the responsibility that acting in agression means the whole sovreign is responsible. There is no precedent or norm that a country must be democractic in order for it to be a sovreign or for the people to accept the consequence of whatever their government is (which is none of your business because sovreignity means self-determination among other things). To your firsr paragraphs, I was not avoiding your points but adressing them. Japan would not have surrendered: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan > Faced with the prospect of an invasion of the Home Islands, starting with Kyūshū, and the prospect of a Soviet invasion of Manchuria—Japan's last source of natural resources—the War Journal of the Imperial Headquarters concluded in 1944: We can no longer direct the war with any hope of success. The only course left is for Japan's one hundred million people to sacrifice their lives by charging the enemy to make them lose the will to fight.[9] As a final attempt to stop the Allied advances, the Japanese Imperial High Command planned an all-out defense of Kyūshū codenamed Operation Ketsugō.[10] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Operation_Ketsugō https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Operation... > While Japan no longer had a realistic prospect of winning the war, Japan's leaders believed they could make the cost of invading and occupying the Home Islands too high for the Allies to accept, which would lead to some sort of armistice rather than total defeat. The Japanese plan for defeating the invasion was called Operation Ketsugō (決号作戦, ketsugō sakusen) ("Operation Codename Decisive"). The Japanese planned to commit the entire population of Japan to resisting the invasion, and from June 1945 onward, a propaganda campaign calling for "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million" commenced.[48] The main message of "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million" campaign was that it was "glorious to die for the holy emperor of Japan, and every Japanese man, woman, and child should die for the Emperor when the Allies arrived".[48] While this was not realistic, both American and Japanese officers at the time predicted a Japanese death toll in the millions While of course they won't succeed in killing all of their own civilians they were comitted to killing a whole lot more than a few million people. Military planners and intel on both sides concluded millions would die on both sides. If we can agree that you and I do not now know better than they did then, what is our disagreement here? Both outcomes would have been horrible. Less people died with nukes.

wodenokoto 4y ago

> In fact it is not even proven that the bombings had any meaningful impact to the decisions to surrender. If the Japanese didn't surrender after having whole cities firebombed, it is insane to think the atomic bombings would have had any more impact on moral. If you look at which shaped fiction the most, there is no doubt that the nuclear bombings had a much greater impact than the fire bombings. So I don't think it is insane to say that a single bomb with the power of thousands regular bombs can cause a significant impact on morale, compared to the regular bombs.

cardanome 4y ago
Yes, it did have impact in fiction and also on the world stage, I already said that the main goal was to show strength and intimidate the Soviets. For this is served well. Did it impact the Japanese military leadership, which obviously did not care much about civilian causality, in their decisions much? No.

marketerinland 4y ago

This is is an alternative theory that has gained traction in some contrarian quarters; but holds little weight. The Soviets invaded territory that the Japanese held; and their actions did remove a possible pathway for Japan to stay in the war, sure. However - The US was the main game in the Pacific Theatre and their continuous, rolling campaign of victories - culminating in the bombs - was the primary cause of the end of the war. This is the general consensus and has been revisited.. and revisited .. and revisited .. mostly by those with a primary motive of discrediting the US for using the bomb. It’s easier to argue against the use of the bomb when you bluntly reject any positive outcomes; but first one must deal with reality. And the reality is not difficult to discern. The Soviets invaded Manchuria, meanwhile the US had already taken actual Japanese territory. While this absolutely made it much more difficult for the Japanese to allocate the resources needed to defend themselves on so many fronts, they were far more interested in defending their homeland than in keeping captured Chinese territory. If you were to consider two counterfactuals - - Soviets invade, bombs are not dropped - Soviets don’t invade, bombs are dropped Only one of these still leads to surrender. Manchuria was a sideshow compared to the real game. Editing to add - If you want any further proof, just look at who the Japanese actually surrendered to. There is nothing in their culture (then or now) which would cause them to surrender to anyone besides their actual victor.

cardanome 4y ago
First of all, we need to differentiate between surrender and unconditional surrender. Even before the Soviet entry of the war, the situation was hopeless for the Japanese military leadership. Their best case scenario was to somehow avoid unconditional surrender, they would have gladly taken any deal to end the war that avoided that. So a already devastating situation went from bad to worse when the Soviets entered the war. That was a absolute game changer in terms of strategy and made a conditional surrender pretty unlikely. So clearly were was no point in prolonging the war anymore. The atomic bombs didn't really enter into the equation. > If you want any further proof, just look at who the Japanese actually surrendered to. There is nothing in their culture (then or now) which would cause them to surrender to anyone besides their actual victor. There are obviously good reasons why the leadership preferred to surrender to the US. The Soviets probably would have pushed for bigger societal changes, requiring something like the de-nazification campaign in Germany.