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War in Europe was won before nukes were deployed. War in the Pacific would have been won by conventional means too - it would have taken longer, with more casua

War in Europe was won before nukes were deployed. War in the Pacific would have been won by conventional means too - it would have taken longer, with more casualties, but there was no chance for Japan to fight the US and the USSR, which declared war on Japan in August 1945, to a stalemate. What would have looked different would be the political outcome. If USSR moved its armies to the East to fight Japan, well, entire Korea and half of Japan could have become Communist. On the other hand, with the Soviet Army engaged in the Far East, countries like Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia could have plausibly wrestled themselves free from the Soviet grip.

majormajor 4y ago
I think something like "what if Germany had gotten nukes before the end of the war in Europe, and before the US" is a more interesting counterfactual than the US not getting nukes before the end of the Pacific war. Or Russia or another European country, to a lesser extent.
- Yoric 4y ago
  It is true that both Germany and the US considered it a race. However, as it turns out, by the end of the war, Germany was actually pretty far from even seeing the finish line. For some reason, murdering or driving away many of your brightest minds because they happen to come from the wrong branch of the religious tree/diverge from the mainstream sexual orientation/don't adhere to the political cult in power doesn't help come up with breakthroughs in fundamental sciences.
  - inawarminister 4y ago
    Yep, on the other hand, the US rival right now while a bit tyrannical, is actually in the similar tier to American academia; maybe a few months or even weeks behind. And lots of people in the unaligned* world is ready to switch from San Fransisco to Beijing if the latter provides cheap LLM for commercial purposes. * In the human sense of the world
    - Yoric 4y ago
      That is a good point. By opposition to the West, which has counted for 30+ years on banking as its main source of power, China has managed to bet on pretty much everything else, including huge investments in academia.
jandrese 4y ago
I think the "Japan surrendered because they were afraid of Russia" is revisionist history. Japan knew that Russia had no effective way to project power onto the Japanese home islands, the Russo-Japanese war had proven that and they were clearly exhausted from fighting the Nazis. Russia saw the writing on the wall and wanted to claim a piece of the pie before Japan's inevitable surrender. The only way it hastened the end of the war was in convincing the Japanese leadership to hurry up and sign the papers before any other countries declared war and made claims.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  "Japan surrendered because they were afraid of Russia" I didn't make that claim. But the USSR at the end of WWII was a force to reckon with anyway. They were certainly able to invade Sakhalin (and they indeed took the southern half of it) and destroy Japanese armies on the mainland. I don't know enough about contemporary Soviet naval ability in order to judge if they were able to "island hop" from Sakhalin to Hokkaido and Hokkaido to Honshu. The stretches of water between the islands aren't very challenging in summer, but Hokkaido was very undeveloped at that time, so it is possible that lack of roads would stop the advance more efficiently than the sea.

majormajor 4y ago

I think something like "what if Germany had gotten nukes before the end of the war in Europe, and before the US" is a more interesting counterfactual than the US not getting nukes before the end of the Pacific war. Or Russia or another European country, to a lesser extent.

Yoric 4y ago
It is true that both Germany and the US considered it a race. However, as it turns out, by the end of the war, Germany was actually pretty far from even seeing the finish line. For some reason, murdering or driving away many of your brightest minds because they happen to come from the wrong branch of the religious tree/diverge from the mainstream sexual orientation/don't adhere to the political cult in power doesn't help come up with breakthroughs in fundamental sciences.
- inawarminister 4y ago
  Yep, on the other hand, the US rival right now while a bit tyrannical, is actually in the similar tier to American academia; maybe a few months or even weeks behind. And lots of people in the unaligned* world is ready to switch from San Fransisco to Beijing if the latter provides cheap LLM for commercial purposes. * In the human sense of the world
  - Yoric 4y ago
    That is a good point. By opposition to the West, which has counted for 30+ years on banking as its main source of power, China has managed to bet on pretty much everything else, including huge investments in academia.

jandrese 4y ago

I think the "Japan surrendered because they were afraid of Russia" is revisionist history. Japan knew that Russia had no effective way to project power onto the Japanese home islands, the Russo-Japanese war had proven that and they were clearly exhausted from fighting the Nazis. Russia saw the writing on the wall and wanted to claim a piece of the pie before Japan's inevitable surrender. The only way it hastened the end of the war was in convincing the Japanese leadership to hurry up and sign the papers before any other countries declared war and made claims.

inglor_cz 4y ago
"Japan surrendered because they were afraid of Russia" I didn't make that claim. But the USSR at the end of WWII was a force to reckon with anyway. They were certainly able to invade Sakhalin (and they indeed took the southern half of it) and destroy Japanese armies on the mainland. I don't know enough about contemporary Soviet naval ability in order to judge if they were able to "island hop" from Sakhalin to Hokkaido and Hokkaido to Honshu. The stretches of water between the islands aren't very challenging in summer, but Hokkaido was very undeveloped at that time, so it is possible that lack of roads would stop the advance more efficiently than the sea.