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The standard assumption seems to be that the US had two options: shock-and-awe by dropping the bombs or engaged in a protracted invasion of the home islands. W

by hakfoo 3y ago

The standard assumption seems to be that the US had two options: shock-and-awe by dropping the bombs or engaged in a protracted invasion of the home islands. Were there other options? By the last months of the war, they had largely lost control of the naval and air spaces. Japan was an import-dependent economy to begin with, and had consumed everything that wasn't nailed down for the war effort. Couldn't they just be blockaded? Either they end up an isolated novelty that occasionally scrapes together enough scrap iron to launch a low-grade weapon, sort of like the DPRK is seen today, or it "starves out a surrender" by allowing domestic conditions to collapse, potentially nudging a coup towards a new regime who's more willing to negotiate. That might take 5 or 10 years to reach endgame, but it seems like a less direct, but still viable way to complete the war.

CamperBob2 3y ago
That might take 5 or 10 years to reach endgame, but it seems like a less direct, but still viable way to complete the war. This plan would have killed more people, and caused far more net suffering, than simply nuking a couple of cities. As a similar example, it's true that letting MacArthur use nukes would have been a monstrous act of evil that would have put the US up there with the Nazis in the annals of infamy... but it's also true that more North Koreans would be alive and well today if we had. We could hardly have done more damage with our bombs than the Kim family did with ideology. Of course that's a simplistic assessment that ignores the consequences of normalizing nuclear warfare at a time when its destructive capacity was ramping up at an exponential rate. But it is entirely fair to apply it to Japan at the end of WWII, when the lesson was relatively cheap to learn.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Let’s not forget the Soviet’s. We didn’t want them to invade Japan first, we needed to end the war before they could have an excuse to do so as our ally (which was already coming undone by the end of WW2).

by hakfoo 3y ago

CamperBob2 3y ago

That might take 5 or 10 years to reach endgame, but it seems like a less direct, but still viable way to complete the war. This plan would have killed more people, and caused far more net suffering, than simply nuking a couple of cities. As a similar example, it's true that letting MacArthur use nukes would have been a monstrous act of evil that would have put the US up there with the Nazis in the annals of infamy... but it's also true that more North Koreans would be alive and well today if we had. We could hardly have done more damage with our bombs than the Kim family did with ideology. Of course that's a simplistic assessment that ignores the consequences of normalizing nuclear warfare at a time when its destructive capacity was ramping up at an exponential rate. But it is entirely fair to apply it to Japan at the end of WWII, when the lesson was relatively cheap to learn.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

Let’s not forget the Soviet’s. We didn’t want them to invade Japan first, we needed to end the war before they could have an excuse to do so as our ally (which was already coming undone by the end of WW2).