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There's some interesting analysis of WWII that posits that the nukes were completely unnecessary. Stalin was poised to invade Japan from the north so the US had

There's some interesting analysis of WWII that posits that the nukes were completely unnecessary. Stalin was poised to invade Japan from the north so the US had to act fast. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-jap... I don't know how accurate this is, but its a good read.

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daemoens 3y ago
The issue with this argument is that neither the bomb nor the imminent Soviet invasion ended the war. The bombs were certainly one of the largest factors that ended the war, but it also wasn't the sole factor that ended the war.
refurb 3y ago
One piece that is always missing in these arguments is - what was the alternative? Blockade Japan into submission? Is hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians dying of hunger better than being killed by an atomic weapon?
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  How about exploding the bomb in the sky, visible from the emperors palace and the whole city? Or using it against an actual military target. The message would have been clear, we can annihilate you if we want and you don't surrender. But they choose to go against the civilian population simply, because they wanted the data, of what a bomb does to a city. And that by that time bombing civilians was already pretty normalized anyway, so trying to save civilian life simply was not an issue.
  - refurb 3y ago
    I mean, the Allies literally bombed a major city with the first atomic weapon and Japan was like "yeah, not going to surrender". Then after the 2nd bomb, it still took days and a Soviet invasion to get them to surrender. I'm not sure a demonstration would mean much if destroying a entire city didn't convince them.
    - discardedrefuse 3y ago
      The article I posted covers this (the section called Scale). When put into context, the destruction of Hiroshima just wasn't that impressive. We had already leveled 66 Japanese cities with conventional bombs. Hiroshima may have been a technical / scientific feat, but the end result paled in comparison to what we had already done before.

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daemoens 3y ago

The issue with this argument is that neither the bomb nor the imminent Soviet invasion ended the war. The bombs were certainly one of the largest factors that ended the war, but it also wasn't the sole factor that ended the war.

refurb 3y ago

One piece that is always missing in these arguments is - what was the alternative? Blockade Japan into submission? Is hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians dying of hunger better than being killed by an atomic weapon?

hutzlibu 3y ago
How about exploding the bomb in the sky, visible from the emperors palace and the whole city? Or using it against an actual military target. The message would have been clear, we can annihilate you if we want and you don't surrender. But they choose to go against the civilian population simply, because they wanted the data, of what a bomb does to a city. And that by that time bombing civilians was already pretty normalized anyway, so trying to save civilian life simply was not an issue.
- refurb 3y ago
  I mean, the Allies literally bombed a major city with the first atomic weapon and Japan was like "yeah, not going to surrender". Then after the 2nd bomb, it still took days and a Soviet invasion to get them to surrender. I'm not sure a demonstration would mean much if destroying a entire city didn't convince them.
  - discardedrefuse 3y ago
    The article I posted covers this (the section called Scale). When put into context, the destruction of Hiroshima just wasn't that impressive. We had already leveled 66 Japanese cities with conventional bombs. Hiroshima may have been a technical / scientific feat, but the end result paled in comparison to what we had already done before.