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My feeling is that dropping the bomb was overall better than a land invasion, but I find the arguments against at least giving the Japanese a demonstration of t

• euroderf 3y ago
  > My feeling is that dropping the bomb was overall better than a land invasion. Years ago I asked my buddy what was his take on dropping the bomb. He answered that when the bombs dropped, his dad was in Florida training for the invasion of Japan. There's no snappy reply to that particular argument.
  • ant6n 3y ago
    Hiroshima still was a war crime.
    • mcpackieh 3y ago
      Uh huh, by which standard that Imperial Japan recognized and adhered to?
      • aaplok 3y ago
        Why does this affect whether it is a war crime or not? Imperial Japan committed numerous war crimes, whether or not they agreed that they were war crimes at the time. By the same token anything that was done to them should not be judged by what their own standard was.
        • mcpackieh 3y ago
          > Uh huh Acknowledgement that it was a warcrime. > by which standard that Imperial Japan recognized and adhered to? Admonishment to get some damn perspective. What was done to Japan must be evaluated in the context of what Japan would have been doing to American soldiers and POWs had America been forced to invaded Japan proper. That war was non-stop war crimes from Japan. Particularly perfidy, false surrender, which would have gotten huge numbers of Japanese civilians killed in any case. Truman made the right call, for America and for Japan.
          • kilolima 3y ago
            Two wrongs don't make a right? Why can't we admit that the Allies committed their own war crimes and move on?
            • saiya-jin 3y ago
              Ego mostly, I guess its harder to be righteous and above others if you have some dark spot in your history. Also, some folks don't like complexity of real world so black and white is what they want, and obviously being on good side.
            • mcpackieh 3y ago
              I have admitted that the Allies committed war crimes, so why aren't you satisfied? Why are you upset that I insist on pointing out that the Japanese did so as well? If American war crimes are worth mentioning, then so are Japanese war crimes. Wanting to discuss one without the other isn't reasonable. What you are asking for is the erasure of context, and to that I say No.
          • ant6n 3y ago
            >> Truman made the right call Hiroshima still was a war crime.
    • rdevsrex 3y ago
      As was Nanking and all the other cities the Japanese military destroyed.
      • ant6n 3y ago
        Yes.
  • readthenotes1 3y ago
    One of my relatives was in Korea staging to invade when the bomb dropped. It is very likely a whole branch of my family would not exist without the bomb.
    • pacija 3y ago
      It is also certain that many branches of Japanese families do not exist because of the bomb.
      • mcpackieh 3y ago
        Do you think Japanese civilians wouldn't have died in droves if the US military were forced to take the whole of Nippon street by street?
      • urinotherapist 3y ago
        It is also certain that many branches of many families do not exist because of the war. Blame those, who started the war, instead of those, who ended it. Defenders can use anything, including weapons of mass destruction, to defend themselves. Attacking to with intent to kill even one person is crime.
        • aaplok 3y ago
          > Defenders can use anything, including weapons of mass destruction, to defend themselves. Not according to the Geneva convention. Targeting civilians is a war crime, regardless of who does it. In many wars, both sides claim to only defend themselves, often both sides even claim to have been attacked first. Just look at the last few wars fought by the US for example. Under such a simplistic moral compass as you gave, they'd both feel justified to do anything. > Attacking to with intent to kill even one person is crime. Dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian center is attacking with intent to kill. It is just not so simple.
          • urinotherapist 3y ago
            Yes, wars are not simple. Fog of war may make it blurry, or enemy may fool each other. For example, soviets shelled their own territory in Finnish war, to pretend that they were attacked first, so they are defending. Russians are using same thing too: they blown up their own buildings to blame Chechen and then started second Chechen war, or, in case of Russo-Ukrainian war, they pretend that Ukraine will be swallowed by NATO and then European and American homosexuals will freely fuck Russian-speaking Ukrainian children, so Russians are invaded to protect Ukrainians! However, this should not alter your moral compass. Those, who defend themselves, have moral rights to wipe the attackers or invaders.
  • kybernetikos 3y ago
    How about "it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated." https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/united-states-strategic-bombing-survey-japans-struggle-end-war?documentid=NA&pagenumber=50 https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/united-...
    • jcranmer 3y ago
      Ah yes, the US Strategic Bombing Survey, how could they ever be unbiased in concluding that bombing people to smithereens inevitably leads to surrender. No, I'm disinclined to trust their opinion. We in the modern day have the benefit of being able to pull examples from more than just WW2. Before WW2, the predictions of air power theorists were that strategic bombing would end wars before the powers could properly start mobilizing (look up Giulio Douhet, this was seriously argued). Japan in WW2 is the closest any example of strategic bombing has ever come to compelling a surrender, out of a dozen or so attempts. Its exceptionality is itself a suggestion that maybe bombing's role in Japanese surrender is perhaps inflated.
      • steveBK123 3y ago
        People also underestimate how much death came from our firebombing which would have continued, and would have come from blockade-induced starvation, relative to the nuclear bomb deaths. It's not like the numbers would have been lower...
      • kybernetikos 3y ago
        This is a fair criticism (although the generally accepted story is precisely that 'bombing people to smithereens' with atomic weapons led to surrender), but the evidence they based that opinion on is generally available. Having looked at it myself, I wouldn't have said everything they did with quite the same level of confidence, but I agree with their broad strokes opinion that it was most likely possible to achieve a Japanese surrender in a reasonable time-frame without dropping the atomic bombs or invading. My sense of it is that there was a strong feeling of the need to punish the Japanese, quite apart from any military necessity. I think that, combined with the need to demonstrate the power of the new weapons lead to a reluctance to seriously engage with the Japanese diplomatically. I take as evidence of that the fact that a key sticking point in the surrender decision was the status of the Emperor, who ultimately wasn't removed by the US anyway. The allies could have made their terms much clearer much earlier, and they could have engaged with the Japanese attempts to seek peace much more. And of course there was the ongoing worry that the Soviet Union might gain too much if things weren't sorted out quickly. From Truman's diaries at the time: > Discussed Manhattan (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. of telegram from Jap emperor asking for peace. Stalin also read his answer to me. It was satisfactory. Believe Japs will fold up before Russia comes in. I am sure they will when Manhattan appears over their homeland. I shall inform Stalin about it at an opportune time.
• XorNot 3y ago
  In context though the allies didn't see the difference. Missing from this account is that Japanese civilians were being continuously bombed. More died in the Tokyo firebombings then Hiroshima. There's also the practical problems: how would you do it? How would you give the demonstration? How would you deliver the tape? And why would Japan believe an enemy claiming to have a superweapon? It'd be kind of like North Korea sending a film of why the US should now surrender because of their new space laser.
  • wk_end 3y ago
    As I suggested already: whether the Japanese believed them or took it seriously is moot. Giving them the opportunity to surrender in response to the bomb helps shift moral blame onto them. Whether the Allies cared much or not is also moot in terms of what they should've done, morally speaking. Clearly my opinion is they didn't care enough. Clearly I find the firebombings morally disgraceful as well. Clearly, at least some people involved in the decision cared a little, as several people did lobby for a demonstration. The US also was known to airdrop pamphlets encouraging civilian evacuation of cities; civilians weren't a total non-concern. It's not anything like North Korea threatening the US with a space laser. For a multitude of reasons: US spy capability means they would know well in advance the details of any North Korean space laser. North Korea isn't an alliance of the most powerful nations in the world with leading scientific and military capability. And if North Korea did indeed demonstrate a space laser that could obliterate a city in a fraction of a second, you'd better believe the US would stand up and take notice, for that matter. Moreover, at the time an atomic bomb wasn't science fiction. Everyone at that point had known that an atomic bomb was possible for decades; both the Germans and the Japanese were trying to develop one. Given that, if the Americans said, "we've succeeded in developing one and intend to use it to destroy your cities unless you surrender", along with a demonstration of in action, it wouldn't be unthinkable that the Japanese would take it seriously - nor would it be particularly different from the Potsdam Declaration, which demanded surrender lest they face "utter destruction" without any specifics, which the Allies did indeed think was worth saying. Delivering a reel of film would have been straightforward; even in total war all communication channels aren't cut off. If you want to do a real-world demonstration that can be observed, find a place to detonate it where it will be observed but will do minimal damage. The Manhattan Project involved solving many, many problems; this is just another one, and a relatively small one at that. When confronted with a problem, you figure it out.
• huthuthike 3y ago
  The US only had enough material for 3 bombs. It would have been a big gamble to drop one on empty land.
  • 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
    Maybe in short order, but wasn’t the US well on its way to industrializing the entire pipeline?
    • ftendra 3y ago
      Consider how many people were dying EVERY DAY during World War 2. Sure, they may have been able to industrialize, but the world was in the midst of experiencing death on a scale we can't even really imagine today. The pressure to end the war must have been enormous. Which isn't to say that it was an easy, or even correct, decision, but we can't really do a simple calculation of "well they could have waited a few more weeks/months" and get a feel for the gravity of the situation.
      • kilolima 3y ago
        Paul Fussel had something to say on that topic in the essay "Thank God for the Atom Bomb": https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/iakh/HIS1300MET/v12/undervisningsmateriale/Fussel%20-%20thank%20god%20for%20the%20atom%20bomb.pdf https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/iakh/HIS1300MET/v12/unde...
• rdevsrex 3y ago
  What moral obligation? The same that the Japanese gave the Chinese at Nanking?
  • cameron_b 3y ago
    This is not a throw-away comment. It is exactly why the US did not want to face the Japanese on the main island.
  • wk_end 3y ago
    The brutality of the Japanese military didn't mean innocent Japanese civilians deserved to suffer or die. I don't know what nationality you are, but I have no doubt that members of your country's military - very possibly within your lifetime - have committed atrocities, even if not at the same scale as in Nanjing. Do you feel personally responsible or deserving of retribution?
• rdevsrex 3y ago
  There was already horror among the civilians, with the firebombing of Tokyo alone causing 100K casualties.
  • hef19898 3y ago
    Ah, so we already killed hundred of thousands of innocent civilians, so of course it is ok for us to kill a some more? Not sure that this is a solid argument...
• julianeon 3y ago
  Something that I've wondered - a kind of weakly held theory that, from various references, seems plausible - is: The US military betrayed the trust of many of the scientists and engineers who worked on the atomic bomb, by not doing a demonstration of the bomb first for its enemies, before dropping the bomb on civilians. I watched "Adventures of a Mathematician" yesterday which really, really dwells on Ulam's reluctance to work on a weapon of death. There is a dramatized scene there of how upset many of the scientists were, that the bomb was dropped without a demonstration. The movie is based on his memoir, and based on that, it really seems that the 'deal' that many of those scientists took, was something like a) we'll work on an atomic bomb so Germany won't get it b) but we won't use it recklessly, it'll be demonstrated first. Now of course the military didn't promise that in so many words, but that seems to have been very strongly understood, and the fact that the bomb went directly to killing people seems like a violation of what so many of the people who made that bomb possible, expected.
  • mcpackieh 3y ago
    They knew what they were doing, or should have but were lying to themselves. Even if some of them got verbal contract pinky promises when they signed on, all of them knew they were building a bomb which would be given not just to the current government but to future governments as well. It would take profound willful naivety to believe they had any meaningful assurances whatsoever.
• CamperBob2 3y ago
  but I find the arguments against at least giving the Japanese a demonstration of the bomb - even just the footage of the Trinty test - beforehand fairly weak. An enemy that doesn't surrender until you drop two atomic bombs on them was probably not going to surrender if you set one off in an unpopulated area as a demo. I mean, I'd run up the white flag after being nuked once. You wouldn't have to tell me twice.
• TulliusCicero 3y ago
  In principle, this makes sense. But if you look at Japanese leadership at the time, even after two bombs were dropped, the military leadership still didn't want to surrender. So a demonstration likely would not have achieved anything. Japanese leadership was zealous in the extreme, at a level that is difficult to understand from a modern perspective. The difference between Japan then and Japan now is an order of magnitude larger than the difference between America then and America now.