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Japan was already trying to negotiate conditional surrender when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked. The US demanded unconditional surrender, and they nuked hund

by xcv123 2y ago

Japan was already trying to negotiate conditional surrender when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked. The US demanded unconditional surrender, and they nuked hundreds of thousands of civilians to force that demand. The bombing of Dresden is arguably a war crime by todays standards. It was unnecessary. Remember that we were allied with the Soviet Union (Joseph Stalin was the "good guy" on our side). After WW2 he was given half of Europe as a reward, forcing that half of Europe to become communist, and the Soviets got to write the history books about Germany and WW2. Not the most transparent and unbiased source of information. The Soviets and other allied soldiers (the good guys) also had a free-for-all with the German ladies after winning the war. "The majority of the assaults were committed in the Soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of German women raped by Soviet soldiers have ranged up to 2 million" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_...

lupusreal 2y ago
Japan should have unconditionally surrendered in March, half a year before the nukes, when the US military burned most of Tokyo to the ground in less than two hours. And yes. Stalin was a bad guy and it's a pity the war didn't end with the demise of both the Nazi and Soviet regimes. This is also irrelevant to the matter of strategic bombings perpetrated by America and Britain.
- deleted 2y ago
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- xcv123 2y ago
  General George S. Patton: "We may have been fighting the wrong enemy (Germany) all along. But while we're here (on the Soviet border), we should go after the bastards now, 'cause we're gonna have to fight 'em eventually." https://books.google.com/books?redir_esc=y&id=32DxAAAAMAAJ&dq=patton+bastards+%22wrong+enemy%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22wrong+enemy%22 https://books.google.com/books?redir_esc=y&id=32DxAAAAMAAJ&d...
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    I literally just told you that the Soviets should have been taken out. This fact doesn't change the moral calculus of the strategic bombings against Germany and Japan. The fault was not doing the same to the USSR.
    - xcv123 2y ago
      I understood what you wrote. The interesting part of this quote is apparently General Patton also realised they should not have been fighting against Germany in the first place. There are other quotes from him that indicate some regret of fighting against Germany instead of the Soviets, by the end of the war.
    - racional 2y ago
      The fault was not doing the same to the USSR. You realize that this is exactly how the war between Oceania and Eurasia started, right?
CamperBob2 2y ago
People who are ready to surrender don't need to be nuked twice.
FredPret 2y ago
Conditional surrender would have been completely unacceptable given that they were the aggressor and had a million troops in China, and wanted to hold on to their conquests after the war. Even after the first nuke they didn't surrender. It took the emperor speaking up - for the first time ever - after the second nuke, and even then the military junta tried to stop it. Your points about the Communists stand, but keep in mind that the West always considered them the least bad option. They started out on Hitler's side and they only got half of Europe because they already had it occupied with masses of troops. The West couldn't have pushed them back to Moscow unless they were willing to fight a couple more years, killing millions more.
- xcv123 2y ago
  > Conditional surrender would have been completely unacceptable And some would argue that nuking entire cities is completely unacceptable.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - FredPret 2y ago
    Allied options were: 1. Invade. Expected Allied casualties of 300k all the way to much more than a million. Expected Japanese casualties: tens of millions, perhaps up to literally all of them. Previous Japanese strongholds fought to the last man, earlier in the war the Allies invaded an island with 11000 Japanese soldiers, and I think 47 of those eventually surrendered. The rest died. The civilian populations on these islands infamously committed suicide in huge numbers rather than be captured by the Allies. How much harder would an invasion of the home islands be!? The Japanese government issued an order that every single person must fight to the death. 2. Starve them out. The allies had submarines all around Japan and completely blocked all food and oil imports. This was working. But given the Japanese fighting spirit, likely tens of millions would have died before any change took place. It's also possible that the population could drop so low that the islands would become self-sufficient and then the war would drag on literally forever. 3. Conventional aerial bombardment. The Allies were already trying this with great gusto, to little diplomatic effect. 4. Demonstration nuke off the coast. The Allies only had two nukes left after the test one, and weren't 100% sure it would work. A failed demo would only strengthen Japanese resolve. There were concerns whether one demo nuke would be scary enough to force a surrender. Given that one actually used nuke wasn't, these concerns turned out to be valid. 5. Actually drop a nuke. This option turns out to have had the lowest bodycount in the end and had the unexpected side-effect of ushering in an unprecedented era of global peace.

by xcv123 2y ago

lupusreal 2y ago

Japan should have unconditionally surrendered in March, half a year before the nukes, when the US military burned most of Tokyo to the ground in less than two hours. And yes. Stalin was a bad guy and it's a pity the war didn't end with the demise of both the Nazi and Soviet regimes. This is also irrelevant to the matter of strategic bombings perpetrated by America and Britain.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
xcv123 2y ago
General George S. Patton: "We may have been fighting the wrong enemy (Germany) all along. But while we're here (on the Soviet border), we should go after the bastards now, 'cause we're gonna have to fight 'em eventually." https://books.google.com/books?redir_esc=y&id=32DxAAAAMAAJ&dq=patton+bastards+%22wrong+enemy%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22wrong+enemy%22 https://books.google.com/books?redir_esc=y&id=32DxAAAAMAAJ&d...
- lupusreal 2y ago
  I literally just told you that the Soviets should have been taken out. This fact doesn't change the moral calculus of the strategic bombings against Germany and Japan. The fault was not doing the same to the USSR.
  - xcv123 2y ago
    I understood what you wrote. The interesting part of this quote is apparently General Patton also realised they should not have been fighting against Germany in the first place. There are other quotes from him that indicate some regret of fighting against Germany instead of the Soviets, by the end of the war.
  - racional 2y ago
    The fault was not doing the same to the USSR. You realize that this is exactly how the war between Oceania and Eurasia started, right?

CamperBob2 2y ago

People who are ready to surrender don't need to be nuked twice.

FredPret 2y ago

Conditional surrender would have been completely unacceptable given that they were the aggressor and had a million troops in China, and wanted to hold on to their conquests after the war. Even after the first nuke they didn't surrender. It took the emperor speaking up - for the first time ever - after the second nuke, and even then the military junta tried to stop it. Your points about the Communists stand, but keep in mind that the West always considered them the least bad option. They started out on Hitler's side and they only got half of Europe because they already had it occupied with masses of troops. The West couldn't have pushed them back to Moscow unless they were willing to fight a couple more years, killing millions more.

xcv123 2y ago
> Conditional surrender would have been completely unacceptable And some would argue that nuking entire cities is completely unacceptable.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- FredPret 2y ago
  Allied options were: 1. Invade. Expected Allied casualties of 300k all the way to much more than a million. Expected Japanese casualties: tens of millions, perhaps up to literally all of them. Previous Japanese strongholds fought to the last man, earlier in the war the Allies invaded an island with 11000 Japanese soldiers, and I think 47 of those eventually surrendered. The rest died. The civilian populations on these islands infamously committed suicide in huge numbers rather than be captured by the Allies. How much harder would an invasion of the home islands be!? The Japanese government issued an order that every single person must fight to the death. 2. Starve them out. The allies had submarines all around Japan and completely blocked all food and oil imports. This was working. But given the Japanese fighting spirit, likely tens of millions would have died before any change took place. It's also possible that the population could drop so low that the islands would become self-sufficient and then the war would drag on literally forever. 3. Conventional aerial bombardment. The Allies were already trying this with great gusto, to little diplomatic effect. 4. Demonstration nuke off the coast. The Allies only had two nukes left after the test one, and weren't 100% sure it would work. A failed demo would only strengthen Japanese resolve. There were concerns whether one demo nuke would be scary enough to force a surrender. Given that one actually used nuke wasn't, these concerns turned out to be valid. 5. Actually drop a nuke. This option turns out to have had the lowest bodycount in the end and had the unexpected side-effect of ushering in an unprecedented era of global peace.