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Didn’t have to do that either Japan would’ve capitulated. But cute to dredge up old excuses for mass killing.
by kingkawn 11mo ago
Didn’t have to do that either Japan would’ve capitulated. But cute to dredge up old excuses for mass killing.
- gregbot 11mo agoIm not sure Japan would have surrendered. The real question is: why was total surrender the only acceptable outcome to the FDR admin? To the point that mass killing civilians was preferred over a negotiated peace.
- IAmBroom 11mo agoAn invasion by US forces was planned, with expected US losses to dwarf those on Normandy by an order of magnitude. Japanese losses would dwarf those, in turn.
- psunavy03 11mo agoThe invasion likely would have been stalled, and the alternate plan was blockade of the islands to interdict food supplies, and Hirohito is on the record after the war as saying he feared a Lord of the Flies-style mass breakdown of society after famine.
- hollerith 11mo agoBut the reason an invasion was planned rather than waiting for starvation was that Stalin was planning to invade. I.e, if the US had been OK with Japan's ending up in the Soviet orbit, both a nuclear attack and an invasion could have been avoided.
- psunavy03 11mo agoThere are all sorts of reasons why Hokkaido or all of Japan ending up in the Soviet orbit would have been a Very Bad Thing.