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The notion that Japan refused peace until it was nuked is incorrect. Japan had tried to begin peace talks in January, but they were ignored by the Allies[1] [1

• InTheArena 12y ago
  Incorrect. Wikipedia has a decent overview of what really occurred with the Japanese overtures: Satō advised Tōgō that in reality, "unconditional surrender or terms closely equivalent thereto" was all that Japan could expect. Moreover, in response to Molotov's requests for specific proposals, Satō suggested that Tōgō's messages were not "clear about the views of the Government and the Military with regard to the termination of the war," thus questioning whether Tōgō's initiative was supported by the key elements of Japan's power structure.[47] On July 17, Tōgō responded: Although the directing powers, and the government as well, are convinced that our war strength still can deliver considerable blows to the enemy, we are unable to feel absolutely secure peace of mind ... Please bear particularly in mind, however, that we are not seeking the Russians' mediation for anything like an unconditional surrender.[48] In reply, Satō clarified: It goes without saying that in my earlier message calling for unconditional surrender or closely equivalent terms, I made an exception of the question of preserving [the imperial family].[49] On July 21, speaking in the name of the cabinet, Tōgō repeated: With regard to unconditional surrender we are unable to consent to it under any circumstances whatever. The Allies read this in realtime. Japan was not ready to accept any sort of unconditional surrender. More the point, America and Europe had just finished a brutal war in Europe. The point of view then was that the war occurred because Germany had no truly been defeated in World War I. All where concerned with not seeing another world war.
  • getsat 12y ago
    Very few people will see it since the OP was flagkilled, but this post you wrote in the other thread was very nice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9172061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9172061
  • biomene 12y ago
    You start by claiming my comment was incorrect, but I don't see a refutation that the Allies were unwilling to negotiate peace with Japan in your response. In fact, you seem to confirm it. Maybe your confusion stems from something you said: > Japan was not ready to accept any sort of unconditional surrender. There is only one sort of unconditional surrender, that is why it's called unconditional. The Allies, the US in particular, were not interested in negotiating peace with Japan. They were not willing to settle for anything less than Japan's total submission to them, which is why they ignored Japan's overtures to negotiating peace in January 1945. Not, as you naively seem to be believe, because they were "concerned with not seeing another world war", but because the US realised it had the might to do so, and wanted to assert itself as a global military power. Negotiating with Japan would have implied that the US had doubts about their own capacity to wage war. You seem to be aware of this, as you point out in your other comment that was linked to earlier: > Japan counted on the vast distance between San Fransisco and Tokyo to protect them from the horrors that they had unleashed on China, the Philippians and countless other peoples in the Southeastern Pacific. They were wrong. They were indeed wrong, but the US had to prove it to them and to the rest of the world, which is what they did by firebombing Tokyo and nuking H. and N.
    • InTheArena 12y ago
      Japan was not interested in any outcome that didn't preserve their empire in China. that was non-negotiable to them. In addition, as noted above, this only was the proposal from the peace party. My belief in the United States "being concerned about another war in 20 years" is well founded and documented. Please see the personal memoirs of Marshall for example. Sadly yes, the United States did need to prove to them, something that very basic laws of economics should have revealed - they had no shot whatsoever, at any point, in winning a war against the United States if total mobilization came into play.
      • biomene 12y ago
        > Japan was not interested in any outcome that didn't preserve their empire in China. that was non-negotiable to them. That is not true according to the article by Walter Trohan I quoted above[1]. From that article: > 4. [Japanese] relinquishment of Manchuria, Korea and Formosa, as well as all territory seized during the war. This peace proposal was virtually identical to the one Japan ended up accepting. The only difference was that it did not offer the surrender of the person of the emperor. The veracity of this proposal has never been questioned or denied: > The authenticity of the Trohan article was never challenged by the White House or the State Department, and for very good reason. After General MacArthur returned from Korea in 1951, his neighbor in the Waldorf Towers, former President Herbert Hoover, took the Trohan article to General MacArthur and the latter confirmed its accuracy in every detail and without qualification. (Harry Elmer Barnes, "Hiroshima: Assault on a Beaten Foe", National Review, 10 May 1958) So there is no reason to doubt it. As for your belief that the US was concerned about another war in 20 years, I am aware that this commonplace ideological piece of rhetoric is very well documented. But let's take it a face value. Let's say we believe that the real reason the US chose to firebomb Tokyo and burn to death around 100,000 people, mostly children, elderly and caretakers was to save lives by preventing another war in the next 20 years. The very least you could say is that it didn't work very well: the US was fighting another war in Korea 5 years later, Cuba 16 years later and Vietnam 20 years later. And yet the rhetoric keeps coming back, as justification for every single one of these events. So if fighting wars doesn't actually seem to prevent any killings, but always warrants more wars, why not change tactics? Why not try a different approach, for example a game of rock-paper-scissors between world leaders? The answer is that wars do indeed work for the purpose they are fought for. But this purpose is not preventing other wars, as ideology would have you believe, but instead to establish the might of the state in the general competition of states for power and domination. And populations are simply the means by which states achieve this purpose: their own population as productive force for the war machine and canon fodder; and the enemy's population as evidence of the state's power, in the form of number of casualties. The more you kill, the better. [1]: http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1945/08/19/page/1/article/bare-peace-bid-u-s-rebuffed-7-months-ago http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1945/08/19/page/1/article...