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Fafnir wrote:Well, if the US didn't bomb Japan, the USSR would see to it that ther would be no Japan.

So I'd say that things ended much better than they could have.

How? The USSR didn't have a substantial blue water Navy, nor a strategic air force to bomb Japan.
I think it would have strained even the USSR's resources to attempt an invasion and occupation.
It would be met with such resistance that it would make the Battle of Berlin look like a piker.

In any case, the logic doesn't work that we saved Japan from the Soviets because we mercifully nuked them.

Brushfire wrote:

Jubear wrote:Arguing over if it was a good/humane idea to drop the A bomb is pointless, War is exactly that war and the objective is to win and the allies did win...so we get to decide if it was right or not and guess what we decided it was the right thing to do.

The Imperial army got extremely close to being in postion to invade oz if they had I doubt they would have been the most merciful conquerors and I am 100% sure I would not be here today....So yeah let em burn

But your timeline is all messed up. BY 1943, Australia was in no serious danger of invasion. So how did nuking Japan save Oz?

Timeline isnt messed up, just your understanding of modern history, Brushfire. But I guess they do not teach you that much in the US education system beyond "USA! USA! Rah rah rah!!!"

The above comment stand as evidence that this kind of argument and attack on someone's country is always a bad idea. It doesn't convince anyone. It doesn't make your argument stronger. It just makes you look rude, and as if you have no real substantive argument. It's basically a way of conceding a debate while looking like a jerk. Please don't do this folks. For your own sakes.

AvatarForm wrote:But I guess they do not teach you that much in the US education system beyond "USA! USA! Rah rah rah!!!"

That's not what they taught me, but it's the only reasonable opinion to form when reading about modern history.

Seriously though, were you going to refute his argument with facts or just flame him?

AvatarForm wrote:

Timeline isnt messed up, just your understanding of modern history, Brushfire. But I guess they do not teach you that much in the US education system beyond "USA! USA! Rah rah rah!!!"

I never let my public schooling get in the way of obtaining an education.

if you had read by previous posts, you will find I have considerable criticism of US foreign policy, particular with the occupation of of the Philippines during the Spanish America war.

How about the "USA! USA! Rah rah rah!!!" Navy that stopped the Japanese at the Battle of the Coral Sea, saving Oz? How was Oz was in any danger of being invaded by Japan by 1945, after its navy and air force was all but annihilated by the "USA! USA! Rah rah rah!!!" military forces?

Watched a documentary of the A-bombings in english a couple months ago. An Atom bomb is the abosulte worst way to kill a man. The people who died instantaously were given a peaceful death. The massive amounts of radiation poisoned thousands of people, not to mention the higher rate of birth defects, due to the radiation messing with people's DNA. It is a terrible weapon.

Japan was hit hard in the war (like all countries) and was having trouble feeding the population. How much longer could they have fought?

However, Japan fought fanaticly against the allies, and would have probaly fought until they could fight no more. They U.S. delivered a massive hit to the Japanese forces that completely shattered them. The bombings saved many Allied lives.

I honously think that the U.S. was desperate to end the war, and were desperate to test the Atom bomb. They shortened the war by a considerable length, but at a massive cost to the Japanese. It was a terrible act, but it shortened the war.

Brushfire wrote:

Jubear wrote:Arguing over if it was a good/humane idea to drop the A bomb is pointless, War is exactly that war and the objective is to win and the allies did win...so we get to decide if it was right or not and guess what we decided it was the right thing to do.

The Imperial army got extremely close to being in postion to invade oz if they had I doubt they would have been the most merciful conquerors and I am 100% sure I would not be here today....So yeah let em burn

But your timeline is all messed up. BY 1943, Australia was in no serious danger of invasion. So how did nuking Japan save Oz?

It in no way saved oz in any way shape or form (oz was saved by diggers,fuzzy wuzzys and US marines) But my point was war is not a fair or just thing in any way shape or form and if you wage a campaign of terror and violence dont be surprised if your country is dealt with harshly.

How? The USSR didn't have a substantial blue water Navy, nor a strategic air force to bomb Japan.
I think it would have strained even the USSR's resources to attempt an invasion and occupation.
It would be met with such resistance that it would make the Battle of Berlin look like a piker.

In any case, the logic doesn't work that we saved Japan from the Soviets because we mercifully nuked them.

But as already mentioned by you Japan was not a threat anymore*, what does the USSR need a navy for if japan doesn't have one, or an air force ("Japan by 1945, after its navy and air force was all but annihilated "). All they needed was to be able to land forces which the had in abundance, so the Soviets would have no problem rolling over them in their classic brutal manner! The Soviets at this point didn't have resource problems. It may have been fitting to allow the Japanese to experience Soviet justice. The A bomb was again merciful in keeping that from happening.

The battle of Berlin was a piker compared to Soviet victories like Stalingrad, Kursk, Moscow........ The Soviets would have leveled Japan!

* I don't really agree with that!

In any case, the logic doesn't work that we saved Japan from the Soviets because we mercifully nuked them.

Sure it does, if by nuking them we actually cause much less death and suffering, then logically the needs of the many out way the needs of the few. It's pure logic.

An Atom bomb is the abosulte worst way to kill a man.

I think many of the people the Japanese massacred would argue that they were killed in much worse ways.

People, Andrew, or "logs"?

Not to say that death by radiation sickness isn't horrible. But compared to some things human beings have done to each other throughout history...

Mannahnin wrote:People, Andrew, or "logs"?

Not to say that death by radiation sickness isn't horrible. But compared to some things human beings have done to each other throughout history...

Thank you for that! If I have a choice between being nuked and this

Prisoners were subjected to other torturous experiments such as being hung upside down to see how long it would take for them to choke to death, having air injected into their arteries to determine the time until the onset of embolism, and having horse urine injected into their kidneys.[11]

Other incidents include being deprived of food and water to determine the length of time until death, being placed into high-pressure chambers until death, having experiments performed upon prisoners to determine the relationship between temperature, burns, and human survival, being placed into centrifuges and spun until dead, having animal blood injected and the effects studied, being exposed to lethal doses of x-rays, having various chemical weapons tested on prisoners inside gas chambers, being injected with sea water to determine if it could be a substitute for saline and being buried alive.

I'll take getting nuked any day, thank you! People forget that the Japanese in many ways made the Germans look like amateurs!

Brutal enemies call for brutal measures.

And I mean what could of happened without the bomb? What if America made many and dropped them and winded up destroying an entire continent?

Just my two cents changing the future -can- make it worse.

If those bombs hadn't have been dropped, I think the casualties would be higher on both sides. They were arming civilians with spears for God's sake. Their loathing of surrender would have gotten them all killed.

If those bombs hadn't have been dropped, I think the casualties would be higher on both sides. They were arming civilians with spears for God's sake. Their loathing of surrender would have gotten them all killed.

I'm always baffled by the attempts to stress how resiliant to morale and surrender the Japanese are. Of course people want to defend their homes. If you found yourself as the last line of defense in front of the elected/hereditary leader of your culture, you wouldn't pick up a spear? If you're an American, the government might not even have to provide a spear given that your country's founders specifically designed your country to be able to turn into a nationalist insurgency overnight. (2nd ammendment.)

The Japanese did awful, inexcusable things during the second world war.

... Oh wait.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskeegee_Syphilis_Study

And hell, if inflicting diseases on rural systematically disenfranchised minority communities doesn't rub you the wrong way...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

Pick your poison.

How about this for a conclusion?

Many actions perpetrated by all sides in the second world war were gakky, inexcusable, bad ideas. The fact that the allies managed to liberate the concentration camps and evict the Japanese from China don't completely excuse the large populations of dead civilians. There is also no way to justify non-intervention, no way to justify allowing those atrocities to continue. It was a series of crappy situations ending with crappy decisions, which in no way implies that there was some sort of magic, non-crappy solution to the second world war. There is no moral high ground to be won here.

LordofHats wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:British, Dutch, French, Portugeuse and American holdings were still well and truly in Imperial hands at the start of WWII, even if the holdings had become steadily more shaky in some areas (the Indian independance movement). The French attempted to reassert their Imperial colonies immediately after the war, which lead to the war in Indochina. The Philipines remains in the pocket of the US to this day. It's true that the majority of Imperial holdings were unlikely to continue being ruled by Imperial hands, but this has nothing to do with the goodwill of their White masters and is entirely a result of the efforts of those people.

Like I said. It shows a rather simplistic view of imperialism that suggests you don't actually know how it evolved and changed and when it actually died or started dying. The death of Imperialism has nothing to do with the efforts of the people or good will on part of the 'masters.' Imperialism died because by the time WWII came around it was already tettering and by the end of the war the European powers had lost the political willpower to continue, and the Cold War was starting. They started shedding their overseas empires within a few years (exception the French but they're French so it kind of makes sense they sort of tried to keep going).

Well, first of all I'm going to recommend 'Empire' by Niall Ferguson. I couldn't comprehend his work on the history of economics, but his book on British Imperialism was well done.

Why exactly do you think Japan was viewed as a threat a the start of WWII? Because they threatened the colonial holdings of opposing powers there. Japanese Imperialism doesn't seem to be any lower on the "kill, loot, exploit, plunder" level than other Imperial powers, they hadn't had as much practice as the others.

And I asked you for a source that indicates the bomb was going to used against Germany before it's capitulation.

I gave you one. Leslie Grove, director of the Manhattan Project, wrote it in his book.

I thought Japanese messages were being decoded even before Midway?

Now you're just trolling. Whether or not we were decoding Japanese messages had nothing to do with whether or not the NSA was around to do it. The NSA was founded in 1952. It's predecessor in the late 1940's. They literally couldn't intercept any Japanese encoded messages because they didn't exist to do any intercepting.

Maybe that's what he was reffering to? Granted that's an error your average historian wouldn't have made.

The willingness of Japan to surrender (to certain terms) without dropping the bomb is a well known contention. Simply stating "It's historical fact that the Japs weren't giving in!" without refering to any authority brings nothing to this discussion.

A well known contention of people who are ignoring facts maybe. The greatest evidence that they weren't going to surrender is that they weren't surrendering and most historians agree they weren't going to surrender (EDIT: to clarify, not surrender without an invasion or some other act that would force it). It's a historical consensus on an issue backed up by evidence. The author of the article mentioned doesn't even disprove it as much as willfully ignores it and throws out a senseless source of information and point out that some officers wanted to surrender. He doesn't prove the point at all (and he really can't).

If you prefer to ignore it and grasp at historical fantasy behind a shield of 'non-authority' be my guest. Doesn't change what we know or what the Allies knew at the time.

Right, becuase I disagree with you it's historical fantasy.

Japan wasn't going to make an unconditional surrender (and even after the bombs it wasn't completetly unconditional). But there is evidence to suggest that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria was a large motivation to push for surrender. And the alternative certainly wasn't restricted to an imminent invasion, Japan's offensive capabilities were destroyed.

Nephil1m wrote:... ...

How about this for a conclusion?

Many actions perpetrated by all sides in the second world war were gakky, inexcusable, bad ideas. The fact that the allies managed to liberate the concentration camps and evict the Japanese from China don't completely excuse the large populations of dead civilians. There is also no way to justify non-intervention, no way to justify allowing those atrocities to continue. It was a series of crappy situations ending with crappy decisions, which in no way implies that there was some sort of magic, non-crappy solution to the second world war. There is no moral high ground to be won here.

Exactly.

So, faced with a variety of crappy choices, the moral thing is to choose the least crappy.

Open question to everyone; what were the alternatives to the bomb?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Well, first of all I'm going to recommend 'Empire' by Niall Ferguson. I couldn't comprehend his work on the history of economics, but his book on British Imperialism was well done.

Why exactly do you think Japan was viewed as a threat a the start of WWII? Because they threatened the colonial holdings of opposing powers there. Japanese Imperialism doesn't seem to be any lower on the "kill, loot, exploit, plunder" level than other Imperial powers, they hadn't had as much practice as the others.

Is the situation before WW2 relevant to the specific question of how to end it?

Your viewpoint seems to be that the Japanese were no worse than the US or Europeans, so we were not justified in bombing them.

How else do you think we could have ended the war in a better way?

Kilkrazy wrote:

Nephil1m wrote:... ...

How about this for a conclusion?

Many actions perpetrated by all sides in the second world war were gakky, inexcusable, bad ideas. The fact that the allies managed to liberate the concentration camps and evict the Japanese from China don't completely excuse the large populations of dead civilians. There is also no way to justify non-intervention, no way to justify allowing those atrocities to continue. It was a series of crappy situations ending with crappy decisions, which in no way implies that there was some sort of magic, non-crappy solution to the second world war. There is no moral high ground to be won here.

Exactly.

So, faced with a variety of crappy choices, the moral thing is to choose the least crappy.

Open question to everyone; what were the alternatives to the bomb?

-Invade the mainland (bad idea, high causalities on all sides)
-blockade the mainland (already happening, the country would have simply come to a complete halt within a year or two)
-allow soviets to kick the japanese out of china and south east asia (undesirable)
-US forces invade occupied asia( You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia")\
-Ignore them (not really viable given american sentiment at the time)
-continue conventional bombing until japan is flat (much much worse than the bomb)

Out of all the bad choices the bomb was the least bad

Emperors Faithful wrote:Why exactly do you think Japan was viewed as a threat a the start of WWII? Because they threatened the colonial holdings of opposing powers there. Japanese Imperialism doesn't seem to be any lower on the "kill, loot, exploit, plunder" level than other Imperial powers, they hadn't had as much practice as the others.

Japan was considered a threat because it was expansionist and it kicked Russia's butt. That does not necessarily entail that the dropping of the bombs had primarily racist motivations. Racism may have played into it, but other factors seem more influencial.

Maybe that's what he was reffering to? Granted that's an error your average historian wouldn't have made.

Doubt it. The other one was formed after WWII. In 48 or 49 (I don't remember exactly). OSS was the only intelligence agency operating during WWII as far as I know and it was focused on human intelligence not communications intelligence.

Right, becuase I disagree with you it's historical fantasy.

No. Because the position ignores well known facts and takes a position that doesn't track. However, perhaps I misunderstood the position you were taking. EDIT: I do apologize. That was rude to say.

Japan wasn't going to make an unconditional surrender (and even after the bombs it wasn't completetly unconditional). But there is evidence to suggest that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria was a large motivation to push for surrender. And the alternative certainly wasn't restricted to an imminent invasion, Japan's offensive capabilities were destroyed.

I believe someone said earlier in the thread somewhere that there's an argument to be made that a second atomic bomb wasn't necessary, and I could roll with that, but the Soviets didn't invade until after Hiroshima and the rift in the Japanese command was bickering over the matter but there's evidence to say it could have gone either way but likely that the war would have continued for weeks or months and they may have continued to refuse to surrender. Military leaders dominated the Japanese government and didn't want to surrender at all. The first atomic bomb and the Soviet invasion only managed to convince a lot o Japanese leaders who already wanted to surrender to want to surrender more. The ones who did not still didn't want to. Maybe the war would have ended following these two events in time but the second bomb resulted Hirohito taking action and ending the war immediately. The Japanese had offered multiple peace settlements but American and British policy was fixed on unconditional surrender, and after Potsdam, the likely hood of Japan surrendering conditionally diminished a lot.

That Japan could no longer attack is irrelevant I think. Following the Battle of the Buldge, Germany could no longer realistically stage offensive operations but they were still able to fight. Japan could still fight and it could have done a lot of damage to allied forces had it not surrendered. There is the argument to be made that the Allies prolonged the war with the stance of unconditional surrender, and there is the argument that the fault for that falls on the US.

That argument could go either way (imo). I think the argument for the first bombing being unnecessary in forcing a peace is hard to make because even after the first bombing and the invasion of Manchuria the position of Japanese officials wasn't shifting much. It took the Emperor's intervention to get the Japanese government to accept surrender. Something had to touch the main islands and it would be an invasion or a bomb. I think the bombing resulted in fewer dead on all sides.

I'm unsure what you mean by the Japanese surrender not being unconditional.

Nephil1m wrote:

If those bombs hadn't have been dropped, I think the casualties would be higher on both sides. They were arming civilians with spears for God's sake. Their loathing of surrender would have gotten them all killed.

I'm always baffled by the attempts to stress how resiliant to morale and surrender the Japanese are. Of course people want to defend their homes. If you found yourself as the last line of defense in front of the elected/hereditary leader of your culture, you wouldn't pick up a spear? If you're an American, the government might not even have to provide a spear given that your country's founders specifically designed your country to be able to turn into a nationalist insurgency overnight. (2nd ammendment.)

The Japanese did awful, inexcusable things during the second world war.

... Oh wait.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskeegee_Syphilis_Study

And hell, if inflicting diseases on rural systematically disenfranchised minority communities doesn't rub you the wrong way...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

Pick your poison.

You can't really compare these Isolated and small scale acts with the murderous rampage that the Japanese went on. The closest thing would be the US's near genocidal acts towards the Native Americans. It could be argued however that that was a different US back then and also that it was white colonists from many countries doing the the same thing. Not an excuse mind you. I believe the Native Americans are owed an apology, I just don't feel the same about the Japanese.

How about this for a conclusion?

Many actions perpetrated by all sides in the second world war were gakky, inexcusable, bad ideas. The fact that the allies managed to liberate the concentration camps and evict the Japanese from China don't completely excuse the large populations of dead civilians. There is also no way to justify non-intervention, no way to justify allowing those atrocities to continue. It was a series of crappy situations ending with crappy decisions, which in no way implies that there was some sort of magic, non-crappy solution to the second world war. There is no moral high ground to be won here.

That sounds about right. Sitting on our hands and not doing nothing would have been worse. The bomb can be viewed as making the best of a crappy situation, a situation we did not create.

Can't really say the chinese were very happy about being liberated. The Russians did the same thing the Japanese did when they invaded Manchuria (and as an wonderful irony, Chinese Communists opposed Russian Imperial Expansion when it happened! delicious ).

Nephil1m wrote:

If those bombs hadn't have been dropped, I think the casualties would be higher on both sides. They were arming civilians with spears for God's sake. Their loathing of surrender would have gotten them all killed.

I'm always baffled by the attempts to stress how resiliant to morale and surrender the Japanese are. Of course people want to defend their homes. If you found yourself as the last line of defense in front of the elected/hereditary leader of your culture, you wouldn't pick up a spear? If you're an American, the government might not even have to provide a spear given that your country's founders specifically designed your country to be able to turn into a nationalist insurgency overnight. (2nd amendment.)

And I love how people think that the Japanese mindset was "to defend their homes".

It wasn't. Outlying islands like Okinawa and Iwo Jima, the civilians would jump off cliffs because they believed the Marines would do terrible things to them.
There's a reason we didn't see much in the way of prisoners as well. Part of it is that the sheer butcher's tactics on the part of the Japanese inspired the USMC to retaliate(something which is entirely understandable in the context), and the other part is simply that they did not believe they would lose.

Kanluwen wrote:

Nephil1m wrote:

If those bombs hadn't have been dropped, I think the casualties would be higher on both sides. They were arming civilians with spears for God's sake. Their loathing of surrender would have gotten them all killed.

I'm always baffled by the attempts to stress how resiliant to morale and surrender the Japanese are. Of course people want to defend their homes. If you found yourself as the last line of defense in front of the elected/hereditary leader of your culture, you wouldn't pick up a spear? If you're an American, the government might not even have to provide a spear given that your country's founders specifically designed your country to be able to turn into a nationalist insurgency overnight. (2nd amendment.)

And I love how people think that the Japanese mindset was "to defend their homes".

It wasn't. Outlying islands like Okinawa and Iwo Jima, the civilians would jump off cliffs because they believed the Marines would do terrible things to them.
There's a reason we didn't see much in the way of prisoners as well. Part of it is that the sheer butcher's tactics on the part of the Japanese inspired the USMC to retaliate(something which is entirely understandable in the context), and the other part is simply that they did not believe they would lose.

They believed they could not lose because they were being led by a God!

Many committed suicide because they expected the same kind of brutality that they were inflicting on others. The US Marines would not take prisoners, but I've never heard of civilian reprisals on the scale anywhere near what the Japanese were doing. While Japanese soldiers were known to through people, including babies of off cliffs, the US Marines tried to stop women from jumping off cliffs with their children,

@Lord of Hats. With all due respect here, You cannot say that a country that banned immigration from China/Japan, and also had the well-documented problems of segregation in the South, and the way it treated Native Americans, does not have a problem with racism when dealing with the Japanese. The propaganda says otherwise.

This is not me having a go at the USA as my own country was equally as bad in regard to its colonial subjects.

Apologies for banging the same drum, but as to the whole Japan surrender thing, read the article on page 3. It is very clear to my mind that Japan never got the chance to surrender.

On a final note, I feel this debate has gone on long enough and seems to be going round in circles. The vast majority of people( even though I don't agree with them) have made some excellent points. Let's pull the plug on this and get back to debating Star Wars films!!

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:@Lord of Hats. With all due respect here, You cannot say that a country that banned immigration from China/Japan, and also had the well-documented problems of segregation in the South, and the way it treated Native Americans, does not have a problem with racism when dealing with the Japanese. The propaganda says otherwise.

When did I say the US wasn't racist to the Japanese? I just don't buy the racism angle as being the primary reason for dropping the bomb on Japan. There were others that had a bigger influence I think.

Apologies for banging the same drum, but as to the whole Japan surrender thing, read the article on page 3. It is very clear to my mind that Japan never got the chance to surrender.

I've addressed the article. The author isn't very well versed in history and it's very obvious. There may be an argument to be made that Japan wasn't given the opportunity to surrender but that's a different bag of chips more related to the allied stance of unconditional surrender rather than just the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Let's pull the plug on this and get back to debating Star Wars films!!

I can role with that. It has Storm Troopers too

Andrew1975 wrote:
They believed they could not lose because they were being led by a God!
Many committed suicide because they expected the same kind of brutality that they were inflicting on others. The US Marines would not take prisoners, but I've never heard of civilian reprisals on the scale anywhere near what the Japanese were doing. While Japanese soldiers were known to throw people, including babies of off cliffs, the US Marines tried to stop women from jumping off cliffs with their children.

That was kind of the point I was making.

The Japanese empire did a seemingly amazing job indoctrinating its citizens. They were terrified of what the Marines were going to do to them, because they were being fed stories that related to Imperial Japan's own atrocities.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Apologies for banging the same drum, but as to the whole Japan surrender thing, read the article on page 3. It is very clear to my mind that Japan never got the chance to surrender.

Speaking as a war historian, ignore that article. Seriously. Its facts are muddled up, it makes half a dozen amazing leaps of faith in reasoning, and it relies on verbal devices instead of facts.

I am still waiting for anyone who is against the bomb to present some better alternatives.

Kilkrazy wrote:I am still waiting for anyone who is against the bomb to present some better alternatives.

That's because there wasn't one, at least not one that didn't create a greater burden for the allies!

The physicists who worked on the bombs were utterly disgusted and one of them comitted suicide over it. I would vote no because the original plan for the bombs would have been better - The bombs detonated somewhere uninhabited and then shown to the Japanese for their surrender. If no surrender, then action would most probably been the answer. The complications afterwards (and still going) are not good. Atomic weapons are awful. No kind of honour in warfare (if there is such a thing).

Wulfen Andy wrote:The physicists who worked on the bombs were utterly disgusted and one of them comitted suicide over it. I would vote no because the original plan for the bombs would have been better - The bombs detonated somewhere uninhabited and then shown to the Japanese for their surrender. If no surrender, then action would most probably been the answer. The complications afterwards (and still going) are not good. Atomic weapons are awful. No kind of honour in warfare (if there is such a thing).

Sure, we should have told them where we were and when we were going to drop them too! I mean we had an endless supply of them at that point right? Really?

Well seeing as the Japanese needed to have more than one dropped on them before they surrendered I think your point it mute! Plus you have to think would those raids have even been possible if the Japs then knew they were coming. All things considered the actions taken were the best available.

The Japanese showed a complete lack of honor in their style of warfare. They removed honor from the battle field, I see no reason to extend them that privilege once they refused it.

I take your point but your flag reveals bias. Would you be so understanding if you/anyone you knew was Japanese? Or lived near to be affected by fallout? We have freedom of speech (some countries anyway) so my point is valid. Maybe you think Khrushchev should have dropped Tsar Bomba on America rather than showing the US Russia's capabilities during the cold war? I know it wasn't a proper war in some sense but still. I am a physicist who has worked with nuclear and particle physics and it makes me sad when good physics is used by idiot military leaders who do not really understand the consequences (all military leaders). Please don't mistake me for being anti-American as I have family in the US, I just don't like the mass murder of civilians during and after events such as Hiroshima etc. Also do not think I am naive when it concerns ending brutal wars quickly!

Kilkrazy wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Well, first of all I'm going to recommend 'Empire' by Niall Ferguson. I couldn't comprehend his work on the history of economics, but his book on British Imperialism was well done.

Why exactly do you think Japan was viewed as a threat a the start of WWII? Because they threatened the colonial holdings of opposing powers there. Japanese Imperialism doesn't seem to be any lower on the "kill, loot, exploit, plunder" level than other Imperial powers, they hadn't had as much practice as the others.

Is the situation before WW2 relevant to the specific question of how to end it?

Your viewpoint seems to be that the Japanese were no worse than the US or Europeans, so we were not justified in bombing them.

How else do you think we could have ended the war in a better way?

The nature of Imperialism has very little to do with the decision to drop the bomb, LoH and I went off on a tangent there.

LordofHats wrote:The Japanese had offered multiple peace settlements but American and British policy was fixed on unconditional surrender, and after Potsdam, the likely hood of Japan surrendering conditionally diminished a lot.

You just said that Japan's willingness to surrender is historical fiction, and now you backpeddle and claim that they made multiple peace settlements?

That Japan could no longer attack is irrelevant I think. Following the Battle of the Buldge, Germany could no longer realistically stage offensive operations but they were still able to fight. Japan could still fight and it could have done a lot of damage to allied forces had it not surrendered. There is the argument to be made that the Allies prolonged the war with the stance of unconditional surrender, and there is the argument that the fault for that falls on the US.

Exactly. Why do you think the Allies were after an unconditional surrender?

And, if the roles were swapped and the US was on the defensive, how willing do you think the government and people ofthe USA would have been to offer an unconditional surrender?

That argument could go either way (imo). I think the argument for the first bombing being unnecessary in forcing a peace is hard to make because even after the first bombing and the invasion of Manchuria the position of Japanese officials wasn't shifting much. It took the Emperor's intervention to get the Japanese government to accept surrender. Something had to touch the main islands and it would be an invasion or a bomb. I think the bombing resulted in fewer dead on all sides.

I'm unsure what you mean by the Japanese surrender not being unconditional.

The safety of the royal family from any repercussions was the only condition on the final agreement that I was aware of.

Andrew1975 wrote:
Sure, we should have told them where we were and when we were going to drop them too!

Stawman. He didn't suggest that.

I mean we had an endless supply of them at that point right? Really?

A further 15 bombs were expected to be ready in time for any invasion plans.

Well seeing as the Japanese needed to have more than one dropped on them before they surrendered I think your point it mute! Plus you have to think would those raids have even been possible if the Japs then knew they were coming. All things considered the actions taken were the best available.

A big difference, I would imagine, between "drop one somewhere, tape it and show it to the Japanese govt as a warning. If they refuse it's on their heads" and "Nuke as many civvies as possible to terrify the Japs into surrendering."

The Japanese showed a complete lack of honor in their style of warfare. They removed honor from the battle field, I see no reason to extend them that privilege once they refused it.

What are you on?