If you consider an alternative history where the US army invades main land Japan, you have been a massacre of epic proportions. City after city taken in battles with civilians in the middle and Japanese soldiers and civilians committing mass suicides.
And yes, bombing civilians can be considered a 'war crime', but that just means all WW2 nations did it. And Japan and Germany (and Soviets) also did mass crimes against civilians for even less military reasons.
> Consequently, alternative considerations like that the bombings were a show of force with the Soviet Union as the target audience tend to get downplayed in the US, because it's harder to think of oneself as the good guy when you killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in one country in order to put fear into the leadership of another, unrelated country.
Its downplayed because the historical evidence for it as a main reason is very small.
Ground invasion vs. atomic bombings is a false dichotomy.
Quoting the US strategic bombing survey: "Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, 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."
I think you are right for a reason other than the one you are giving here. At the time, there were considerable and growing doubts that invasion was at all feasible at any cost.
The bombing survey was only, and could only have been, conducted after the surrender and during the subsequent occupation. The information available at the time, such as the all-out defense of Okinawa and Japan's preparations for doing the same throughout the main islands, was making invasion untenable. Earlier assumptions about the ability of the allies to bring to bear superior force no longer seemed realistic. [1]
What about a negotiations? Japan was showing no interest in negotiations, and intercepted diplomatic communications confirmed this. Equally importantly, the allies were opposed to anything less than unconditional surrender because the armistice of 1918 had set the stage for WWII. In addition, there were considerable and realistic doubts that the Japanese military, still occupying a wide swath of Asia, would accept the outcome of such negotiations.
There was a fourth option - a naval blockade, promoted by Admiral King - and that was apparently expected to kill far more Japanese than either an invasion (insofar as it was feasible at all) or a nuclear attack with the two bombs then available.
As for a demonstration of nuclear weapons: with only two available, if their use failed to bring about a surrender, it would be back to square one for several months. It was not beyond every ethical principle to think that, if these bombs were used, it should be done in a way that maximized their likelihood of ending the war. As it happens, even the bombing of Hiroshima did not seem to bring about meaningful change in the Japanese leadership's position.
As we are discussing the ethics of the decision, we should put aside ex post facto judgement such as that from the bombing survey, but also ask whether the cost in Japanese lives was given much consideration in Washington. I have not seen anything definitive either way, and I am sure Japanese lives did not count as equal to allied ones, but it seems clear that, out of what seemed to be the feasible alternatives available, the use of nuclear bombs did not stand out in terms of civilian casualties and human suffering.
[1] Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire.
It took Hirohito to block this form happening, and even then, one of the junta groups in the army tried to force a coup.
And we have basically no historical example where traditional bombing leads to that outcome.
Note that I'm not criticizing the choice to drop the nukes, I'm arguing against the belief (that many people still hold now, with the benefit of hindsight) that it was necessary and saved lifes.
Could you maybe point out what exactly in my post makes you belief that?
What I said is that a survey by/for the US government itself came to the conclusion that the atomic bombs were not necessary to effect a surrender in 1945, NOR a ground invasion.
https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/di...
"[August 9] The news of the Soviet offensive sent the Supreme Council into urgent session, with Prime Minster Suzuki and Minster of Foreign Affairs Togo coming out in favor of opening a negotiating channel to the United States via Switzerland and Sweden, along with Navy Minister Yonai. Togo’s proposal to accept the Potsdam Declaration with the condition that the emperor’s position be preserved (something the declaration did not specifically address). The hardliners countered with a proposal that added additional conditions (which the Allies would certainly reject). [IIRC, these conditions were 1. No occupation of Japan, 2. The Japanese would handle the demobilization of their armies, and 3. The Japanese would perform their own war crimes investigations and trials.] As the discussion was going on, General Amani and General Umezu were secretly taking steps to implement martial law to prevent any such negotiations from happening at all. [I do not believe this was the same conspiracy as the attempted military coup several days later to prevent the emperor from broadcasting his surrender speech.] At 1030, Suzuki reported to the council that the emperor was in favor of ending the war quickly. Nevertheless, the council was still deadlocked 3–3 at 1100 when word of the Nagasaki bomb was received, and remained so even afterward.
"With the Supreme Council still deadlocked, the full cabinet met at 1430 on 9 August, again arriving at a 3–3 vote. Arguments raged in a series of meetings late into the night. Finally, Suzuki requested an impromptu imperial conference with the Supreme Council and the emperor, which commenced at midnight and continued until 0200. Finally, Suzuki informed the emperor that consensus was impossible and requested that Hirohito break the stalemate. The emperor sided with Togo’s proposal to make an offer to accept the Potsdam Declaration with the condition that the emperor’s position be preserved. Suzuki then implored the Supreme Council to accept the emperor’s will.
"On 10 August, the Japanese government sent a telegram via the Swiss, which was immediately intercepted by U.S. intelligence. As U.S. leaders evaluated the Japanese proposal, President Truman ordered a halt to the bombing of Japan and that the next use of an atomic bomb would require explicit presidential authorization (the second one didn’t). ...
"On 12 August, the United States responded to the Japanese offer, stating that “The ultimate form of government of Japan, in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration, to be established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people.” The Japanese found the response to be ambiguous, which it was, provoking more heated discussion in the Supreme Council whether to hold out for an “explicit guarantee” of the emperor’s position. ...
"On 13 August, U.S. B-29s dropped leaflets all over Japan, making public the Japanese proposal and the U.S. counterproposal. A strong case can be made that it was actually the psychological impact of this huge leaflet drop that tipped the balance (making it one of the most effective psyops campaigns in history), although by this time the full magnitude of the collapse of Japanese defenses in Manchuria and Sakhalin Islands was also known to the Supreme Council, which finally agreed that the language in the U.S. counterproposal was good enough. [There were more bombings of Japan at this time, as the Japanese surrender message to the Allies was sent encoded and there was an increase in military radio traffic.]
"At 2300 on 14 August (Tokyo time) the emperor made a gramophone recording reading his statement to the Japanese people of his decision to surrender (without ever actually using that word), which was to be broadcast to the Japanese people over the radio at noon on 15 August."
The Japanese government at the time gave most of the power to the military (2/3 to 1/3 in the Supreme Council (and more given the pre-war tradition of assassination)) and that council was deadlocked up until Prime Minister Suzuki requested the Emperor to break the deadlock---the only time he cast a vote in the council, as far as I know.
Ground invasion (either by the US or more likely by both the US and USSR, leading to a split North and South Japan akin to Eastern and Western Europe) vs. atomic bombings is indeed a false dichotomy; the third option (favored by the US Navy) was to simply continue the blockade of Japan, leading to mass starvation. Oh, and this whole situation is made more touchy by the fact that the Japanese Army had 1,500,000 (?) men in armies on the Asian mainland. One concern was that if the Japanese government did collapse, there would be no one in a position to tell the military in Japan and in Asia to stop fighting.
Here's the deal about the USSBS: it's massive. The US let a big stack of social scientists and operations researchers loose and took everything they produced as part of it. And then wrote conclusions that accept parts of it and contradict others. If you want a conclusion, you can find it in there somewhere.
I do not know of any serious historians who accept the idea that Japan would have surrendered before the end of 1945 without any outside push. Certainly, they didn't seem to be in any particular rush even with the pushes.
Oh, and about just not using the atomic bombs? Truman addressed this later: what are you going to tell the parents of the soldiers who are killed after Aug 10? This particular war has been going on since 1937 (if not 1931); tens of millions of people have been killed. And you chose not to use a weapon that could have ended it?
I do agree that after the firebombing talked about here that I don't see a huge change caused by atomic weapons (more efficient ways of dealing mass death than what we were already doing with more effort), but it seems that both sides felt that it did change things. So without having insight that we are not sure of even with the benefit of hindsight, I am not sure I can fault those in charge for thinking this might save lives (Japanese as well as American).
Note: I don't give credit for that sort of thinking to Curtis LeMay; he was just in it to kill the enemy faster (i.e.: a psychopath).
What if Japan has just never surrendered? Would that have been justification to drop an atomic bomb on every civilian population center one after another?
Japan never posed serious risk to the US in the first place.
> That's one of the main things that makes it feel hard to justify further mass killing of civilians.
Japan had occupied much of East Asia including large parts of China and was conducting absolutely brutal campaigns of repression.
> What if Japan has just never surrendered? Would that have been justification to drop an atomic bomb on every civilian population center one after another?
The justification is that as soon as you stop containing them in their island. They would instantly start to go on the offensive again.
Long term containment was considered by the US Navy as an alternative, but it would hardly be less brutal then nukes.
What would you have the US do, simply say, well I guess you learn your lessen and go home. Leave Japan to reconquer East Asia again after a few years?
The nukes were worthwhile to try because they had the capability of totally shifting the political conversation inside of Japan, and they did.
Each attack and action had to be individually considered one after another. If nukes would not have shifted to strategic calculation, potentially another policy would have been attempted.
After World War 1 Germany surrendered. That did not result in a good outcome.
After Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein never invaded Kuwait again. Not that he didn't want to of course, but he was easily contained by a superior military coalition.
Even if they wanted to fight to the last man, the most hawkish Japanese military heads would have considered it infeasible to strike out again after WW2. Before Pearl Harbor they already knew the US was stronger than Japan, and that the gap would only widen as time went on. Japan's confidence was in large part due to the alliance with Germany and the belief that Germany would win the war in the European theater. That opportunity (if you want to call it that) was never going to happen again.
Germany accepted a temporary cease fire and because of that and economic blockade their society collapse throwing them into social revolution. That forced the government to accept unconditional surrender.
> Even if they wanted to fight to the last man, the most hawkish Japanese military heads would have considered it infeasible to strike out again after WW2.
You would be surprised how fast countries can rebound. See Germany and Russia in WW2. Literally everybody in the free world believed that it would be insane to fight another war like that but just 10-15 years after WW1 both countries were hell bent on overthrowing the WW1 world.
And its almost 100% certain that a 'stab in the back' type legend would have developed in Japan too.
And having an enemy that is just waiting for the next opportunity to start a war again, isn't exactly a great strategy in foreign relations.
Which is exactly why the Allied forces agreed to only accept a unconditional surrender.
Most people arguing "Japan would have surrendered anyway" are basing their argument on the Japanese trying to negotiate a conditional surrender.
At the end of the war, Japan had over 1,000,000 soldiers in China alone.
I think in some way Afghanistan is an example of what could have happened if Japan never surrendered: years of insurgency, loss of life on both sides, and maybe after twenty years the USA, having had enough, would have left the country.
I think that in the end it worked better for Japanese than Afghans, although some the latter can boast to have beaten the American.
In Japan its very unlikely to work out anything like Afghanistan. Once the Japan government was defeated, its unlikely you would have seen a popular insurgency in Japan.
And in Japan an island dominated by allied navies such efforts cold not be sustained anyway.
The result could have been "warlord" led militaries seeking to establish their own territories and fighting with others. Not unlike Afghanistan or China in the 1920s and 1930s, or some other failed states around the world.
The wiki quotes him as saying: "I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal."(https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/peopleevents/pandeAMEX61....)
Did not stop him doing it to North Korea and he was unable to get WWIII off the ground, thank goodness.
Some redemption for his role in the Berlin airlift. Particularly for passing the job over to one better qualified.
A complex character - I wanted to find a psychopath, but simply a mass murderer.
I can see how that belief is appealing, but from what I know the facts do not really support it and the truth is more inconvenient.
«Nuclear bombing was used not to end the war and save lives, but for ... because ...»
Of course this is clearer in retrospect.
The US was aware that the Soviets would not renew the nonaggression pact, having negotiated it with Stalin in Yalta in February 1945, and with the Soviet Union denouncing the pact in April. It's possible that the bombs allowed the US to mostly ignore Soviet interests in setting the terms of the surrender, which would have a positive effect, but otherwise, I'm not as sure as most Americans that the atomic bombings were necessary.
Japan was already done either way. USSR squashed the 1M+ strong Quandong army in a matter of days Several days more or less - that didn't matter. The bombings weren't the last shot of WWII. They were the first shot of the Cold War establishing its battle lines in that region.
And the troupes in Japan were not at all like the army left on the continent.
The problem is that Japan is not self sufficient in food or much of anything else required for a modern economy.
The policy you advocate would have essentially turned back the clock and made Japan into a feudal kingdom with 1/10 the population. It would have been a mass starvation way beyond any blockade of Germany or other modern starvation's.
At the same time, massive amounts of Allied (mostly Chinese) POW would be die. The Japanese army in China and Korea would likely have continued and intensified their war on the local population. Revenge on local population for supposed help of the allies was something Japan did all the time.
At the same time it would have required the stationing of a gigantic navy and air force all over East Asia for potentially decades. Japan soldiers were still all over East Asia and had to be contained everywhere.
They would have started leaving their bases and attempting to extract food from local populations. Japanese bases all over East Asia would turn into quasi independent military dictatorships trying to insure their own survival.
There were still active soldiers in 1974 who didn't know Japan had fallen. The had to fly the commanding officer who had been 20 years retired in an old uniform to the island to get the guy to stop fighting. Now imagine that sort of thing the whole Japanese army in East Asia.
I do know that Japanese agriculture had completely collapsed by 1945 and millions would have starved to death had the war been extended. An extended blockade would likely have been worse than the bombing.
The prewar US trade restrictions/ blockade had a lot to do with Japan believing war with the US was inevitable, and that pearl harbor was a smart strategic target while no one expected an attack and while so many eggs were still in one basket.
Not in the case of total war it can't. Such a conflict is a fight to the end, everyone dies or someone surrenders. The civilians are part of the production machine enabling the war on both sides and are legitimate targets, even if it's a horrible aspect to total war. The war in Europe and the war in Asia were both clear cases of total war (which is why Nazi Germany ended with Hitler blowing his brains out and why it took two nukes to get Japan to surrender, they were going all the way to the end with their war causes to the extent they could do it).
After what Japan had done in Asia, and having had to go to such great lengths to defeat Japan, the only rational thing to do was to force a complete surrender upon them and remake their nation to debase the military as the primary influence over the nation at that time. Going back and having to deal with the Empire of Japan again in another 20 years would have been obscene (both for the US and for Asia generally).
As the US had gained increased bombing capabilities over their territory, Japan had figured out to decentralize their war-making production to smaller buildings and households. In doing so, they further legitimized targeting their civilian areas. Japan was preparing to go to the end, the death of every one of its citizens.
It's obvious I (and many others outside the US) disagree.
The US government has opened up a lot of documentation, we have a deeper insight into that process then most things in history. And pretty much all historians who look at it come to the same conclusion.
There is no rule that says that.
You'll have a hard time convincing most people that way, thankfully, though I'm sure it does work for convincing some.
It was very well documented that the entire push of the United States government was to involve Russia in the pacific theater. Major concessions had been given to get the Stalinist government to do so. While there certainly were hawks that viewed this as opportune to keep the communists in bay, the documentary evidence drives to the opposite conclusion.
Conveniently forgetting about the enormous population of China and the rest of Asia subject to the depredations of the Imperial Japanese Army, who also overwhelmingly approve of the atomic bombings. I have relatives who lived during the war or its aftermath and, needless to say, they do not share your concerns in the slightest.
IMO, it's more accurate to say that the handwringing over the bombings is a small minority of Westerners advocating fringe theories that try to paint Japan as a victim rather than an aggressor.
I'm sure Japan, through their crimes, earned the hatred of many countries in Asia which welcomed the atomic bombings as retribution.
But the narrative I'm mostly arguing against is not that many welcomed the bombings, but the specific American narrative that there was no other way and that they "saved Japanese lives".
If you want to argue the Japanese (civilians and all) deserved it, that's a separate conversation.
They basically were 2 alternative.
US Army wanted an invasion of main land Japan.
US Navy wanted a longer term blockade that would literally lead to mass starvation and basically transform Japan back the Shogunate period in terms of population.
A good argument can be made that both of these would have lead to far more deaths.
> Please tell us what other strategy you advocate.
"Tell us": who is "us"? In any case, I'm thankfully not in the situation to decide, nor am I an armchair general, so I'll have to excuse myself from invading or bombing Japan.
To state my position once again: the narrative popular in the US, that the atomic bombings were justified as a terrible necessity and that they actually saved lives ("Japanese lives", like someone else stated) is only popular in the US, and it exists mostly to enable them to retain their sense of being the good guys. Other countries, unburdened by the necessity of always making the US look like the good guys, don't favor this particular narrative.
People in the comment section of this forum where we are having an argument about this situation.
> In any case, I'm thankfully not in the situation to decide, nor am I an armchair general, so I'll have to excuse myself from invading or bombing Japan.
Seems like the simple way out.
> is only popular in the US
Its actually popular with everybody who has studied WW2 in detail. I'm European and I watch content by other Europeans who agree with the argument.
In terms of popular opinion, I don't think most nations think about it much at all.
> it exists mostly to enable them to retain their sense of being the good guys
I disagree. You can be the good guy without arguing that it was the better option for Japan.
> Other countries, unburdened by the necessity of always making the US look like the good guys, don't favor this particular narrative.
Its a simple matter of military strategy. Anybody that has studied military history can engaged in those arguments. Ending a war is difficult, and threw-out history we see different how they can end.
Looking at the strategic options at the time and doing the best you can at evaluating the potential casualties will lead you to the conclusion that you don't seem to like.
If you disagree with that assessment, then you have to make an argument for an alternative strategy that would have saved more people.
Argument like that could potentially be made. One might argue for example that going away from unconditional surrender, and trying to make some kind of deal where Japan could keep Korea or something like that could have been made.
But again, you actually have to make that argument if you want to be the a moral critic.
You're arguing against a position that the person you're arguing against hasn't taken.
Well, if you have it all figured out, why engage with me in conversation?
> Its actually popular with everybody who has studied WW2 in detail
This is false, and an empty assertion. So the people who disagree with you haven't studied WW2 in detail? A variant of the "all non-populist historians agree that [...]".
I don't have it figured out. What I am trying to do is explain your policy. I'm trying to get you to commit to an actual viable policy rather then doing moral grandstanding.
> This is false, and an empty assertion. So the people who disagree with you haven't studied WW2 in detail? A variant of the "all non-populist historians agree that [...]".
It reflects my own experience with studying the topic, in media, books, podcast, forums and so on.
And generally the people who disagree refuse to make detailed historical argument or proposing alternative solutions and just relay on moral grandstanding.
Most of the students go into it thinking like you.
Nearly all of them change their mind once they look more deeply at the evidence.
The atomic bombings are a classic case where the popular assumed narrative differs significantly from the facts.
And that’s the reason this is assigned as an essay topic. The idea is to sober up the students a little bit and help them understand that their neat worldviews (USA bad!) are not reflected in the messy reality.
> [...] help them understand that their neat worldviews (USA bad!)
I don't know about Australian students, but at least I am not saying "USA bad". I'm describing a particular narrative about the atomic bombings as being fueled by the necessity of Americans to sustain their perception of always being the good guys.
For some reason some people read this and conclude I believe the US were the bad guys.
I obviously believe the atomic bombings were a war crime; but more generally, I do not believe the US were the bad guys in WW2. All moral grays and downright immoral actions committed aside, the US was on the good side of that war, and Japan on the bad side. I hope that clears up that part of my position.
Or they could have offered Japan a conditional surrender rather than insisting on an "unconditional" one and then letting them keep their emporer anyway. Japan was already looking desperately for ways to surrender.
1. The form of the Japanese government remains unchanged. (I.e. the Emperor is guaranteed to remain emperor. This was not agreed to, but it did work out that way.)
2. Japan was not to be occupied.
3. Japan would be responsible for demobilizing its own forces.
4. Japan would be responsible for investigations and trials of war crimes.
You comfortable with those?
However, let's assume this is the only deal Japanese leaders would have accepted. Our discomfort about these conditions should be weighed against the discomfort of killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in bombing raids and dropping nuclear bombs on two cities. It's kind of hard to argue, for example, that an overriding concern about war crimes is why you'd have to bomb civilians.
That decision had been made long before 1945. A pocket timeline of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 (officially) - 1945) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War)
1931 Japanese military manufacture a casus belli (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukden_Incident) and invade Manchuria, defeating the Chinese and occupying it. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasion_of_Manchuria)
1937 Yet another incident reignites the war, leading to the capture of Shanghai (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shanghai), the capture of Beijing, and the capture of Nanjing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre): ("Because of the myriad of factors, death toll estimates vary from 40,000 to over 300,000, with rape cases ranging from 20,000 to over 80,000 cases. However, the most sophisticated and credible scholars in Japan, which include a large number of authoritative academics, support the validity of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and its findings, which estimate at least 200,000 casualties and at least 20,000 cases of rape.").
Some additional info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to_kill_100_people_usi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre#Rape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre#Nanking_Safet...
(I mention those because they make it perfectly clear that the Japanese people knew about the activities of the military in China.)
These activities resulted in an international response (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shanghai#Internation...), but nothing resulted until after the Japanese takeover of what was then French Indochina. Then, trade restrictions and an embargo resulted in Japan's attack on the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_o...).
"Some historical estimates of the number of deaths which resulted from Japanese war crimes range from 3 to 14 million through massacre, human experimentation, starvation, and forced labor that was either directly perpetrated or condoned by the Japanese military and government." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes)
Now, I realize you've said you acknowledge Japan's war crimes, and you might even invoke the sunk cost fallacy: those people were already dead. However, there are two points you seem to be missing: the goal of the allies with their "unconditional surrender" terms were the removal of governments that had repeatedly demonstrated that they were militarily aggressive and their replacement with governments that were not (successfully, I might add), and by the scale of Japan's own actions in the war that "discomfort" is a drop in the bucket.
Think about the implications of what #1 is and what you're saying. The European theater equivalent would have been to leave Nazi Germany's government intact with Hitler as its head. If that's an acceptable deal to you, well, you're probably not going to find a lot of people to stand with you.
Defender want to save people lives and protect status quo.
> But the narrative I'm mostly arguing against is not that many welcomed the bombings, but the specific American narrative that there was no other way and that they "saved Japanese lives".
Yep.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46147777
In the US educational system you'll learn much more about the atomic bomb than Nanking or anything Japan did. I suspect this is due to China being a Cold War adversary. Chinese intervention in the Korean War makes much more sense when you consider China's security concerns.
No one wants hostile foreign troops on their border. I see parallels in Ukraine. Russia really doesn't want NATO to encircled them. We would have problems with Russian troops stationed in Toronto.
This is still recent history.
I recall a Filipino man telling me his grandfather forbid him from marrying a Japanese woman.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_famine_of_1945
It can be argued that had the war lasted any longer millions would of starved. In fact even if we just blockaded Japan, mass starvation would of killed millions.
The post war Marshall Plan is above and beyond one of the greatest things we've done as a country.
Ukraine don't want members of Russian Federation and it allies to encircle Ukraine, so we are going to liberate Belarus and take Kuban back. The only important thing for us is what WE want, isn't?
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...
> NATO
US ≠ NATO
RF ≠ USSR
Gorbachev ≠ Pukin
Sorry, what gives you (or anyone else) the right to speak for the "prevalent view" in the entire rest of the world outside of the US? In my experience, many Western Europeans love to decry American arrogance (okay some truth to that), but then go on to themselves claim the right to speak for the entire rest of the world. There are a great many countries in the world, and they all have the right to speak for themselves.
Some may have had the luck to have not suffered too horribly for various reasons during WWII. Other have suffered horribly under the Axis powers, and don't decry the brutal tactics that were sometimes needed to win the war against a far more brutal enemy as soon as possible.
Outside of the US is a big place, do you have some source to argue that this is prevalent view as a whole, and not just the prevalent view in whichever corner of the earth you happen to be in?
There is a secondary view that it was done to an eye of using the bomb as a threat to Stalin, but all research of the decision makers does not reveal this to be the case. In fact, the research shows over and over that the Americans where desperate to get the Russians into the pacific theater. The view that the use of the atomic bomb was a effort to threaten Stalin and keep the Russians from the war was popularized by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's book in 2005, but that book has been pretty much discredited in historical communities.
A example analysis is here: https://www.bu.edu/historic/hs/kort.html
It's also not that the United States opinion diverges from much of the world. Outside of Japan, most countries have a similar percentage of people who view that it was justified or not. (79% of Japanese thing it was unjustified versus 44% of Americans).
"Non-populist" historians is a weasel word that will let you discard any historian's opinion that doesn't fit your thesis. I propose we simply divide between "American" and "not American", which is more objective.
> It's also not that the United States opinion diverges from much of the world.
That's wrong, most of the world disagrees with the "terrible necessity" narrative which is so popular in the US. Of course Japan disagrees with it, being on the receiving end (and having their own blind spots to their crimes), but the rest of the world disagrees as well.
It's normal, the US is fixated on a single narrative that lets them cling to the belief they are always the good guys. Any other country would do the same, agreed -- everyone is the hero of their own story. But only one country dropped two atomic bombs on civilian populations.
Nobody has to convince you of anything. But if you want to be taken seriously in this forum, you have to convince us. You don't appear to be trying.
>most of the world disagrees with the "terrible necessity" narrative
Thank you for speaking for me and most of the world. I assume you have "references of supporting and opposing works"?
Arguably? not sure there is anything 'arguably' about Japan's intentions and actions in China.
PS: I am European.
Sure, but then the discussion would be around the morality of demolishing the capital of Japan with a manmade tsunami, so I guess I'm not sure I see what that would help?
I think Japan was on the verge of surrender anyway, just some careful wording and additional pressure from the Soviet Union's military might would have done it.
If this was truly about saving lives, like the traditional American narrative goes, then surely some concessions that allowed their emperor to save face would have been warranted.
If, on the contrary, testing the bomb on civilian populations and infrastructure was the priority, it stands to reason imposing harder conditions on surrender would be the course of action.
What's your evidence for this. From what we can tell from the knowledge of the people that actually matter in Japan, they were not that close to surrender.
Even if you had gone away from Unconditional surrender they were not close to a majority.
Even after 2 nuclear bombs, the peace party didn't have a majority, it required the emperor taking a direct political role against the war party to manage getting negotiations.
Soviets were just mopping up in Northern Asia, they were no thread to a Homeland of Japan. At best Soviets was a hope held up by some in the War Party, that if somehow they would flip against the US with them.
> If this was truly about saving lives, like the traditional American narrative goes
It was about saving AMERICAN lives back then. And it did.
Some, in this very comments section, have argued it saved Japanese lives. I certainly have heard this argued elsewhere, too.
If it was just about American lives, ok, maybe. Sounds better than an invasion of mainland Japan, sure. Maybe there were even better alternatives. An hypothetical weapon which could simply evaporate all of Japan with all the people inside would also have saved American lives, but it doesn't seem so good, does it? The measure of "saving American lives" is a tricky one, and not every option is justified.
But it certainty was not a justification made back then. I don't think anybody argued people back then were considering that.
> Maybe there were even better alternatives.
If you disagree with the strategy followed, your argument would be more powerful if you had an alternative strategy that would have been more human.
I am very open to alternative strategies. I have fought about it a lot, but I don't really see it.
> An hypothetical weapon which could simply evaporate all of Japan with all the people inside would also have saved American lives, but it doesn't seem so good, does it?
Japan had 77 million people around there. If such a weapon existed. How many million Americans would you sacrifice in order not to use that weapon?
Would you for example kill everybody in New York even if 10-20 million would die anyway?
What is the calculation you would actually make if you were in the position. How many American 20 something would you sacrifice per Japanese civilian.
And how do you measure Japanese victims in China, Korea and other places that were suffering many causalities with every additional day of the war.
Truman said no.
It can not be perceived as a sane argument, after Allies had to deal with Germans in Europe.
There's been some effort to recast the official Japanese response to the Potsdam declaring (黙殺) as ignoring instead of "be silent with contempt" - but the modern historical view was that Japan had used 黙殺 in the context that it was intended, and intended to ignore any further calls for surrender.
In terms of unconditional surrender - the Allies had agreed on that standard because of the end of World War 1. The conditional nature of the end of that war led to the "stabbed in the back" myth that Hitler rode to power
I agree, if they were 'about to surrender' they would have surrendered after the first atomic bomb, but they didn't, and I believe they only surrendered after the second, because they assumed there would be a 3rd and 4th etc
Look at how many people that were killed on Okinawa - which wasn't even the Japanese homeland - does anyone really believe that the Japanese wouldn't have rallied every man, woman and child to defend their homeland once Americans started a ground invasion? I believe lives were saved.
It would have infuriated the Chinese and other Asian allies of the Allied powers. Granted, they might not have immediately been able to do anything about it but, as later wars and economic growth in the region showed, they were far from impotent and the Allies had to look toward the post-war future.
Just gonna leave this here (from the wiki page)
> Many of the Allied airmen who were captured after being shot down over Japan were mistreated. On 8 September 1944, the Cabinet of Japan directed that indiscriminate bombing constituted a war crime despite the fact there was no international treaty or instrument protecting a civilian population specifically from attack by aircraft at the time. As a result, captured Allied airmen were subject to trial and possible execution.
Don't wish to discuss whether it was morally right or wrong. Just pointing out it's difficult to call something a "crime" if there was limited legal basis for it (no international treaty) at the time.
Let's not judge the people of yesteryear by today's moral standards. I sure as shit don't want to be judged on some of the stuff I've done based on standards in 70 years time.
Edit: Also, war is hell.
There was the Hague Conventions from 1899/1907, specifically IV, that does exactly that.
You are unaware of the Nuremberg trials, it seems?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Order_No._154#Nuremberg_tr...
Also, definitely IANAL.
> Just pointing out it's difficult to call something a "crime" if there was limited legal basis for it (no international treaty) at the time.
I can't help but wonder if you'd find it equally difficult if someone calls certain actions of the Nazis a crime -- assuming there was limited legal basis for it (no international treaty) at the time, etc.
Or is it only difficult when we're talking about American crimes?
More accurate.
Maybe they even say "some people did something" about the Nanking Massacre, or the Korean comfort women.
- Reasons for the atomic bombings of Japan, and whether many Americans are self-deluded about their actual reasons (like I'm arguing).
- The horrible crimes Japan committed during WW2, and some alleged "defense" of Japan maybe? (As far as I know, everyone today knows about the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan death march, and the forced prostitution of Korean women).
It's possible to believe both that the atomic bombings of Japan were a terrible crime (and that Americans delude themselves about said bombings) and also that Japan committed heinous crimes and that it's good that it lost the war.
> but the ones who believe like you are mostly Western European and Canadian 20-something socialists
I'm none of those.
Japan track record during the war is on par with Nazi Germany when it comes to genocide, mass killings of civilians, war of aggression, etc.
And it took two atomic bombs and even then Japan took time to capitulate.
The US could have just blockaded Japan and starved them out but is hundreds of thousands of civilian dead from starvation any better?
It's a good thing that the US did not lose the war, as otherwise the large part of the planet would be living under a xenophobic/racist, totalitarian regime that viewed foreigners of little value and did experimentation on human subjects:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
The Japanese War Council were not planning on surrendering after the first atomic bomb:
> The Japanese Army and Navy had their own independent atomic-bomb programs and therefore the Japanese understood enough to know how very difficult building it would be. Therefore, many Japanese and in particular the military members of the government refused to believe the United States had built an atomic bomb, and the Japanese military ordered their own independent tests to determine the cause of Hiroshima's destruction.[84] Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, argued that even if the United States had made one, they could not have many more.[85] American strategists, having anticipated a reaction like Toyoda's, planned to drop a second bomb shortly after the first, to convince the Japanese that the U.S. had a large supply.[61][86]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan#Hiroshima,_...
Even after the second bomb there was still some disagreement:
> In the middle of the meeting, shortly after 11:00, news arrived that Nagasaki, on the west coast of Kyūshū, had been hit by a second atomic bomb (called "Fat Man" by the United States). By the time the meeting ended, the Big Six had split 3–3. Suzuki, Tōgō, and Admiral Yonai favored Tōgō's one additional condition to Potsdam, while General Anami, General Umezu, and Admiral Toyoda insisted on three further terms that modified Potsdam: that Japan handle their own disarmament, that Japan deal with any Japanese war criminals, and that there be no occupation of Japan.[96]
* Ibid
And even after the Emperor ordered the cessation of hostilities (note: he never used the word "surrender" in his address) there were still elements in Japan who wanted to fight:
It seems you're under the impression I was arguing the Japanese weren't war criminals with many of their WW2 actions or that I believe they ought to have won the war, or at least that I believe the US ought to have lost WW2, or some variation of that.
But if you read carefully what I wrote, I'm saying nothing of the sort, am I? I'm arguing about the atomic bombings and American beliefs about their justification.
So spare me the description of Japanese war crimes: I'm aware of them and I wouldn't want to live in a world where Imperial Japan had won WW2.
This is not complicated: the justification was it ended the war faster and reduced further death and destruction.
The Japanese were not planning on surrendering before the any atomic bombs were dropped. They were not planning to surrender after the first atomic bomb was dropped. They only just started to waver after the second.
There would be a lot more suffering as the US slogged their way through the Home Islands:
> In addition, the Japanese had organized the Volunteer Fighting Corps, which included all healthy men aged 15 to 60 and women 17 to 40 for a total of 28 million people, for combat support and, later, combat jobs. Weapons, training and uniforms were generally lacking: many were armed with nothing better than antiquated firearms, molotov cocktails, longbows, swords, knives, bamboo or wooden spears, and even clubs and truncheons: they were expected to make do with what they had.[63][64] One mobilized high school girl, Yukiko Kasai, found herself issued an awl and told, "Even killing one American soldier will do. ... You must aim for the abdomen."[65] They were expected to serve as a "second defense line" during the Allied invasion, and to conduct guerrilla warfare in urban areas and mountains.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Ground_forc...
Dropping the atomic bombs saved lives, both American and Japanese (and others), over the alternatives.
I don't understand what you think this paragraph adds to the conversation. It obviously is complicated, since this is what I've been arguing against for dozens of comments now: the rest of the world outside the US doesn't agree with this explanation.
You don't have to take anything the Americans said into account, but to merely look at the actions of the Japanese themselves:
Two atomic bombs being dropped on them was not decisive in getting the Cabinet to decide to surrender. It took the Emperor's involvement to break the deadlock and even then there was a coup attempt to stop the surrender:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyūjō_incident
And even those things were only barely over the line:
> When word of the emperor’s decision reached General Toroshiro Kawabe, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Imperial Army, he noted in his diary that he concurred with another senior general in doubting that the overseas commanders would comply with the emperor’s order. That these officers correctly doubted even an order from the emperor would secure compliance with key parts of the armed forces, was swiftly confirmed by messages from the commanders in China and the Southern Area, declaring they would not comply with the surrender. Their commands mustered between a quarter and a third of all Japanese servicemen. It took Hirohito’s personal emissaries to persuade these commands to surrender.
* https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japans-surren...
Those two reasons are IMHO sufficient to me (as a non-American).
How else would you get the Japanese to surrender? AFAICT, this could have been done in the (i) 'traditional' way with troops invading the Home Islands, or (ii) with the atomic bomb. The estimates on the land invasion:
> The U.S. Sixth Army, which would invade and occupy Kyushu, estimated 124,935 U.S. battle casualties, including 25,000 dead, plus 269,000 non-battle casualties (disease, accident, etc.) for Kyushu alone. The JCS came up with an estimate that a 90-day campaign on Kyushu would cost 156-175,000 battle casualties, with 38,000 killed in action. By late July, the JCS was forecasting 500,000 casualties at the high end and 100,000 at the low end. In late July 1945, the War Department provided an estimate that the entire Downfall operations would cause between 1.7 to 4 million U.S. casualties, including 400-800,000 U.S. dead, and 5 to 10 million Japanese dead. (Given that the initial Downfall plan called for 1,792,700 troops to go ashore in Japan, this estimate is indeed most sobering, and suggests many more troops than planned would need to be fed into a meat grinder).
* https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/di...
The US (Truman and others) concluded that they were not willing to have Allied troops suffer just the Japanese refused to accept the reality that they were beaten (which the Japanese knew themselves in 1944). And while the deaths of a few hundred thousand Japanese from the atomic bombs is regrettable, the lives of several more million Japanese were spared.
What other method(s) of ending the war with Japan do you use besides the above (i) or (ii) above?
Please, I'm curious to know, what scenarios you / "the rest of the world outside the US" think were possible. Can you outline them?
I'm just pointing out few outside the US believe in the narrative that the atomic bombings were used "to save lives" and therefore justified.
You want to drag this conversation into something it's not. I also invite you to read the other threads of this discussion, I'm not going to rehash it for you here.
I'm well aware of the literature on the subject. A non-exhaustive list of various books on the various positions is available in this handy thread:
You seem to want me to rehash my position (also asserting "it's not that complicated") when it's obvious it is complicated (otherwise people wouldn't hold disagreements so strongly, even here) and also you could simply read about my position or other's in this very comments section of HN.
The fact you mistook the position under discussion to be about Japanese crimes (which is why you so vehemently described them), when it was about alleged justifications for the atomic bombings, also makes me think it's indeed a complicated topic.
What I am telling you is that I am not going to rehash my position again for your benefit. Read it elsewhere in this comments section. If you feel like you must simply restate what others have already said, maybe don't? It adds nothing to the conversation.
But how is that an alternative? Showing force to Soviet Union would ALSO save millions of lives.
I find that kind of reasoning troubling. It can be used to justify pretty awful things. This is a completely made up example for the sake of argument, a reduction to the absurd, but suppose they decide that vaporizing Africa, Asia and parts of Europe is better for world peace long-term... should they do it? "Sure, billions will die, but trust us that long term more lives will be saved in the coming centuries". Ok, so do we push the red button then?
I'm uninterested in that, but let me give you a limited response in two parts:
1. I consider nuking a major city a war crime, regardless of who does it (the US, Russia or Ukraine).
2. If Ukraine or Russia nuke any city there will be world trouble of the sort that will make our little conversation here irrelevant. So pray it doesn't happen.
Thankfully this scenario is highly unlikely.
If RF will kill millions of Ukrainian with conventional weapons, like they did in 1932-1934, or capture and destroy another major city, like Grozny, it's OK for you. If Ukraine will do the same for RF in return, then it's war crime for you, because victim of conventional weapon ≠ victim of nuclear weapon. Right?
> Thankfully this scenario is highly unlikely.
Two nuclear nations are at war since 2014. Where you live?
I obviously see difference, but a war crime is a war crime.
> Where you live?
A world in which neither the Ukraine nor Russia are stupid enough to risk nuclear escalation and obliteration.
Where do you?
> Where do you?
In the world where RF is stupid enough to invade the nuclear country.
I'm from Ukraine.
To be fair, the only one even considering using nuclear weapons seems to be you, here on HN. No military or political planners are considering it because nobody wants to see Europe devastated in a nuclear war, and everyone understands this, which is why -- if there is war, hopefully not! -- it won't be nuclear.
If you think about it, YOU, an Ukrainian, don't really want Ukraine to attack Russia with nukes. Why? Because then you'd be dead, plain and simple.
During WW2 US gave to Soviet Union materials, newest machines and technological secrets(including technology and materials of atomic bomb, that supplemented and sped up development of Soviet Union atomic bomb project), what other allies of US did not receive. This narrative, that US was bombing Japan, to put Soviet Union in fear does not account for that Soviet Union had infiltrated US, that even US president was not working for US, but for Soviet Union. Even nowadays those US traitors, that gave away more, that what was agreed on Lend-Lease, have not been prosecuted, because their positions were top positions and their deed and betrayal of US is not common knowledge to modern Americans.
We can also look from that side, that USSR was unreliable ally(also to Third Reich, which USSR was preparing to invade, while it hoped that it was busy invading Britain) and did not want to enter war with Japanese, who at that point still controlled Manchuria, Korea and very large parts of China. They only entered war, because they realised, that they might miss out on piece of Japanese territories, because US would make their own peace and Japan would surrender wholly to US - only because of those atomic bombs.
For those that would think, that USSR was sparing their troops - it has not been concern of USSR until the day it collapsed and was not concern for Stalin, when he was postponing attack on Japan, like he was playing with Germans.
This has been thoroughly debunked by most mainstream historians.
The view that the USSR had infiltrated the US and was commandeering its war effort during WW2 is so fringe I'm not touching it with a ten feet pole.
You're not the only one, but most of the people who believe like you are Americans. Outside the US the prevalent view is pretty much against those atomic bombings; had the US lost the war, the people who ordered those bombings would have been found guilty of war crimes and hanged.
My own subjective opinion is that the US needs this narrative of "but we ended up saving lives", because anything else would run contrary to their own self image of "we are always the good guys".
Consequently, alternative considerations like that the bombings were a show of force with the Soviet Union as the target audience tend to get downplayed in the US, because it's harder to think of oneself as the good guy when you killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in one country in order to put fear into the leadership of another, unrelated country.