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.
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.