As early as mid-1944, the cabinet accepted that the war was unwinnable for them, and their strategy shifted to intransigent defence in the hope that by the time the U.S. cleared all the islands and showed up at the Home Islands, they'd be too exhausted to invade and would accept the above terms. At no time did they offer any terms of surrender less than the above, including after the dropping of the atomic bombs (according to the diary of the foreign minister Tojo). Indeed, after dropping both atomic bombs, half the cabinet still refused to surrender.
Can you tell me more about the status quo of 1935 and why that was a problem for the US or allies?
I know it is a different Japan that did brutal things in the region, but they didn't attack US then and they weren't doing.. anything relevant to the allies. The stuff in Europe was the issue.
am I missing something?
It's like saying Hitler would have made peace, as long as we let him have the Ukraine, and didn't mind all the jews he murdered.
There isn't a history to support that either outcome would have been an absurdity.
But it's worth noting that he did so, because Roosevelt, in his eyes, was the chief Agent of the jews.
So in other way, the United States did go to war because of murdered jews. But that is because he saw the United States as agents of the Jews.
yes, I'm reading about the order of events now. Germany declared war on US after US declared war on Japan. Germany's agreement with Japan did not provide for this kind of assurance if Japan attacked another country first. Hitler dismissed this reminder and had low regard for US military largely due to his blind hatred and belief that the country was weakened by Jewish and African Americans. whoops. what dumb ideas.
I get what you are saying, the reason I think it is a stretch to focus on the Jewish people murdered in Europe, is because the US mistreated them too, before, then and for decades after. It relies on retroactively applying sympathy towards Jewish people, to make it seem like the US and allies were actually involved for moral reasons, and morals reasons that included oppressed Jewish people. Liberating the camps was a stretch goal that occurred once soldiers busted into them and saw how dire it was first hand. People suspected, of course.
Taking Hitler's second book more at it's words - its more that Hitler desperately wanted to get Japan into the War to keep America out of the war long enough to knock Soviet Russia out. He committed to declaring war on America if Japan did (prior to 12/1) to try and get Japan to take the brunt of the damage up front front.
Hitler bet that like in 1918, it would simply take a long time for the USA to build up it's armament. But it's also clear that Hitler viewed the United States - as agents of World Jewry - and it's continent of resources as the ultimate opponent for a unified germanic Europe.
(The best source off the top of my head for this PoV is Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction).
You can say the same about Germany. They didn't go to war against France and England until they declared war on Germany.
If you compare the Japanese government after the end of the US occupation to the Japanese government in 1935, the difference is stark.
no foreign occupation of Japan The U.S. occupied Japan and had absolute rule over it
Japan surrenders occupied territories and returns to pre-war borders Japan was occupied by the U.S. and had zero territorial integrity or control over the Home Islands.
Japan handles their own disarmament The U.S. disarmed Japan and actually did so, rather than hide a bunch of war materials
prosecution of Japanese war criminals. The U.S. prosecuted many Japanese war criminals, rather than hold a few show trials.
retention of the Imperial gov't The Imperial gov't was disbanded and replaced with direct rule by McArthur until the new democratic structure was set up. A figurehead emperor was retained because it was useful to do so.
In short, the Japanese surrender terms had to do with Japan as a nation pulling back from its conquests and making some notional gestures at disarmament and prosecution of war criminals. What they got in the end was complete surrender to their enemy who rebuilt their nation the way the enemy decided to.
They were lucky insofar as the U.S. desire was to rebuild Japan as a prosperous democratic nation to serve as an eastern bulwark against communist expansion. The German plan for western Russia was to depopulate it and repopulate it with Germans.
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I heard of the relentless Japanese insurgency growing up. My own research did not produce that result for the time leading up to the atomic bomb and I find the atomic bombing unnecessary. It is noteworthy that I am not comparing potential death tolls. I am comparing ionizing radiation though and its long tail effects, to the lack of them.
I am also mostly of the opinion of the idea that Japan was going to surrender.
There were a lot of proposals between fire bombing and nuclear bombs, some of the proposals are actually hilarious and others are pretty interesting and some even seem practical.
My view of the atomic bombs were that they were dropped because we wanted to drop them. It doesn't cause me consternation to acknowledge that and I just wish other people would. We nuked two cities and told everyone else to never do it themselves, we even gave them their country back and let them whitewash all the education around the event, why not just say that? I view all of the moral and rationale arguments to be surprisingly juvenile, when at the end of the day we do things because we want to. Even when comparing potential allied lives saved, well, surprise!, we can still save allied lives by nuking everyone and its not an argument at all.