America dropping the A-bomb

[davos]

[quote]weren't hiroshima and nagasaki targeted because the US needed to generate before & after photos, as posted upthread, to demonstrate the effectiveness of each type of bomb? it would've been pointless to develop such photos of tokyo and so on because they'd already been destroyed conventionally. hiroshima & nagasaki, on the other hand, weren't military targets, even by a very liberal definition of the phrase, and therefore hadn't been attacked yet.[/quote]

there were military and industrial targets in both hiroshima and nagasaki. They pretty much had to beg Gen LeMay (a douchebag of cosmic proportions, but that is a whole other thread all-together) to spare those two cities from his firebombing campaign so there would be untouched targets for the a-bombs.

Japan would have likely surrendered at some point. there were forcing pushing for just that within the government. The war party still held sway but were clearly loosing ground rapidly. The hang up was largely over wanting a few symbolic concessions, such as allowing them to retain the Emporer as nominal head of state. Interestingly enough after the bombs were used we did end up allowing this. If the demand for unconditional surrender had not been kept as the only exceptable path, if only a few minor concessions had been offered through back channels it is reasonable to conclude that the balance of power with the Japanese government would have shifted to those who were willing to surrender. Basically its quite possible that the US did not have to give up anything of real value to end the war without using the a-bombs. Since those avenues were not explored at all its impossible to know for sure what would have happened. I regard it as a shame on this country that we used the bombs and brought further horror into a world that had far more than its fill of it over the prior 6 years instead of investigating a path to peace that included a few minor concessions. While using the bombs were likely preferable to a bloody invasion it is not at all clear that this was the choice Truman was presented with.

Basically we used the bombs for two reasons. One was to prevent the Soviets from getting a share of a future peace settlement with Japan but forcing a surrender before the red army could effectively become involved. We did not want to be forced to concede to a divided Japan. The second reason was that to show the world the new power we had acquired. We latter justified this with the saved lives by preventing invasion line. I regard neither motivation as sufficient justification for the killing of more than 100,000 (I forget the actual numbers killed by the a-bombs when cancer deaths are included) civilians.

[phoenix_rising]

What about the fact that japan had its own nuke program??? Maybe not deliverable by 1945 but still, japan had aircraft carrying submarines. The possibility of the west coast getting nuked was remote , but posssible. All haste for a japanese surrender was priority ONE. If the fact that russia claimed most of east "yourup" helped the decision to drop the chalupa on them, so be it.....

[davos]

[quote]What about the fact that japan had its own nuke program??? Maybe not deliverable by 1945 but still, japan had aircraft carrying submarines. The possibility of the west coast getting nuked was remote , but posssible. All haste for a japanese surrender was priority ONE. If the fact that russia claimed most of east "yourup" helped the decision to drop the chalupa on them, so be it.....[/quote]

the japanese nuclear program was far removed from having a bomb. There had been some development work but the government had never gotten behind it to any extent. No attempt had been made to create the massive industrial system needed to create sufficent weapons grade fissable material for bomb production. Fact is that Japan did not have the spare industrial capacity to even dream of such a project in wartime. Basically nuclear weapons were out of Japan's reach. It is ludicious to suggest that their nuclear program was a factor in deciding to use the US's nukes. It simply was not.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='sologdin' post='1617237' date='Dec 12 2008, 08.57']hiroshima & nagasaki, on the other hand, weren't military targets, even by a very liberal definition of the phrase, and therefore hadn't been attacked yet.[/quote]

Not a military target? Not even by a very liberal definition?

[i]"At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of some industrial and military significance. A number of military camps were located nearby, including the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. Hiroshima was a minor supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops."[/i]

[i]"The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials."[/i]

Courtesy of Wiki.

Seriously Solo, what are ya smoking?

[quote]wasn't the demand for unconditional surrender kinda perverse, both historically and strategically, insofar as it was engineered to guarantee a rejection, granting an illusory halo over the heads of the atomic bombers, who likely uttered some of the same self-serving dishonesties currently on display in this discussion? very similar to the engineered rejections by the taliban in 2001 and serbia in 1999 - US makes ridiculous demands, other side predictably rejects, US bombs with self-righteous indignation. it's very roman, i suppose, and therefore stylish.

how often had unconditional surrender been demanded in the past? what conditions did the japanese want to impose, besides retention of the imperial symbolism?[/quote]

So what exactly are you suggesting here? That the US didn't want them to surrender? That we wanted to show off our new toys to the Ruskies first? That we invested all that money in the M-project and wanted to use it in battle? Somehow I don't think our leadership was the blood-thirsty thugs you seem to think they were. If the Japanese would've have offered unconditional surrender on August 5th, I HIGHLY doubt there'd be a Hiroshima. Talk about self-serving dishonesties, seriously Solo.

And unconditional surrender was perfectly reasonable given the situation they were in. (which has already been discussed at length in the thread) Their terms...hell, I won't even call them conditions...their delusional surrender consisted of no occupation, overseeing their own disarmament themselves, determining who gets sent over for war crimes tribunals themselves, and more or less maintaining their pretty little militaristic thug state. That wasn't gonna happen. Allied forces intercepted a number of their transmissions, they heard from the Russians on their so called 'peace feelers'. They were talking fighting to the last man, with surrender only if they got a sweetheart deal. If they didn't want a bitchslap style surrender, they shouldn't have picked a fight with the fucker 10 times their size.

[quote]my point was merely that it was overreaching, given the history of global conflicts between major powers, and that this may have been intentional, considering the investment in the manhattan project (which required a live test for both products) and the inchoate competition with stalin.[/quote]

WW2 and the aftermath ushered in a hell of alot of things that had never or rarely happened before. It essentially remade the existing world order that'd been in existence for centuries. This wasn't a fight a few skirmishes and exchange some colonies war. This was 'End all wars' shit. Our terms were not overreaching. Hell, we pretty much got the terms, didn't we? The militarist government was dismantled. Japan saw an occupation and (partially US financed) rebuilding. They were never a military threat again. And last I checked, they seemed to be doing pretty well for themselves.

Without unconditional surrender it is quite likely that two appalling, aggressive, militarist governments would continue to exist and at some point in the future, perhaps consider another neighbor demolishing rampage. They were both stopped...permanently. I have trouble seeing that as a bad thing.

[quote]Basically its quite possible that the US did not have to give up anything of real value to end the war without using the a-bombs. Since those avenues were not explored at all its impossible to know for sure what would have happened.[/quote]

Possible. But why do we give a shit? If a few symbolic, but strategically pointless concessions would've soothed their battered egos, than they should have brought them to us for consideration. It was not incumbent upon us to make them feel good enough about themselves to consider surrender. It is not our duty to ferret out the priorities and/or insecurities of a largely alien culture and see what would work. They picked the fight. They were the ones getting their asses kicked for doing so. If they had an idea that was 'unconditional enough' for us to accept, they had months and months between the inevitable defeat and Hiroshima to bring it to us.

Those were avenues for them to explore. Its their nation, their people, their culture. They know what would've been acceptable to them, we could only guess. And given that they didn't have the internet to read up on all this shit, probably guess badly.

Further, as stated earlier, the mere continuation of the status quo was costing lives as well. Japanese. Allied. And locals on the island and asian territories they controlled. At some point that status quo was gonna surpass the Hiroshima/Nagasaki deaths even without a mainland invasion. The leadership was pretty bitterly divided on the whole surrender question. Hell, even after the nukes, our planned invasion and the Russians slamming through Manchuria some generals attempted a coup to stop the surrender. How long would we wait for a consensus of surrender to emerge? They seemed perfectly willing to absorb the destruction via conventional bombardment of over half their country, they had many months to surrender during that. What exactly was gonna change with a few more months?

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='davos' post='1617340' date='Dec 12 2008, 10.30']Basically we used the bombs for two reasons. One was to prevent the Soviets from getting a share of a future peace settlement with Japan but forcing a surrender before the red army could effectively become involved. We did not want to be forced to concede to a divided Japan. The second reason was that to show the world the new power we had acquired. We latter justified this with the saved lives by preventing invasion line. I regard neither motivation as sufficient justification for the killing of more than 100,000 (I forget the actual numbers killed by the a-bombs when cancer deaths are included) civilians.[/quote]

Whatever nefarious side plots might exist, the main goal of just about every action was to bring about the end of the war quickly and decisively. If we could intimidate the Soviets and limit their slice of the post-war pie in the process, even better. But the nukes, much like the embargo, the naval mines, the fire-bombings, the constant bombardment, the naval raids, the island hopping, giving up half of Europe to get the Soviets involved, and just about every other tool, weapon and strategy we used were dedicated first and foremost to the purpose of winning the war. The nukes aided in that. All other motivations pale in comparison.

Yeah those two reasons you mention probably were factors, but those are anthills sitting next to Everest when compared to that main motivation. Everyone looks for angles in these sorts of discussions. Something to show off their depth of understanding of the situation. Its like some 'cause of the (US) Civil War' discussions that list dozens of political and socioeconomic factors behind the war when the actual answer really amounts to one word. The Civil War was caused by slavery. And the bombs were dropped first and foremost as one tool amongst many to bring about the end of the war. That was the primary purpose above and beyond anything else. We were throwing the kitchen sink at Japan and at the time, that was just another (rather big) utensil.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Azor Ahai' post='1617307' date='Dec 12 2008, 10.06']Nope. I'm just saying if the penultimate goal of the H-bombings was to eradicate the Japanese government, then they were dropped on the wrong targets. You could flip it, someone most likely will, and say it served to that end anyway with the surrender and occupation-- but it's not that cut and dry. The motives for the bombings or their intended effect either.

I'm with soggy on this.[/quote]

What good is eradication if you can't control what comes after? That leaves the situation quite unpredictable with the chance of something even worse filling the vacuum. And as others have already mentioned, who the hell would surrender to us if we destroyed their government? That's a great way to sow chaos with the possibility of some factions fighting on indefinitely...its not a good way to ensure a swift and decisive end to the war. Yes removing the governments was key, but I thought it was pretty obvious and implicit that putting something better and more acceptable in its place afterwards was key to that equation as well. That becomes significantly harder if we dropped the nuke right on top of the war cabinet.

[phoenix_rising]

[quote name='davos' post='1617427' date='Dec 12 2008, 10.44']the japanese nuclear program was far removed from having a bomb. There had been some development work but the government had never gotten behind it to any extent. No attempt had been made to create the massive industrial system needed to create sufficent weapons grade fissable material for bomb production. Fact is that Japan did not have the spare industrial capacity to even dream of such a project in wartime. Basically nuclear weapons were out of Japan's reach. It is ludicious to suggest that their nuclear program was a factor in deciding to use the US's nukes. It simply was not.[/quote]



Development
The source of Uranium ore for Japan was Korea, which was under Japanese control since 1905. The uranium was enriched using the thermal diffusion method selected by Dr. Nishina, the same method used by the Manhattan program. Nevertheless, there was a shortage on fissible material, threatening the stop of the Japanese atomic program. In 1945 Japan disclosed the program to its ally Germany, and requested assistance. It is not known how much material Japan received from Germany, but at least one shipment that was sent to Japan by a German submarine was intercepted.

This submarine U-234 was sent to Japan in 1945 to deliver 560kg of uranium oxide and advanced weapons technology for the Japanese atomic program, including a disassembled Me-262 jet fighter and V2 rocket parts. Two Japanese military officials and a number of German Experts were also on board. The nuclear cargo was labeled U-235 after the content Uranium-235, and some German submariners though it was a mislabeling of the submarine U-234. After the surrender of Germany on May 8 1945, the submarine was ordered to surrender on May 10 1945 by Admiral D�nitz. To avoid capture, the two Japanese officials, Lieutenant Commander Hideo Tomonaga and Lieutenant Commander Genzo Shoji, committed suicide with sleeping pills and were buried at sea the next day. The submarine was boarded by US forces on May 14 1945 and the cargo fell into U.S. hands. according to some reports, the 560 kg of uranium oxide was enough to build two atomic bombs, where other reports claim it only to be about 1/5th of the quantity needed for a nuclear weapon. However uranium oxide—unenriched uranium-238—would need to be substantially enriched to be used in an atomic weapon by itself, or put into a reactor and converted into plutonium.

American bombing raids disrupted the development of the genzai bakudan, and both raw material and equipment was destroyed at the Institute for Physical and Chemical Research. To avoid further bombing, the development was relocated to Konan (now called Hungnam, in North Korea) early in 1945. This region was close to the source of ore, in less danger of attack than mainland Japan, and also a major industrial area in Asia. However, the move delayed the development by critical three months.

intel reports of this nature scared the crap out of U.S military commanders, its what else we didn't know that scared the most....

[Bronn Stone]

[quote name='EHK for a True GOP' post='1616977' date='Dec 11 2008, 22.13']On August 9th (Nagasaki day) they were making preparations to declare martial law in order to stop anyone who might be thinking of surrendering. Days later when Japan was finally set to surrender, some officers attempted a coup to prevent it. Even just before surrender many of their senior officers were talking about a last stand on mainland Japan that would inflict so many casualties that the allies would be forced to accept a ceasefire and perhaps even let Japan keep her war gains. These are not the words and actions of a people who knows they're defeated.

I'm not buying that a few more days after Hiroshima would've made them come to their senses.[/quote]

Had the US waited four more days and your prediction proved true, I'd be a LOT more comfortable with the decision. They gave them six days after Nagasaki, despite having a third functional device.

Four more days of defiance and I'd feel otherwise. But three days, with the speed of communication in August 1945 Japan, was too short a window.

[davos]

[quote]The submarine was boarded by US forces on May 14 1945 and the cargo fell into U.S. hands. according to some reports, the 560 kg of uranium oxide was enough to build two atomic bombs, where other reports claim it only to be about 1/5th of the quantity needed for a nuclear weapon. However uranium oxide—unenriched uranium-238—would need to be substantially enriched to be used in an atomic weapon by itself, or put into a reactor and converted into plutonium.[/quote]

There is great doubt that that any of the material on U-234 was enriched to any significant degree. If Germany had the capacity to enrich uranium to that extent it would have almost certainly been put towards attempts to build bombs of its own. Germany never developed the massive infrastructure needed to enrich uranium at anything resembling the kind of capacity it would have needed to construct a bomb. So its not reasonable to argue that the material in U-234 was close to weapons grade. If it was unenriched material Japan as well had never developed the capacity to enrich at any kind of significant scale.

Fact is that the Japanese government did not recognize the potential for nuclear weapons and never put the backing behind the research that would have been needed. Germany's program was pretty much in the same boat. Only the US government through its weight behind a nuclear program and only the US devoted the vast amount of resources, manpower and wealth needed to make a working weapon.

In my extensive reading on the subject I have never heard previously the suggestion that US fear of a Japanese nuclear program was a motivating factor behind the use of our atomic weapons.

[Altherion]

[quote name='sologdin' post='1617297' date='Dec 12 2008, 17.01']my point was merely that it was overreaching, given the history of global conflicts between major powers, and that this may have been intentional, considering the investment in the manhattan project (which required a live test for both products) and the inchoate competition with stalin.[/quote]
It was not overreaching if you take into account the fact the power that stood behind those words. Also, it was not really "unconditional surrender" in the sense that the US & Co. get to do whatever they want, there were quite a few provisions for Japan (which were followed through on). Here's the original document: [url="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Potsdam_Declaration"]Potsdam Declaration[/url]. It's pretty remarkable how for once the people who wrote this did almost exactly what they said they'd do.

[i]...
(5) Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay.

(6) There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace, security and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world.

(7) Until such a new order is established and until there is convincing proof that Japan's war-making power is destroyed, points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies shall be occupied to secure the achievement of the basic objectives we are here setting forth.

(8) The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.

(9) The Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives.

(10) We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners. The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established.

(11) Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those which would enable her to re-arm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of, raw materials shall be permitted. Eventual Japanese, participation in world trade relations shall be permitted.

(12) The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government.

(13) We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.[/i]

I don't think this is unreasonable or overreaching. The problem is that the Japanese didn't actually make a counter offer that said "Alright, we'll go along with this assuming the Emperor gets to be part of the peacefully inclined and responsible government rather than having stern justice meted out to him." Their actual reply was [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokusatsu"]Mokusatsu[/url], which did not help the situation.

[Shryke]

[quote name='Bronn Stone' post='1617486' date='Dec 12 2008, 13.50']Had the US waited four more days and your prediction proved true, I'd be a LOT more comfortable with the decision. They gave them six days after Nagasaki, despite having a third functional device.

Four more days of defiance and I'd feel otherwise. But three days, with the speed of communication in August 1945 Japan, was too short a window.[/quote]

And what if it had taken 5?

There's no way of knowing how long it would have taken them. They had already lost and they knew it and they still weren't giving up.

[mcbigski]

[quote name='Bronn Stone' post='1617486' date='Dec 12 2008, 13.50']Four more days of defiance and I'd feel otherwise. But three days, with the speed of communication in August 1945 Japan, was too short a window.[/quote]

C'mon. Did the war make electromagnetism stop working in Japan? They had radios. They weren't relying on the Pony Express. I suspect you're only saying a week is enough time because they weren't given that long.

[phoenix_rising]

[quote name='davos' post='1617519' date='Dec 12 2008, 12.19']There is great doubt that that any of the material on U-234 was enriched to any significant degree. If Germany had the capacity to enrich uranium to that extent it would have almost certainly been put towards attempts to build bombs of its own. Germany never developed the massive infrastructure needed to enrich uranium at anything resembling the kind of capacity it would have needed to construct a bomb. So its not reasonable to argue that the material in U-234 was close to weapons grade. If it was unenriched material Japan as well had never developed the capacity to enrich at any kind of significant scale.


In my extensive reading on the subject I have never heard previously the suggestion that US fear of a Japanese nuclear program was a motivating factor behind the use of our atomic weapons.[/quote]

from wiki:

Little is known about the size of the alleged atomic program in Konan though it is conventionally thought to have been small in comparison with the successful U.S. effort. In 1946, a journalist named David Snell working for the Atlanta Constitution wrote a sensationalist story which indicated that Japan had in fact successfully developed and tested a nuclear weapon in Konan. Snell was a former reporter, soon to become Life Magazine correspondent assigned to the 24th Criminal Investigation Detachment in Korea. He interviewed a Japanese officer who said he had been in charge of counter intelligence at the Konan project before the fall of Japan.

According to the officer, who used a pseudonym in the article because he was afraid of retaliation by occupation forces, the program was able to assemble a complete nuclear weapon in a cave in Konan and detonate it on August 12, 1945 on an unmanned ship nearby. Reportedly, the weapon produced a mushroom shaped cloud with a diameter of about 1000 m (the first American bomb, "the gadget", had a mushroom cloud some three times the size of that), and also destroyed several ships in the test area. To the observers 20 mi (32 km) away, the bomb was brighter than the rising sun. The officer then claimed that the Russian Army, which captured Konan in November 1945 after some of the last fighting in the war, dismantled the Japanese project and shipped it and some of its scientists taken prisoner back to the Soviet Union.

Most mainstream historians dispute that the Japanese program got close to developing an atomic bomb but US intelligence took the possibility very seriously after Snell's article was published and continued to question repatriated Japanese from the Konan area about the project.

A 1985 book by Robert Wilcox reprinted the Snell interview as a basis for investigating the Japanese WWII nuclear efforts. In addition to detailing the known Japanese army and navy efforts, the book cites numerous intelligence reports and interviews which indicated the Japanese might have had an atomic program at Konan. It also gave evidence that the Japanese navy, taking up the atomic project after Nishina’s Riken had been destroyed, increased the Japanese efforts to make a weapon. The book, prefaced by Derek deSolla Price, Avalon professor of the history of science at Yale University, who endorsed it, was both panned and praised. Price wrote, “No longer can we maintain that a Japanese bomb just couldn’t have happened. Obviously it ‘nearly’ did. The only questions are how near and what does it do to our judgment on the one case we have of atomic warfare.” James L. Stokesbury, author of A Short History of World War II, wrote: “I had no idea the Japanese were working as seriously on an atomic bomb...this has to modify our perception of one of the crucial issues of the war.”

fear is a great motivator......

the ruskies caught up on nuke tech pretty quick after ww2

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Bronn Stone' post='1617486' date='Dec 12 2008, 12.50']Had the US waited four more days and your prediction proved true, I'd be a LOT more comfortable with the decision. They gave them six days after Nagasaki, despite having a third functional device.

Four more days of defiance and I'd feel otherwise. But three days, with the speed of communication in August 1945 Japan, was too short a window.[/quote]

They intended to give them a few more days. Nagasaki was set to go off on the 11th. But bad weather was expected to set in the 10th and sit in for about 10 days or so afterwards, so they moved up the schedule on the second bomb to the 9th.

Also, they didn't have a third functional device right after Nagasaki. Though they expected it to be ready in about a week or so.

The fact is they were facing devastation that dwarfed Hiroshima and Nagasaki for months on end and still didn't surrender. Noone suggests that we should've given them a few more days between each massive bombing (or fire-bombing) raid in case they wanted to surrender, I don't see too much of a difference here. There was an understanding that this was a new, more devastating kind of weapon, but not a full grasp of the implications. Nukes weren't than what they are now to most people. It was simply one weapon amongst many (although bigger and more significant than most) and the first one didn't have the desired effect so they dropped another. 3 days was enough time to cry uncle. Roughly 50% of 64 Japanese cities were leveled to nothing in the months leading up to this, that was more than enough time to raise the white flag as well. They didn't. I don't really see where a few days more here would've changed things.

[Rhom]

[quote name='EHK for a True GOP' post='1617618' date='Dec 12 2008, 15.50']There was an understanding that this was a new, more devastating kind of weapon, but not a full grasp of the implications. Nukes weren't than what they are now to most people. It was simply one weapon amongst many (although bigger and more significant than most) and the first one didn't have the desired effect so they dropped another ... I don't really see where a few days more here would've changed things.[/quote]

Agreed. As I said earlier, the atomic bombs really only differed from conventional weapons in terms of [i]scale[/i]. You might kill a hundred people with a conventional bomb, you kill 100,000 with a nuclear one. Both are bad. Both were a necessity of this war.

[sologdin]

[i]what are ya smoking?[/i]

EHK--

ha. got me there. i made the mistake of assuming a certain monolithic competence on the part of the US government, and deduced that H&N must've not been military targets, since they hadn't yet been bombed. a good demonstration on the idiocy of deductive logic, and that i didn't do my homework on this one. (ETA: forgot to mention that, while wrong in method, my point is not complete BS, if the narrative above about atomic planners begging lemay is correct. i now adjust the point: even if H&N had bases, what makes the whole city a military target? at least the 1000-plane bombing runs had the fictional justification that they were targetting military installations--the atomic bomb doesn't even have fictional discrimination, and i suspect that therein lies the distinction between nuking and urbanbombing/firebombing: nuking is honest murder.)


[i]Somehow I don't think our leadership was the blood-thirsty thugs you seem to think they were.[/i]

but you've argued elsewhere in this thread precisely that the US was a bloodthirsty thug insofar as there's no difference between the a-bombs and the incendiary bombing of the other cities - 100K in one night in tokyo? gods, it's awful, and unnecessary. am i to understand that US conduct in the WWII is not bloodthirsty thuggery simply because it's not as bad as the final solution, or merely because the dirty japs started it? (hell, i quote you below regarding the main goal of US conduct was to end the war--that's great, but it is of course thuggish.)


[i]Allied forces intercepted a number of their transmissions, they heard from the Russians on their so called 'peace feelers'. They were talking fighting to the last man, with surrender only if they got a sweetheart deal.[/i]

so you are not impressed by the 1945 or 1946 studies i'd mentioned upthread, relying instead on truman's post hoc rationales?


[i]If they didn't want a bitchslap style surrender, they shouldn't have picked a fight with the fucker 10 times their size.[/i]

it's really that simple? (not exactly boastwrothy for US jingos, when stated this either, yaknow.)


[i]Without unconditional surrender it is quite likely that two appalling, aggressive, militarist governments [/i]

heh. but two appalling aggressive militarist governments did exist after the war.

hey--i got no problem with the end of the overtly fascist governments--but that's not really the point of the atomic bomb discussion, is it? are we really to assume that any action is justifiable if the purpose is politically correct? i'll concede the points re: wartime efficiency/saving US money/saving US lives--though i can't imagine anyone actually arguing against them. the point of the atomic bomb discussion is a morality discussion, i thought. maybe the jingo side of the discussion wins simply by saying "it's more or less identical to firebombing. big deal?" or maybe that's conceding that firebombing of cities is godsfuckingawful, too. i'd think the burden is on the pro-firebombers/pro-nukers to defend the conduct with something more than wartime efficiency/saving lives arguments--unless we are all agreed that these are crimes, among the worst ever committed? (i suspect there is no defense beyond what i've stipulated, and that we are all so agreed. if so, end of discussion, as far as i'm concerned.)


[i]Whatever nefarious side plots might exist, the main goal of just about every action was to bring about the end of the war quickly and decisively. [/i]

i believe that you believe this, and i believe that you believe that certain people believed this during the war. hell--i even believe that some people during the war believed this.

none of that contributes to my understanding of the atomic bombings. quick & decisive = not insisting on unconditional surrender simply to test a new weapon. quick & decisive does not mean carving out an enlarged US empire out of former japanese & european possessions.

[Rockroi]

[quote]i'm not very knowledgable on this topic, so i'm wondering if some of the american boarders can answer this for me: why did it take america so long to drop their nuclear bombs? is it because the bombs werent ready, or was there a moral dilemma about whether to use them or not? perhaps the war could've been ended several months or a year earlier??[/quote]

As another boarder stated- after the successful test it took us appx 30 days to bomb Hiroshima. The question maybe should not have been “Why did it take so long?” but rather, “How did the United States manage such a feat so quickly?”

[quote]holy crap!! was the plan to stage a normandy-like landing on the japanese coast??[/quote]

Yeah, I believe it was called [i]Operation Downfall[/i], which consisted of two other plans: [i]Operation Olympic [/i] and another Operation (whose name I always forget). It was set to begin in the Fall 1945 and continue well into 1946. What’s interesting is that the US invasion plan was based largely on the geography of Japan, and the Japanese military knew this full well; in fact, a comparison of the US invasion plan as compared to the Japanese defensive models show that the Japanese would be defending the land very well form a tactical standpoint. However, due to overwhelming US superiority, the defense would be throwing away hundreds of thousands of lives for no good reason.

Estimates had about 1 million Allied casualties (mostly American) with Japanese casualties running at around 10 Million. Martin Gilbert’s book on WWII references the battles of the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa (among others) and consistently shows a 10 to 1 Japanese to Allied casualty ratio. Hence, the 1 Million/10 Million figures seem close to mark.

What many people forget is that the Battle of Okinawa took so long that the Japanese were convinced the US would be unable to launch a real invasion of Japan proper during the Sumer of 1945, and may not have been able to invade at all until 1946 (due to the monsoon season). In fact, the stress the Japanese thought the US war machine was going through was much of the reason surrender was so slow after Hiroshima and Nagasaki – The Japanese were convinced the US was going to have to slog through for years and that there was plenty of fight left for a possible negotiated armistice. The Japanese were doomed in 1945, but the plan was to extend the war past the American willingness to fight. Hence, massive civilian mobilizations were made, the government authorized almost total kamikaze use of the air force and the hoarding of ammo.

To give you some idea of how big a cluster-fuck invading Japan proper was going to be- the United States Government authorized the minting of 500,000 Purple Hearts for the prospective invasion of Japan. Since 1945- including Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Panama, etc etc etc – the United States has not had 500,000 war casualties. To date there are currently over 100,000 of these Purple Hearts still in stock.

[quote]According to Americas own commanders, the dropping of the bombs had absolutely nothing to do with saving lives or ending the war:[/quote]

Check your facts. These statements consist of two positions- quotes taken greatly out of context or rabid Truman haters vying for their own means of becoming President.

[quote]Dropping atomic bombs on Japan is probably the greatest crime in history and the idea that it saved lives, is morally and ethically justifiable in anyway or that an invasion of the country was the only alternative is a capitalist fantasy. … [b][i]unless you look at the facts objectively[/i][/b].[/quote]

Fixed that for you.

The problem was that Japan was not pushing for peace- they were pushing for a Pre-WWI-like settlement that would almost guarantee a third World War with the US, USSR and Japan as the three major players. Their option was one the US had not given Germany or Italy- both nations had been overrun, occupied, and leveled before peace was an option. Why was Japan- the nation that attacked the US in the first place –to be any different?

[quote]Even after the 2nd bomb was dropped, the Imperial council was still evenly split between surrender and continuing the war. The Emperor had to make one of his rare deciding votes to end the war. Then the plot for a coup began to capture the Emperor, kill the opposition, and continue the war.[/quote]

[b]Trebla[/b], please, stop using facts and rational discourse to win this argument. It gets you nowhere. The US is evil, war criminals, and just as bad as Germany and Japan. Or at least ZOMG!!!11!1!1!!USKILLEDCIVILIANS!!!!!!!! That’s just as good, right?

[b]Ser Scott:[/b]
I don’t think the issue is whether or not Unconditional Surrender prolonged the war; I think the question is “Did it prevent another war?” I think the answer is a satisfactory “Yes.”

But to address the original statement: I think that Nobody should be thought of as un-American if they do not support the bombings. I think that if you have facts and documentation to back up your stance, you have the right to your opinion. I think that the opinion is wrong, but not treasonous. That’s just loony.

Not as loony as those who do not think the bombs saved lives, but loony.

[Stego]

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes[/url]



Yes, it was not only 'ok', but it was morally correct.

One of the rare occasions wherein our nation has done something I am proud of.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='sologdin' post='1617668' date='Dec 12 2008, 15.39'][i]what are ya smoking?[/i]

EHK--

ha. got me there. i made the mistake of assuming a certain monolithic competence on the part of the US government, and deduced that H&N must've not been military targets, since they hadn't yet been bombed. a good demonstration on the idiocy of deductive logic, and that i didn't do my homework on this one.[/quote]

Well, they were marked as potential targets some months before the nukes fell and were spared alot of conventional bombing to some extent specifically because of that. The US was going for max effect and wanted to be sure there was actually shit left to blow up.

[quote]but you've argued elsewhere in this thread precisely that the US was a bloodthirsty thug insofar as there's no difference between the a-bombs and the incendiary bombing of the other cities - 100K in one night in tokyo? gods, it's awful, and unnecessary. am i to understand that US conduct in the WWII is not bloodthirsty thuggery simply because it's not as bad as the final solution, or merely because the dirty japs started it? (hell, i quote you below regarding the main goal of US conduct was to end the war--that's great, but it is of course thuggish.)[/quote]

There's an inherent element of barbarism in any number of acts of warfare. The point was that given our understanding of the time (nukes not being an anathema yet), Hiroshima and Nagasaki were really no more or less (or at least not much more) 'bloodthirsty' than the countless urban conventional bombardments in the months leading up to Hiro-day. Yet noone really gets up in arms about those. That said, bombing the urban centers to crush the morale of the enemy, along with the wide array of legitimate military targets that most cities (industrial centers especially) will have pretty much became standard practice during the war. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't hate the playa, hate the game.

[quote]so you are not impressed by the 1945 or 1946 studies i'd mentioned upthread, relying instead on truman's post hoc rationales?[/quote]

You speak of post hoc rationales while using studies that had the benefit of nearly full intelligence and hindsight. If you want to be fair about the question, you've got to look at the knowledge and understanding of our leaders at the time. And there were more than enough indicators, many posted here already, that could lead them to the very fair conclusion that Japan was not ready to capitulate.

Further I also posted evidence that would appear to contradict some of the conclusions of those studies. Like the attempted coup by hardliners. The near even split in the war council on the question of surrender. Intercepted communications that suggest a 'fight til the last man' sort of mentality. The de facto strategy of bleeding the US until we're willing to give them a more favorable peace.

Your studies also suggest that more moderate factions were looking for a pretext to push the hardliners towards surrender. It suggests Russian entry was a sufficient such pretext. Two nuked cities might also suffice one would think. All three of them at once, BINGO!

[quote]it's really that simple? (not exactly boastwrothy for US jingos, when stated this either, yaknow.)[/quote]

To some extent it is. They were not in a position to negotiate. They were not in a position to set any terms. Beg for them maybe. It was not incumbent upon us to bridge any cultural misunderstandings, it was on them. They're the ones that might lose a city via such a misunderstanding, so you'd think they'd be the ones buying the 'Diplomacy with America for Dummies' book. So when people suggest that we should have considered how paramount the emperor is to their culture or how their reserved outward culture may lead to vague, ambiguous, and unforthcoming negotiations...no. That's on them. They should have known to speak plainly and directly with us.


[quote]heh. but two appalling aggressive militarist governments did exist after the war.[/quote]

Heh...2 is better than 4. 4's kinda crowded. :)

[quote]hey--i got no problem with the end of the overtly fascist governments--but that's not really the point of the atomic bomb discussion, is it? are we really to assume that any action is justifiable if the purpose is politically correct?[/quote]

No not any action. But I'll be honest enough that its a hell of alot easier to be forgiving of alot of shit considering the targets in that war. Not that any civilian populations deserve to suffer due to the actions of their government, but these were both some pretty fucking evil regimes and I'm more than happy to see them brought down.

But as I said above, massive bombardment of cities was pretty much standard operating procedure during this war. Even when targeting military/industrial buildings, you pretty much hit everything within 10 square miles of the site. Short of dive bombing during the day (a job no sane man volunteers for, asking to get shot down), these things weren't terribly accurate. The purpose may not be city annihilation in the same way nuking or fire-bombing is, but the effect is much the same.

But breaking the [b]will[/b] of the enemy to wage war is a major key to victory. Some would say its THE key to victory and ending a war quickly. The psychological effect of devastating a city (or 64 of them), whether nukes, incendiaries, mass bombardments, or otherwise, it has that effect. I'm certainly not giving carte blanche to use any means available to break an enemy's will, but fair arguments can be made that the urban bombardments listed above fall under those legitimate grounds. At some point during a war of this magnitude bombing and rebombing factories just ain't gonna force the issue.

The other alternative is destroying their ability to wage war. We could have done that as well. But it would have cost many more lives. (Japanese, American, Russian, and many locals in japanese held territories.) So I think the question really becomes, how much will did the Japanese leadership have left before the nukes?

[quote]i'll concede the points re: wartime efficiency/saving US money/saving US lives--though i can't imagine anyone actually arguing against them. the point of the atomic bomb discussion is a morality discussion, i thought. maybe the jingo side of the discussion wins simply by saying "it's more or less identical to firebombing. big deal?"[/quote]

I just want to point out what I've said several times in thread, this isn't just American lives we're talking about. Whether continued bombings. Starvation amongst troops and locals on the countless cutoff islands the Japanese were entrenched on. The locals subject to continued abuse by their temporary Japanese landlords. The mainland Japanese suffering constant bombardment and drastic food shortages due to the stranglehold on shipping. The massive death toll likely from any other island hopping expeditions we may conduct. Each and every day, week, and month that this war went on, more people were going to die. Even without a US invasion of the mainland, at some point, even if we don't invade, that total would exceed the tally of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those bombs spared alot of people. Does the math add up to the number it killed? A big what-if.

[quote]i believe that you believe this, and i believe that you believe that certain people believed this during the war. hell--i even believe that some people during the war believed this.

none of that contributes to my understanding of the atomic bombings. quick & decisive = not insisting on unconditional surrender simply to test a new weapon. quick & decisive does not mean carving out an enlarged US empire out of former japanese & european possessions.[/quote]

The surrender that any sort of consensus within the Japanese leadership could be reached on was no surrender at all really. If they had a slight compromise that would've been acceptable to them, it was on them to communicate it. Whether unwilling or unable, they chose not to. That's on them. As I mentioned above, I don't get this mentality of getting down on the US for not better understanding where they were coming from and what terms might've been acceptable to them. At worst Japan's reply to the Potsdam Declaration was insulting, at best non-responsive. If there was a third way, it was up to them to find it. They essentially left us to guess their real intentions and the fact is, there was sufficient evidence to suggest that intent was to fight on and on.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Stego' post='1617703' date='Dec 12 2008, 16.15'][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes[/url]



Yes, it was not only 'ok', but it was morally correct.

One of the rare occasions wherein our nation has done something I am proud of.[/quote]

Shit, where you been Stego? Long time no see.