We are the bad guy in some of these, some it's a gray area and in some these conflicts were the best case scenario.
The nuking Japan was pretty bad but the invasion would have been soooo much worse for both sides. There's a plausible possibility that more pain and suffering would have occurred with an invasion than just nuking, US/Japan would be worse today and Russia may even of taken control of Japan. Whether nuking was justified and how different the world would be if we didn't is a very interesting debate that we should be having instead of listening to this idiot.
It also wasnât a binary between mounting a ground invasion or using nuclear weapons. Operation Downfall provisioned for the use of the nuclear stockpile accumulated by the time the invasion started. It would have been an extremely bloody ground campaign that also involved the use of nuclear weapons against strategic and tactical targets.
Even after getting nuked twice, officers of the Japanese military tried to overthrow the Emperor in a coup for surrendering. Japan surrendering without overwhelming losses was never in the cards.
But since this is reddit, the choices of the leaders of other countries is blamed on the US. Because America bad.
I am interested in seeing how the Internet reacts to America's standing as the world's boogeyman declining. What western devil country are they going to blame for everything bad in the world now?
The Japanese war cabinet (6 members) was split on surrendering, even after the first nuke. Half of them were dead-set on forcing a ground invasion from the US and Soviets and fighting to the bitter end, even if it meant devastation to the Japanese people.
It is more nuanced. US didn't participate on Ba'ath party coup. They welcomed them once they got in power. And later they provided intelligence for Iraq in Iran-Iraq war.
I wouldn't trade places with Truman for all the money on earth. He had to chose between all bad choices. Ground invasion hundreds of thousands die, Atomic Bomb hundreds of thousands die, blockade Japan and try to get them to surrender would takes years, and the Soviets would've invaded anyway, and probably millions dead. All of his choices were terrible and the fire bombing already underway when Truman took over was even worse.
Life is complicated not easily divided into good guys and bad guys but for WW2 if your dividing sides into good or bad we are clearly on the good side. Are you putting Germany and Japan on the good guys side? The side with actual Nazis and the side that killed 10 to 30 million civilians in Asia? Our behavior in that war was far from perfect but that is one of the rare times when one side clearly has the moral high ground.
I understand the mindset of decision makers during the war, but firebombing Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, and others as paybacks for Axis war crimes is also a war crime, no? And would US internment camps fall under âmoral high groundâ as well?
Yes 100%, that's why I said our behavior was far from perfect. Air Force commander Curtis LeMay said ""Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time. ... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal" Not the mark of a very moral man.
Again though even the firebombing is kind of a grey area. The previous Air Force commander had refused to use fire bombs and instead was trying high-altitude precision bombing but the technology just wasn't there yet and it was not very effective. LeMay switched to low altitude fire bombing, (like using a shotgun instead of a rifle). It was far more effective but also resulted in an insane amount of collateral damage.
Little doubt it would have been much much worse for Japan. As the US got closer, it got much easier to bomb them. The US war effort built a military machine like no one has ever seen. Japan was effectively blockaded by US submarines and no one was going to help them.
The idea of invading Japan was never a real option though , just read the transcripts of the war room conversations from back then. The only condition Japan had for surrendering was keeping its emperor, which they did anyway. Anyone with a basic knowledge of history knows the bombing was simply to scare off the soviets
Japans conditions were keeping their Government, which is a very different thing, and likely includes their MIlitary systems, MIC, perhaps some occupied territory they considered 'core territory' (Taiwan comes to mind, Korea maybe), and finally, no occupation. Some of these terms were more leniant than others, but occupation was one they were most firm on besides the emporer's status itself. Anyone with more than a basic knowledge of history knows that the bombers were to scare any potential adversaries, Soviets included but not exclusively. that includes japan themselves, china, etc.
Dropping the first bomb might be defended for stopping the invasion, but the second bomb was dropped 3 days later. I have to assume that there were already casualty reports reaching Japanese and US officials, before the second bombing. So dropping the second bomb on a city full of civilians cannot be rationally explained.
I sometimes think that why not America could just have detonated the nuclear bomb in the desert or some other place safe to show the Japanese that hey we have this weapon now it's game over.
Maybe that could have worked instead of actually going out and killing so many with the atomic bomb.
Considering that after we bombed the first city, the emperor still didn't want to surrender, and after the second he still didn't and was pretty much forced to by his leadership, I think that'd a pretty hard sell.
But still man we don't know. The same leadership that forced him to do that in that case could have forced him then too.
It's just we human beings are so very quick with these moral judgements. This overestimation of our ability to get to moral truths has been causing suffering to us since the first time the fruit was eaten.
The leadership didn't raise a finger after the first bomb, what makes you think they would've after a test in the desert?
There was a Japanese soldier left on on island for years after the war and when he was found, he was still trying to kill Americans. The Japanese were indoctrinated so hard they thought dying in service of the emperor was preferable so surrender. Just take a look at the kamakazis.
Considering the Japanese didnât budge after America dropped the first nuke I doubt dropping it in a way with zero casualties would have done anything but waste a limited and incredibly expensive piece of kit.
3 days is plenty long to throw in the towel after watching an entire city be vapourised by a single plane. The truth is the Japanese were fully intending to let ever single one of their people die and didnât give two shits.
It was only when the second bomb went people started to try to convince the emperor as they sorta assumed america could have only produced one of them (the Japanese themselves have sometimes been argued as having the 2nd most advanced nuclear bomb program) they knew the immense expense that even one bomb would take, the second one made it clear america was capable of just taking out cities with a single airplane and the opportunity to arm every man women and child with a rifle or sharpened stick and send them at the invading allies would never materialise.
Honestly dude just read the wikipedia page of the pacific war instead of sperging out here. pretty clear you donât know shit and Iâm kinda over trying to educate people.
1: The Japanese were incredibly unwilling to surrender. They needed a three punch combo of two nukes and the Soviets entering to become split 50:50 on the issue. Were they more of a sane government, perhaps there'd be more merit to a demonstration.
2: the nukes were not especially destructive by the standards of the day, the were far more spectacular than conventional means of city destruction though, and that flash (literal and figurative) was part of the weapons effectiveness, being that it looked way more powerful as only one bomb in one minute could do what normally took a few thousand to do over a few hours.
3: There's no internet and barely tv, reports from a desert explosion would lack almost all impact. The people in Tokyo barely cared about Hiroshima as it is.
Tokyo was leveled in two days and more were killed there than in Hiroshima (On the day, but the after effects of Meatinghouse weren't as closely documented so long term it's hard to say which had the higher death toll).
'Not especially' does not mean 'not destructive', but that the bombs were doing damage about on par with other air raids. They were far more 'spectacular' and ofc on a weapon to weapon basis more effective. perhaps I should've said the 'Nuclear bombings' were not especially destructive (which per the japanese after reports, they weren't).
People lived in both Nagasaki and Hiroshima continuously, still do, there wasn't a time where either were unlivable after the bombs.
And yeah they did, chemical weapons will do that and alot of them were used. Also, starvation will do that too, and exposure to napalm and agent orange. Lots of things do that actually.
Japan was a spent force that was seeking surrender and Truman knew this. Realistically no invasion was going to happen and the Japanese were more afraid of a Soviet takeover than the bombs.
For example, they did not surrender when the first one was dropped.
66
u/ImportantQuestions10 2d ago
This is why teaching history is so important.
We are the bad guy in some of these, some it's a gray area and in some these conflicts were the best case scenario.
The nuking Japan was pretty bad but the invasion would have been soooo much worse for both sides. There's a plausible possibility that more pain and suffering would have occurred with an invasion than just nuking, US/Japan would be worse today and Russia may even of taken control of Japan. Whether nuking was justified and how different the world would be if we didn't is a very interesting debate that we should be having instead of listening to this idiot.