Nutjob tries to vandalize the Enola Gay

[KrauserKrauser]

So you think the blockade of Japan would have been more humane than dropping the bomb? You know Japan at the time had millions more people than their food production could support. Also, simply demonstrating the bomb would have done jack shit unless you demonstrate it on them. What are you going to do show them pictures? a movie? eye witness reports? All of those are easy as hell to simply write off as the white devils simply lying about their capabilities.

The Japanese would not have surrendered unconditionally (ignoring the whole Emporer thing) unless A) We killed them all in a protracted invasion or B) We caused their leaders to rethink their chances by an extreme show of force. It sucks that all those people died. An order of magnitude more would have died were we forced to invade their home islands. Sorry, your "no nuke" argument doesn't fly.

[Durandal]

So you think the blockade of Japan would have been more humane than dropping the bomb?

Maybe you don't understand.
Atomic bomb = No chance of survival.
Blockade = Chance of survival.

Or maybe you think that we should have simply opted to indiscriminately carpet bomb Iraq rather than sanctioning it?

You know Japan at the time had millions more people than their food production could support. Also, simply demonstrating the bomb would have done jack shit unless you demonstrate it on them. What are you going to do show them pictures? a movie? eye witness reports? All of those are easy as hell to simply write off as the white devils simply lying about their capabilities.

A nuclear weapon can be detonated at visible range without vaporizing people, moron. Detonate it far off the coast of Tokyo. Trust me, they wouldn't have missed it. The giant fucking mushroom cloud would be a big clue.

The Japanese would not have surrendered unconditionally (ignoring the whole Emporer thing) unless A) We killed them all in a protracted invasion or B) We caused their leaders to rethink their chances by an extreme show of force. It sucks that all those people died. An order of magnitude more would have died were we forced to invade their home islands. Sorry, your "no nuke" argument doesn't fly.

If you seriously think that it's impossible to demonstrate a nuclear device without vaporizing people, you really don't get just how stupidly powerful the things are. Our complete ignorance of the after-effects of the blast (no one knew that radiation poisoning would be a problem) was also a serious factor. Even recently, people were dying of radiation poisoning from that bomb. Gee, I guess it just sucks to be them, huh?

[RedImperator]

You're also totally wrong. Operation OLYMPIC and Operation CORONET were the first course of action. A protracted ground campiagn would've been a bloodbath. Breaking down the infrastructure of what was left of the Empire of Japan would've required more incindiary bombing raids, which before the use of Little Boy and Fat Man killed many more people.

Even you stated that there were other options. We could have easily demonstrated the nuclear device or just blockaded Japan, but instead we chose to be the first and so far only country to ever deploy weapons of mass destruction on quasi-military targets which were more comparable to the GM plants in Flint, Michigan than genuine military installations.

"Just blockading" Japan would have led to the deaths of tens of millions of Japanese civilians due to starvation. The country simply wasn't producing enough food to feed its population, and the planned American attacks on Japan's transportation infrastructure would have worsened the problem. A blockade to be effective would have had to cause human misery on the same scale as the Ukraine during Stalin's famines or China during the Great Leap Forward.

The test detonation is the only remotely viable alternative that doesn't end up killing more Japanese than the atomic bombs did, and even that had serious problems. The first is that it's unlikely to have had much effect--after all, the destruction of Hiroshima didn't compel the Japanese surrender, and even after Nagasaki was destroyed factions in the military attempted to stage a coup and prevent the surrender. A nuclear blast out in the wilderness or on some uninhabited island wasn't likely to convince them to do anything. And while Truman didn't have this information in August of 1945, he knew they hadn't surrendered after losing every fighting ship in their navy, the firebombing of their capital, or an explicit warning from the Allies after the Potsdam conference that Japan would be destroyed, and that from everything we'd experienced in fighting the Japanese, surrender was simply not in their character unless some overwhelming horror was visited upon them.

The second major problem, one that's often ignored, is that we were on the clock. The Soviets were on the verge of declaring war and did so on August 9. The Japanese had stripped their defenses in Manchuria, Korean, and Hokkaido to reinforce Honshu, and given time, the Soviets would have had the opportunity to occupy Japanese territory on the Asian mainland and force their own landing on the Home Islands, possibly on Honshu itself. A Soviet invasion of Japan would have virtually guaranteed the Soviet Union a share of the postwar occupation. As it is, in real life the Soviets swept the Japanese out of Manchuria and Korea in a matter of days, one of the results of which turned out to be the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. This time pressure forced Truman to act quickly or face a repeat of what was already happening in Germany. Under the circumstances, and feeling that a demonstration was unlikely to be effective anyway, Truman chose not to waste time.

[RedImperator]

So you think the blockade of Japan would have been more humane than dropping the bomb?

Maybe you don't understand.
Atomic bomb = No chance of survival.
Blockade = Chance of survival.

Or, more realistically:

Atomic bomb: Hundreds of thousands of people killed directly by the bomb, thousands more by long term genetic damage due to radiation.

Blockade: Tens of millions of Japanese civilians starve to death.

I just don't see how a blockade will be effective without killing millions of civilians first. The Japanese government at the time showed little regard for the well being of its own citizens, and the Army would have been the last group to starve, so there was no personally compelling reason for the Japanese high command to surrender. In order for a blockade to work, millions of Japanese would have had to die, in addition to the likely thousands of American naval casualties that would have resulted from Japanese kamakazie attacks on the blockading ships.

[HemlockGrey]

Test detonations were considered, but deemed impossible. We had a very limited amount of bombs, and it was pretty clear that a test detonation would have little or no effect, and would only waste a bomb.

Incidentally, if the Soviets had launched a full-scale invasion of the Home Islands, not only would there be a bloodbath, Soviet rule would have been far more brutal and far more horrific than American occupation. Witness the figures for Operation August Storm.

[Sea Skimmer]

A nuclear weapon can be detonated at visible range without vaporizing people, moron. Detonate it far off the coast of Tokyo. Trust me, they wouldn't have missed it. The giant fucking mushroom cloud would be a big clue.

Which would look impressive but do nil damage and thus would NOT demonstrate America capability to defeat Japan without losing hundreds of thousands of its own men. As it was the Japanese where not convinced all was lost even after seeing a city obliterated. So why the fuck would a demonstration of the bombs power that does nothing but make a cloud of smoke and a big flash work? They would probably just write it off as the Americans blowing up a freighter laden with explosives, it wasn’t uncommon for ammunition ships to have a kiloton plus explosive load as it was. Hell have you ever seen the photos of the Mushroom cloud from the battleship Yamato blowing up?

[His Divine Shadow]

Yup, it had to be a city where it'd be extremely demoralizing, same thing with the WTC, which where also economical centers.

[Durandal]

Which would look impressive but do nil damage and thus would NOT demonstrate America capability to defeat Japan without losing hundreds of thousands of its own men. As it was the Japanese where not convinced all was lost even after seeing a city obliterated. So why the fuck would a demonstration of the bombs power that does nothing but make a cloud of smoke and a big flash work? They would probably just write it off as the Americans blowing up a freighter laden with explosives, it wasn’t uncommon for ammunition ships to have a kiloton plus explosive load as it was. Hell have you ever seen the photos of the Mushroom cloud from the battleship Yamato blowing up?

The Hiroshima bomb had fifteen times that yield, resulting in a much bigger bang. Furthermore, no one has yet mentioned what exactly America had to lose by demonstrating a nuclear device before actually wiping out tens of thousands of civilians with one.

[RedImperator]

Which would look impressive but do nil damage and thus would NOT demonstrate America capability to defeat Japan without losing hundreds of thousands of its own men. As it was the Japanese where not convinced all was lost even after seeing a city obliterated. So why the fuck would a demonstration of the bombs power that does nothing but make a cloud of smoke and a big flash work? They would probably just write it off as the Americans blowing up a freighter laden with explosives, it wasn’t uncommon for ammunition ships to have a kiloton plus explosive load as it was. Hell have you ever seen the photos of the Mushroom cloud from the battleship Yamato blowing up?

The Hiroshima bomb had fifteen times that yield, resulting in a much bigger bang. Furthermore, no one has yet mentioned what exactly America had to lose by demonstrating a nuclear device before actually wiping out tens of thousands of civilians with one.

As I said before, time, as well as a weapon we had limited quantities of and limited capacity to replace. And you're missing Sea Skimmer's point: the Japanese would have rationalized a test demonstration as a trick (like blowing up a munitions freighter). As it is, Japanese high command was telling the Emperor that we couldn't repeat Hiroshima because we only had one atomic bomb or that we'd used some kind of trick to destroy the city. Yes, a rational person who saw a giant flash and huge mushroom cloud over Tokyo Bay would presume the Americans had developed some kind of horrible new weapon and that maybe Japan ought to take the Potsdam ultimatum seriously, but Japanese high command in 1945 was not rational.

[HemlockGrey]

Furthermore, no one has yet mentioned what exactly America had to lose by demonstrating a nuclear device before actually wiping out tens of thousands of civilians with one.

We had an extremely limited number of bombs, and time was against us. The Soviets were poised to invade and this would have been a disaster for everyone involved.

Further, it was quite clear that such a thing simply would not work. America had nothing to lose by lighting a big old fucking campfire on Okinawa and inviting the Emperor to come sing Kumbaya, but it wasn't exactly a viable option.

[Andrew J.]

The Hiroshima bomb had fifteen times that yield, resulting in a much bigger bang. Furthermore, no one has yet mentioned what exactly America had to lose by demonstrating a nuclear device before actually wiping out tens of thousands of civilians with one.

What we "had to lose" by doing a demonstration was one of the only three fucking bombs we had! It would not have been wise to waste roughly a third of our nuclear arsenal on nothing.

[Durandal]

As I said before, time, as well as a weapon we had limited quantities of and limited capacity to replace. And you're missing Sea Skimmer's point: the Japanese would have rationalized a test demonstration as a trick (like blowing up a munitions freighter). As it is, Japanese high command was telling the Emperor that we couldn't repeat Hiroshima because we only had one atomic bomb or that we'd used some kind of trick to destroy the city. Yes, a rational person who saw a giant flash and huge mushroom cloud over Tokyo Bay would presume the Americans had developed some kind of horrible new weapon and that maybe Japan ought to take the Potsdam ultimatum seriously, but Japanese high command in 1945 was not rational.

That's something that we know now, but that's retroactively justifying the decision. The point is that we didn't exhaust all other possible, practical avenues before dropping a nuclear device on a heavily civilian-populated area. You're telling me that we're justified in making assumptions about how the leaders of countries will act if we show them something they've never seen before? We were so sure that we were willing to obliterate tens of thousands of innocent women and children, and let hundreds of thousands more die of radiation poisoning?

What we "had to lose" by doing a demonstration was one of the only three fucking bombs we had! It would not have been wise to waste roughly a third of our nuclear arsenal on nothing.

Ah, so one bomb is more important than tens of thousands of non-combatant lives. That's a fun little system of morality you have.

[Ender]

The life of a civilian is ALWAYS more important than the life of a soldier...

Fuck You. We volunteer to fight, and die only if necessary, not to have our lives thrown away so that the civillians in our opponents countries can live. Their lives have no more value then our own at any time, and especially at a time of war. So fuck you. That's really all I can respond to with that.

[MKSheppard]

Ah, so one bomb is more important than tens of thousands of non-combatant lives. That's a fun little system of morality you have.

Considering we spent something like 25% of our wartime budget on the
Manhattan project, and that it had the capability to Win the War without
an invasion, I'd say fuck yes.

This is like telling the German Commander at Ypres in 1915 that no, he
can't use this new weapon called Chlorine Gas to try and break the
enemy lines, but instead must try sending his men up the middle into
massed Machine gun fire.

[MKSheppard]

We were so sure that we were willing to obliterate tens of thousands of innocent women and children, and let hundreds of thousands more die of radiation poisoning?

It worked, and ended the war, or would your rather us keep on
incinerating hundreds of thousands of innocent women and
children with Curtis LeMay's B-29s in firebomb raids?

[Sea Skimmer]

The Hiroshima bomb had fifteen times that yield, resulting in a much bigger bang.

So what? Amassing that much explosive would be easy, and cost a fraction of what we dumped into the Manhattan project. The Japanese would simply not believe what they had seen and dismiss it even more readily then they did the first historical atomic bombing.

Furthermore, no one has yet mentioned what exactly America had to lose by demonstrating a nuclear device before actually wiping out tens of thousands of civilians with one.

Actually several people have. We lose an extremely expensive weapon of which we have only a few, and no more in the pipeline for some time to come.

[Sea Skimmer]

That's something that we know now, but that's retroactively justifying the decision. The point is that we didn't exhaust all other possible, practical avenues before dropping a nuclear device on a heavily civilian-populated area. You're telling me that we're justified in making assumptions about how the leaders of countries will act if we show them something they've never seen before? We were so sure that we were willing to obliterate tens of thousands of innocent women and children, and let hundreds of thousands more die of radiation poisoning?

Yes we where sure. The idea of demonstrating the bomb in a non-destructive manner was heavily debated historically and the conclusion was that it would accomplish jack shit. History has validated that as we know that the Japanese where willing to ignore the obliteration of an entire city. Your augment is that we should have tired a flashbang on the front lawn, when a tank shell through the window failed.

Ah, so one bomb is more important than tens of thousands of non-combatant lives. That's a fun little system of morality you have.

End the fucking war was the most important thing. We had only a few bombs to work with to do that and couldn't waste a single one on a demonstration which would do nothing. Now prove that a demonstration would have done something or concede. Because right now all you've got is the claim that it was wrong for American leadership to make a correct assumption after heavy debate.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Even you stated that there were other options. We could have easily demonstrated the nuclear device or just blockaded Japan, but instead we chose to be the first and so far only country to ever deploy weapons of mass destruction on quasi-military targets which were more comparable to the GM plants in Flint, Michigan than genuine military installations.

You can't tell me you can't realize what blockading Japan would do. Firstly, you're allowing the Soviets to make ground, and they were planning to invade Hokkaido when Japan surrendered--occupying part of the Home Islands would give the Soviets the right to contest Japan and Tokyo.

Secondly, a blockade would've reduced millions to slowly starving to death. Invasion would've failed, while calling for huge conventional bombing campiagns to suppress industry and infrastructure, which would've killed more civilians in of itself than the nukes did, and that's not counting the bloodbath by fighting itself.

Your arguments have entirely been "its a nuclear warhead, therefore its automatically the worst possible thing we could do." Hint. The word "nuclear" is just a method of operation. The nukes of today are not the nukes of 1945. In 1945 all we had were a tiny quantity of vastly inefficient bombs only 12 kilotons or so. The various firebombings killed many times the people both nuclear bombs combined did.

The ONLY more ethical and plausable decision I see is to have a demo for the Imperial High Command. But that's extremely iffy and risky, and since it was deadlock even after we destroyed both Nagasaki and Hiroshima with nuclear bombs, it probably would've wasted a bomb and made them more obstinant in surrendering--the entire value of the nuke was its shock factor alone, because stategically speaking, conventional bombing was a much more economical and affective way of causing more damage than a nuke still could.

And about the irrelevent analogy about GM Plants--if GM was building HMMWVs and Armored Vehicles, gas trucks, etc., as it would in a total war, would you still regard it as a harmless establishment?

[Illuminatus Primus]

And the idea that the U.S. was somehow not justified in its opinion of the Japanese High Command's rationality is quite stupid: we'd seen the conduct in holding Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Moreover, the U.S. was so correct that indeed, the High Command still didn't budge after we did nuke the first city, and just barely capitulated after the second.

You can think that the U.S.'s assumption was premature or overly guesswork, but that's retroactively attacking the thinking at the time, and disregarding the fact that regardless of what you think of their logic, their assumption WAS correct, and the U.S.'s determinations were an accurate picture of the High Command's behavior (actually overly conservative, given there was no surrender after Hiroshima). So its really quite absurd to fault how fucking "sure" the U.S. was about Japanese High Command irrationality.

[HemlockGrey]

Not to mention that Ultra was intercepting Japanese military messages that proved quite clearly that the Army and the Navy were still clinging to Ketsu-Go; the idea that a single decisive battle in which American forces were crushed would give Japan terms of surrender from which it could reestablish itself several decades later, ala Germany and the Treaty of Versailles.

[Durandal]

Fine, I'll concede.

This is like telling the German Commander at Ypres in 1915 that no, he can't use this new weapon called Chlorine Gas to try and break the enemy lines, but instead must try sending his men up the middle into massed Machine gun fire.

I swear, you're the Dennis Miller of obscure military references.

[Sea Skimmer]

I swear, you're the Dennis Miller of obscure military references.

That's really not obscure, being the first use of modern lethal chemical weapons and all. If he mentioned the French use of teargas grenades in 1914, now that would be an obscure military reference.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'm betting my great grandfather wished the German commander had forgone the gas attack...

[Andrew J.]

Ah, so one bomb is more important than tens of thousands of non-combatant lives. That's a fun little system of morality you have.

We would have blown up those people anyway, it's just much more impressive if it's done with one bomb instead of thousands.[/i]

[Darth Wong]

Now prove that a demonstration would have done something or concede.

Hiroshima was a demonstration. The only question is whether it had to be a demonstration which caused so many civilian deaths. Not to mention the original issues which started this thread (ie- Glocksman's claim that one US soldier is worth an infinite number of Japanese lives, or Stormbringer's claim that there's nothing wrong with civilian massacres if you have morally judged the country and found them wanting).

Moreover, the U.S. was so correct that indeed, the High Command still didn't budge after we did nuke the first city, and just barely capitulated after the second.

The High Command didn't unconditionally surrender within a few days of nuking the first city, you mean. They are not as irrational as you claim; they knew the war was lost, and they were only trying to save face by negotiating a conditional surrender rather than an unconditional one.