Atomic attacks side-discussion (split from OBL thread)

[The Grim Squeaker]

To be fair, the US analysts differed on estimates of how many casualties the actual invasion would cost. Some argued for a far smaller number than a total million casualties and even less than half a million, in which case the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki become the utilitarian equivalent of the invasion (i.e. the invasion is as deadly as the attacks).

The lower end of US estimates are unrealistic in the basis of the calculation. They were optimistic estimates to start with, and all US estimates were based on a considerable underestimating of the size of Japanese forces. What the true toll will be, no one will know, but it was bound to be very heavy. Many factors just can’t be estimated so we are stuck with speculation.
.

To emphasize your point, at this time the USA had relatively very little institutional experience or knowledge with "Slit eyed yellow peril" guerilla or resistance fighters. Any estimates were almost certainly very optimistic, even if we ignore the subtle effects pf racism, this was before the sheer bloody effectiveness of determined resistance forces was made evident by Vietnam.
Meaning, yeah, the estimates were probably optimistic even by normal standards. (And estimates in war are almost always optimistic barring the existence of powerful opposing political reasons, even with the best modern military technology, satellites, databases and decades of additional experience in all manners of warfare).

[Spoonist]

To emphasize your point, at this time the USA had relatively very little institutional experience or knowledge with "Slit eyed yellow peril" guerilla or resistance fighters.

Huh?

I hope there is some sort of misunderstanding here because that is outright false.
This is after the island hopping campains that most definately had the US getting in depth knowledge on the peril of japanese resistance. In fact it was a key factor in escalation of the fire bombing campains against heavily populated japanese wooden cities.
I think there should be some shep charts over in history about both the island hopping and the fire bombings.

You need to check out the timeline of WWII again.

[Bakustra]

I formally concede that I was wrong about no leaflets being dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I will not concede that that was an effective means of of warning or that it fully absolves the impact of the atomic bombings.

Samuel, I don't really have time for a full response, but I will say that I used Richard Frank's Downfall for most of the estimates.

[Alyeska]

I formally concede that I was wrong about no leaflets being dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I will not concede that that was an effective means of of warning or that it fully absolves the impact of the atomic bombings.

Samuel, I don't really have time for a full response, but I will say that I used Richard Frank's Downfall for most of the estimates.

A Naval Blockade would have caused millions to die of starvation.

[Bakustra]

First, I'm not sure how that's a response to what I said. I'm not specifically calling for a blockade as the preferable response. My point has been that the common figures used to justify the atomic bombings are not necessarily accurate, nor were they the only figures presented.

Secondly, that depends on the length of the blockade, doesn't it? People usually use the year-long estimates, but that relies on the Japanese government lasting a year under mounting civil unrest and all the other factors.

[K. A. Pital]

I formally concede that I was wrong about no leaflets being dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I will not concede that that was an effective means of of warning or that it fully absolves the impact of the atomic bombings.

Samuel, I don't really have time for a full response, but I will say that I used Richard Frank's Downfall for most of the estimates.

A Naval Blockade would have caused millions to die of starvation.

Unless Japan accepted surrender or the terms of surrender were changed in a few months from the onset of the blockade as to be acceptable for Japan. It's not a "hey, let's starve Japan" game, after all.

[Alyeska]

First, I'm not sure how that's a response to what I said. I'm not specifically calling for a blockade as the preferable response. My point has been that the common figures used to justify the atomic bombings are not necessarily accurate, nor were they the only figures presented.

That has already been discussed in this thread. The actual estimates were based on lower numbesr of Japanese defenders than were actually present. The loss estimations were lower than what likely would have happened.

Secondly, that depends on the length of the blockade, doesn't it? People usually use the year-long estimates, but that relies on the Japanese government lasting a year under mounting civil unrest and all the other factors.

The military was willing to sacrafice its citizens. Bet you they would have kept the food for themselves and let the people starve.

[Broomstick]

Unfortunately, even some of those that evacuated after Hiroshima was nuked, got nuked in Nagasaki. Double survivors, I think they were called for those that survived the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Correct. There are more than 160 identified double-survivors, and probably more. This gets back to the problem that, by August 1945, there wasn't really any place in Japan that was safe any more. ALL the cities were at risk of being bombed, if not by atomics than by conventional bombs.

Where, exactly, did Bakustra expect the Japanese to evacuation to?

Why I mentioned blockade is because it was a more realistic alternative than the crazy attacks on Kyushu which was chock-full of Japanese troops. Also, I disagree with the notion that the USSR would invade mainland Japan easily.

My understanding is that the US feared the Soviets would invade and take over Japan. It wouldn't be the first time one nation has misjudged the capability of another. If the US thought the Soviets could take some or all of Japan that would have factored into their thinking whether or not the Soviets actually had that capability.

In addition, the proponents of the blockade felt that Japan would surrender quickly, by the end of the year.

Well, of course the proponents of the blockade thought it would work! You don't support something like that unless you think it will work!

But that blithely ignores the human toll a blockade would take, that would be disproportionately borne by the civilians. Look what happened during blockades of Iraq, how many deaths were attributed to that? Are you aware that, after the war was over where there was NO obstacle to delivering food and aid to Japan, no fear of attacks on shipping, and no resistance from Japan, the US struggled to stave off hunger those first couple years of occupation? There was widespread hunger and malnutrition. 1946 was considered a famine year despite the US delivery of food and aid, despite the fact that MacArthur's first actions were to set up a means to get food to the Japanese as it was painfully obvious the entire nation was a hair's breadth from mass starvation. In fact, on August 30, three days before the official surrender ceremony, MacArthur issued an order that no Allied personnel were to obtain food in Japan, they'd have to carry their own, because MacArthur wasn't a dumbass and realized just how dire the situation was for the Japanese. That was after the fighting stopped. In a war, with a blockade, and shipping losses... no way. Come on, even if a blockade had let food into Japan, who was going to send it to them? On top of that, they'd be weakened by hunger and poor diet, disease would take hold – at a time when penicillin was a closely-guarded secret experimental drug, so LOTS more deaths from disease and infection than today – and a LOT of Japanese would die. They'd still fight, though – in the Pacific the US frequently found themselves up against half-starved, malnourished Japanese that wouldn't surrender.

They could have offered the terms that were eventually offered accepted and which Japan proposed to the US in January 1945- that the Emperor would not be forced to abdicate, which could precipitate the final showdown that occurred historically between the Emperor and the army officials planning to resist indefinitely.

They could have sprinkled pixie dust on the guns and sung “Kum By Ya”, too, but in the real world that wasn't going to happen. No, by 1945 the Allies were not going to accept anything BUT total and unconditional surrender. Do you not understand that? No negotiating was going to happen on that. The end of the Potsdam Declaration spells it out quite bluntly:

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.

The Japanese kept trying to get terms that would promise the Emperor would stay in power. The Allies weren't cutting any deals, especially since they knew that eventually they'd win based on numbers and resources alone. The Allies didn't have to negotiate, by that point it was just a question of how many would have to die before Japan surrendered or was destroyed. The Allies decided to let Hirohito live, reduced to a figurehead. The Japanese had zero say in it. There was no way in hell the Allies were going to be worn down to more generous terms.

Do you really think the Allies gave a fuck if the military and the Emperor went for each other's throats?

Then there was the business in Okinawa - over 100,000 Japanese casualties, 50,000 US, and tends of thousands of dead civilians. That was one battle for one island out of all the many islands of Japan. Over 1400 suicide attacks. Episodes of mass suicide by captured Japanese, and also by Okinawan civilians. Okinawa maintains that over 100,000 civilians died.

Okinawa killed 12,000 American troops directly, not 50,000. In total less than 20,000 American troops died as a result of the Okinawan campaign, being incredibly generous with the number of troops that died later of wounds sustained on Okinawa.

Hey, stupid – I put a word in my part of the quote in bold. Do you know why? Because I don't think you know what the word “casualty” means. It means “removed from combat”. That's not just the dead, that's the wounded too badly to keep fighting, and the guy over there having a nervous breakdown, curled into a fetal position sucking his thumb. That's why I said CASULTIES, not DEAD, when referring to the troops. Anyone who can't fight has to be replaced, whether dead or POW or severely injured.

Your other figures ignore that the majority of mass suicides among civilians were ordered and forced by Japanese soldiers.

And this makes them less dead because.... wait, no, they're still dead. I'm sorry, from the standpoint of how high the pile of corpses is, what difference does it make whether they were killed by enemy fire, friendly fire, willing suicide, or forced suicide? Do you think there would be fewer suicides on, say, Honshu? Do you think that somehow the military would not force civilians on Honshu to commit suicide? This point you make is no point at all. In an invasion of Japan civilians would have died in enormous numbers.

Again, the Okinawans were less loyal to the Emperor than those on the other main islands. If anything, on those islands the civilian participation would have been greater and their death toll higher.

The estimates for either deaths or casualties varied enormously. That's hardly a surprise, given the variables involved.

We will never know for sure, but the higher estimates relied on the idea that significant fractions of Japanese civilians would fight, and that the invasion would last at least six months, and were unaware of the pending invasion of Hokkaido by the USSR or the full disposition of troops in Japan or the lack of ammunition or equipment among the Japanese forces.

On basis do you think the Japanese civilians wouldn't fight? Seriously? What could possibly lead you to that conclusion? We have examples of civilians engaging US troops in battle in Okinawa. We have examples of civilians killing themselves rather than surrender. We have numerous statements and testimonies from Japanese who were civilians at the time discussing how the nation was preparing civilians to fight the anticipated invasion, and how to kill themselves if it looked like defeat was inevitable. This includes people who were children at the time talking about how they were being prepared to battle invaders with improvised weaponry.

Against that, what evidence can you offer that the civilians wouldn't fight?

Assuming the invasion would only take six months is, frankly, a rather optimistic estimate. It was, I suppose, possible, but the real question is how likely would that have been?

Stas maintains that the USSR didn't really have that much capacity to invade Hokkaido – in which case maybe the USSR doesn't try, or tries and rapidly withdraws, and then how does that effect your cheerful estimate?

And finally – the military at the time had to make decisions based on what they knew. Bakustra, you make the mistake of so many, assuming that the 20/20 hindsight of a half century later applies to those there at the time. If the best information the Allies had was that the Japanese had plenty of ammunition THAT is what the decision is based on, not finding out five years later that half the ammo had been sunk in a harbor somewhere. Of course the Allies did not have perfect knowledge of Japanese troop distribution – keeping that sort of thing secret is kind of important to waging war, you know? Guess what – the Japanese didn't know our troop distribution, either.

Looking at these factors, it is quite likely Japan would have surrendered in September, before any US invasion could begin, with the invasion of Hokkaido in August. It is also likely that if they didn't do so then, they would have collapsed as an effective fighting force once the USSR invaded Honshu (they would have been facing underequipped forces with barely any ammunition in Hokkaido and northern Honshu) and Olympic finally began. It is also possible that Japan would have surrendered once the USSR took Manchuria in a matter of days. It is possible that civil unrest would have forced a surrender in August or September as well. In other words, it is quite possible that the nukes shortened the war only by a matter of weeks rather than the half-year that was thought to be necessary.

Oh, my, you are wearing rose colored glasses. How does that paragraph square with Stas's mention of the lack of USSR capability to invade and take Hokkaido? And if they can't/won't take Hokkaido WHY the fuck would they try Honshu, especially since the USSR knew the Americans were planning to invade it, so why not let US troops get shot instead of USSR troops? And why would Japan suddenly surrender after losing Manchuria when they hadn't surrendered after losing all their other holdings? That makes no sense. What was so magic about Manchuria?

Now, losing Honshu, THAT might make them surrender.... for damn sure losing Okinawa didn't, and that was much more an integral part of Japan than Manchuria.

Can we limit alternatives to those that have some contact with reality?

The notion of a million dead in an invasion of Japan was not simply pulled out of someone's ass. It's not a figure made of pixie dust and the masturbatory fantasies of adolescents. It was arrived at by military people who actually had an education in these matters, based on how things had gone over several years of fighting a particular enemy. Unless you can justify a smaller figure you can't handwave it away.

Yes, in the case of Japan there actually was reason to fear Marines facing off against "hordes of starving, emaciated children to brandish ice picks". School girls were being instructed to tie their ankles and knees together before killing themselves so their body wouldn't fall into an indecent pose. I don't know why the idea of child soldiers is somehow inconceivable to you - African has plenty of them in today's world. Are you less dead if it is a child that stabs you?

No it wasn't. I went over this. First of all, you haven't justified that this would have happened in serious numbers, especially given that again, the assumption that this would happen was based on a single island, while other experience, and the opinion of the emperor's staff, suggests that civil opposition to the military was mounting, and that it was unlikely that civilians would of their own volition fight in significant numbers.

That “one island”, Okinawa, had experienced civilian resistance throughout the war, not just during the battle to take it, because many Okinawans did and still view themselves as distinct from the Japanese. There was MUCH more resistance to Imperial Japan on Okinawa than on the main islands. Or did you not know that Okinawans have their own language, customs and culture? It's like saying the Welsh are identical to the English just because they're both part of the United Kingdom. There was every reason to believe that in central Japan civilians would be MORE loyal to the military cause and MORE cooperative with the army and MORE likely to fight invading allies and LESS likely to side with invaders.

Even after Japan surrendered there was still civilian resistance to the Americans. There wasn't a lot of it, and it wasn't publicized a lot, but it still occurred. What makes you think that during a war, the civilians would not resist?

Again, the Hitler Youth, Volkssturm, and Werwolf units did not act like this, so why would we assume that Japanese civilians in similar situations would have continued to fight?

Did you read my post?

Because the Japanese had a different culture. Germans had a much stronger taboo against suicide than the Japanese (there were some German suicide missions, but nowhere near as many or as organized and glorified as the Japanese kamekazi). Germans had a culture that didn't see surrender as particularly shameful, whereas in Japan many saw surrender as worse than death. These weren't just military values, they were cultural values. Germans, being Western, find the survival of the individual quite important whereas the Japanese put more stock in group survival than Western nations did (and arguably still do) and thus Japanese civilians were more willing to sacrifice themselves for what is perceived at the good of the whole.

There probably would have been a lot of crying 7 year olds happy to surrender in exchange for food and protection, but I'm not so sure about, say, the 15 year olds.

We DID warn the civilians. Unfortunately, on a realistic level, there wasn't a fuck of a lot the civilians could do. A lot of them just wouldn't evacuate, any more than the English evacuated London during the Blitz.

They ranked the cities, you idiot. They specifically ranked them as targets, so that it was Kokura as the first priority, then Nagasaki, then x, then y.

God, you are so thick – no, Nagasaki wasn't formally designated “second choice” in the way you think, it was what was practical as a target on that morning. Weather dictated targets as much as any other factor. If the clouds sorted out differently it would have been a different city that was number two, not Nagasaki.

In any case, there was no safe city to go to. There was nowhere in Japan that wasn't a target on someone's map. What next, you'd want the Allies to published dates and times of attack, too? You're being stupid.

PS: The English did evacuate a number of people from London during the Blitz, particularly children considered non-essential to industry, and a number of people left on their own.

And quite a few people made a point of NOT evacuating. In fact, the royal family made a point of staying in London.

Another important distinction is that there was a place the could evacuate TO – the range of bombs falling on England was limited, past a certain point you were safe because the bombs simply couldn't reach that far. Japan was different, because there was NO place that couldn't be bombed. That was just one of the horrors of WWII, that for some people there was no longer any safe place to flee to.

[K. A. Pital]

Um... just to clarify, my position is that the USSR could technically invade Hokkaido (though it would be harder than the Manchurian campaign, due to logistics issues), but going further south would be harder and harder still. There's no guarantee of fast success. Especially not in Honshu, heavily fortified and prepared for invasion, even if the troops were under-armed compared to Kyushu. Hence why the USSR may just simply ignore the issue. As it is, they had quite a mess to deal with in Manchuria, transporting hundreds of thousands of Japanese POWs to internment camps.

Because the Japanese had a different culture.

A good point would be that many German suicide units indeed surrendered, and even before Hitler's death in 1945. On the other hand, Japanese kamikazes really commited mass suicide. Difference is quite notable.

[Broomstick]

Yeah, it was certainly a much superior military strategy. But estimates of Japanese deaths by blockade were 17 to 40 million dead if it took about a year for Japan to surrender. Much depended on how bad the winter would actually be and if disease outbreaks became widespread prior to or just after capitulation. Even if these estimates are much too high, a figure a third as great would easily run higher then any other option for resolving the war, and the death and suffering would fall disproportionately on civilian vs military personal just as the atomic bombs did.

Which is why I didn't say it was a superior strategy in a utilitarian sense. It would only be superior if Japan capitulates rapidly. That is unlikely, unless the US changed the terms of said capitulation.

I don't see any way the US would have changed their stance on terms - it was either unconditional surrender or destroy Japan. A blockade with millions of Japanese dying wouldn't change that because, to put it bluntly, the US public had little to no empathy for the Japanese at that point.

Now, if the US had invaded and suffered massive casualties of Americans that might have induced them to change the terms... but then, that's not a blockade, is it?

After the war, when the US was doing it's best to feed the Japanese, it was pretty awful regarding the lack of food. A blockade? Well, Japan would have been rat-free in short order. It would have been like the siege of Leningrad, but extended to an entire country.

[Metahive]

Why not try and negotiate a peace? Japan was already sending out peace feelers before the bombings since even the most diehard japanese fanatic there was no hope for victory after the loss of the unified fleet and the Kwantung Army. Instead of shrugging them off the US could have tried and at least let the Japanese make an offer.

[Broomstick]

First, I'm not sure how that's a response to what I said. I'm not specifically calling for a blockade as the preferable response. My point has been that the common figures used to justify the atomic bombings are not necessarily accurate, nor were they the only figures presented.

Well, hell, we don't even know for sure how people those bombs killed on the day they were dropped, much less later on as a consequences of injuries and radiation, do we? (no, we don't.)

With war on that scale it's all estimates and calculations involving a multitude of variables and incomplete information. The only certain thing was that a lot of people alive on August 1, 1945 weren't going to be on August 31.

As I said once before, there were NO good choices. Every alternative would have resulted in massive casualties and death. It was a matter of picking the least bad choice.

At that, the Japanese were damn lucky the US was not as vindictive as it could have been - there certainly were calls for horribly punitive actions, demands for crippling reparations, and some who would have gleefully seen Japanese culture destroyed and its people made slaves. Somehow, MacArthur managed to resist all that and insist on rebuilding Japan as a viable nation. It was controversial at the time, but in the long run I do believe it was the correct course of action.

(I am also aware that MacArthur could be a total asshole and made plenty of mistakes, too, but he got this one particular matter right.)

[TC Pilot]

Why not try and negotiate a peace? Japan was already sending out peace feelers before the bombings since even the most diehard japanese fanatic there was no hope for victory after the loss of the unified fleet and the Kwantung Army. Instead of shrugging them off the US could have tried and at least let the Japanese make an offer.

The Japanese did make offers. The one condition that kept them in the war was the issue of the emperor, on which they were willing to commit national suicide. They assumed that if Hirohito was put at the mercy of the Allies, he would be strung up for war crimes. Sorry to get a bit melodramatic about it, but it would be like the Germans saying they would agree to surrender so long as Hitler stayed in power. You just can't seriously expect the Allies to accept that kind of condition. All the revisionist nonsense that paints Hirohito as a powerless figurehead just blurs the issue. Ultimately, though, the U.S. did unofficially promise that they would preserve the emperor after the atomic bombings, though there was always the prospect that Hirohito would be deposed and face trial, since the U.S. was under no legal obligation not to.

[Metahive]

You just can't seriously expect the Allies to accept that kind of condition.

They killed tens of thousand of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and then allowed Hirohito to make it out unscathed anyway. That's what makes me so angry about the whole affair, the US half-assed it.

[Broomstick]

Actually, we probably killed over a hundred thousand people at Hiroshima, not mere tens of thousands. Let's not downplay the magnitude of death and suffering involved.

MacArthur felt that reconstruction would be better served by leaving the Emperor alive and getting him to publicly back his plans. There certainly were people among the Allies, and the Americans, who wanted Hirohito tried and executed, and in the US there are people still to this day angry that he wasn't killed. It was considered. If the Emperor has refused to cooperate I'm pretty sure he would have been hanged in the end, but Hirohito agreed to play the role MacArthur assigned to him.

After WWII the US did not want a vassal state. We wanted Japan to be a viable, self-supporting nation so we wouldn't have to prop them up forever. If retaining the Emperor as a figurehead would make that easier the US would hold its nose and do that. MacArthur's reasoning, as near as I understand it, was the Emperor was still revered enough by the population that if the Emperor said "cooperate with the Americans" a lot of Japanese would do that (probably while holding their noses - it's not like everyone was friends after all that fighting). On the flip side, he was concerned that if the Emperor was killed then the Japanese people who resist the US reconstruction efforts. Justice did not really enter into it - his job was to get Japan back on its feet, not pass judgment on Hirohito. It was ruthless practicality that allowed Hirohito to die an old man.

The other thing to remember is that the US can be awfully fucking ruthless and stubborn (and I'm not saying that's a good trait, either). How many people died on the way to us killing bin Laden? When the US says someone is wanted "dead or alive" it's not a figure of speech, it's a literal statement. When the US gets to the point it says "unconditional surrender" that's not a figure of speech either, and it's not going to change unless you can FORCE that change. Japan in 1945, retreating across the Pacific and with the people at home starting to starve, couldn't do that.

It's not like the Japanese attempts at negotiating terms were entirely ignored - it did provide information on what the Japanese considered most important. It made it clear that killing the military leaders was going to be more easily tolerated than killing the Emperor.

But no, the US was not going to budge on "terms". There would be no terms. The destruction of Japan, or unconditional surrender. Dead or alive, the US would have Japan.

[Metahive]

That however means that it was american pride more so than japanese pride that necessitated the massacre of Hiroshima's and Nagasaki's citizens, not any real strategic concerns. The deal the Japanese got in the end wasn't then all that different from what they could have gotten through skillful negotiation, so the nuclear bombings essentially boil down to a life-fire weapon test and a good amount of dickwaving. In the end the slain citizens of those two cities served no further purpose but to cleanse the remaining Japanese of any feelings of responsibility or guilt they might have potentially developed had the Allies not declared the Tenno to be completely innocent and merely killed a few scapegoats in his stead.

[TC Pilot]

They killed tens of thousand of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and then allowed Hirohito to make it out unscathed anyway. That's what makes me so angry about the whole affair, the US half-assed it.

Hindsight's like that. Had the United States known the Japanese wouldn't cave right after two atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion, yeah, maybe they'd have agreed beforehand. Who can say?

As for Hirohito and the Occupation, the emperor was actually a great liability for the Americans, precisely because he was so unpopular and discredited for his role in the war. There were quite a few anti-imperial demonstrations, with one case I remember involving a mob storming the imperial palace and becoming enraged by the sight of the imperial pantry. About the only group that wasn't discredited by the war were the communists, who had been sitting in prison for two decades. What was their response to the Occupation? "Cooperate with the Americans."

[Broomstick]

The alternative to Hiroshima and Nagasaki was invasion by troops and the firebombing of every city and town in Japan until unconditional surrender. It could easily have resulted in much more death and destruction, and THAT is the justification used by defenders of the bombing. That's why they say the bombs saved lives - fewer people died than would have died with an alternative course of action.

There was no guarantee that dropping the A-bombs was going to make the Japanese surrender, and if they hadn't, we were sharply limited in how many more could be produced. We would have fallen back on invade-and-burn, with new A-bombs used as they became available.

The purpose of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to convince the Japanese they were UNABLE to win the war. If that had not been convincing, then more traditional means would have been used. Those were the two alternatives.

Yes, it was a live-fire test. Yes, there was some dick-waving. That was not the primary motivation. The motivation was to obliterate a city (or two) then ask them to surrender. If that worked, great, we don't have to destroy any more cities or kill any more people, we can stop there. Just because the US was determined to keep fighting doesn't mean the US wanted to keep fighting. If the US had just stuck with napalm and bullets would that have been somehow more acceptable to you?

[Metahive]

They were already convinced they couldn't win the war, what they weren't convinced of was that they'd had to surrender unconditionally. The invasions or the bombings were therefore never an absolute necessity. You can long gripe about how the US wouldn't have ever accepted this or that term of surrender but that doesn't substract from the fact that a non-violent solution was possible and the US were the ones to spurn it.

Stop artificially limiting the alternatives. The US should just accept that engaging in dirty business does leave stains and move on. There's no reason to perpetually paint oneself as a victim of the circumstances, that's just childish.

[Alyeska]

They were already convinced they couldn't win the war, what they weren't convinced of was that they'd had to surrender unconditionally. The invasions or the bombings were therefore never an absolute necessity. You can long gripe about how the US wouldn't have ever accepted this or that term of surrender but that doesn't substract from the fact that a non-violent solution was possible and the US were the ones to spurn it.

Stop artificially limiting the alternatives. The US should just accept that engaging in dirty business does leave stains and move on. There's no reason to perpetually paint oneself as a victim of the circumstances, that's just childish.

The Japanese might have known they couldn't win, but they still believed the US could loose. Make the fight bloody enough and the Allies have to stop fighting. The nuclear bombs demonstrated that a single bomber can flatten an entire city. Now what happens when 300 bombers fly? The nuclear bomb meant the US couldn't actually loose. And once the Japanese realized this, that meant resistance to the death only meant death, nothing else.

[Metahive]

Lose? No, their goal, at least that of the hawks, was to inflict as much losses as possible on any potential invaders to get peace to more favorable terms. They knew they had at this point nothing to force a surrender of the US, the daily firebombings of their cities already demonstrated as much. The Japanese might have been deluded fanatics, but they weren't stupid.

[Alyeska]

Lose? No, their goal, at least that of the hawks, was to inflict as much losses as possible on any potential invaders to get peace to more favorable terms. They knew they had at this point nothing to force a surrender of the US, the daily firebombings of their cities already demonstrated as much. The Japanese might have been deluded fanatics, but they weren't stupid.

Splitting hairs. That was what I was getting at. They wanted to make the battle so bloody that the US couldn't sustain it for lack of will or ability. The use of nuclear weapons completely changed the paradigm.

[Bakustra]

First, I'm not sure how that's a response to what I said. I'm not specifically calling for a blockade as the preferable response. My point has been that the common figures used to justify the atomic bombings are not necessarily accurate, nor were they the only figures presented.

That has already been discussed in this thread. The actual estimates were based on lower numbesr of Japanese defenders than were actually present. The loss estimations were lower than what likely would have happened.

Which estimations? The 105,000 of MacArthur, which is two orders of magnitude less than the casualties of the "million dead" estimate? The "million dead" estimate? Because the one is a reasonable statement to make, the other is not, and I specifically acknowledged that the US underestimated the number of troops in Kyushu. But- nobody uses estimates other than the "million dead" one to justify Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so that does not work as a counterargument.

Secondly, that depends on the length of the blockade, doesn't it? People usually use the year-long estimates, but that relies on the Japanese government lasting a year under mounting civil unrest and all the other factors.

The military was willing to sacrafice its citizens. Bet you they would have kept the food for themselves and let the people starve.

Bet you that facing an interminable blockade, the destruction of their last hopes for a negotiated settlement with the entry of the USSR and the realization that the Americans wouldn't give them a decisive battle, and rioting from the public would have swayed the Emperor and the cabinet members that historically swayed after Hiroshima.

They were already convinced they couldn't win the war, what they weren't convinced of was that they'd had to surrender unconditionally. The invasions or the bombings were therefore never an absolute necessity. You can long gripe about how the US wouldn't have ever accepted this or that term of surrender but that doesn't substract from the fact that a non-violent solution was possible and the US were the ones to spurn it.

Stop artificially limiting the alternatives. The US should just accept that engaging in dirty business does leave stains and move on. There's no reason to perpetually paint oneself as a victim of the circumstances, that's just childish.

The Japanese might have known they couldn't win, but they still believed the US could loose. Make the fight bloody enough and the Allies have to stop fighting. The nuclear bombs demonstrated that a single bomber can flatten an entire city. Now what happens when 300 bombers fly? The nuclear bomb meant the US couldn't actually loose. And once the Japanese realized this, that meant resistance to the death only meant death, nothing else.

Their goal was to force the US to negotiate a settlement, not to force the US to stop fighting. They also hoped to negotiate this settlement through the USSR, who they thought would remain neutral. The entry of the USSR was a critical part of the decision to eventually surrender, and probably contributed as much as Hiroshima, as the Japanese Army and Navy knew that the US could only have a limited supply of nuclear weapons- though we attacked Nagasaki shortly afterward in order to convince them that we had a larger supply that reality.

[Broomstick]

Wasn't painting the US as a victim, just stating that for the US anything less than an unconditional surrender was unacceptable. I understand that YOU don't think that's acceptable, and many others don't think that's acceptable, but it was the US fighting the war, not you.

No, Japan did not "force" us to use atomic bombs. That was entirely up to Truman, actually. He had the final say. If he had said no the military would have used an alternative method to achieve the same end. No, we didn't have to use atomic bombs. There have been alternatives listed - we could have used bullets, fire bombing, or just blockaded Japan and starved them out. Would that have resulted in fewer or more lives lost? Does that matter?

It was a US decision to push on until unconditional surrender, no one else's - I suspect other members of the Allies might have accepted less. My point is that the Americans can be completely ruthless when it comes to winning. That's not apologizing or condoning it or saying they were "forced" into that stance, it's a statement of how things were. Japan offered terms, the US refused them, that was a US decision and no one else's. Far from being a victim, that's what you get to do when you're in a position of power.

I understand you don't agree with it. I understand you think it's wrong. The problem is, that's how it was. It's yet another ugly and unpleasant fact about an extraordinarily ugly and unpleasant part of history.

It's not like the rightness or wrongness of that is not debated in the US. While initially people approved after more facts came out opinions changed and the morality of the actions were questioned. It's a constant on-going debate. Please don't think Americans are all "rah-rah, blowing up cities is great!" because we aren't. I like to think the constant questions and debates about those two bombings will help prevent the US ever using those weapons again, but no one knows the future? I'd like to think they're never used again, but there are other nations with atomic bombs. I dread the day one is used, because we'll get to see it live on TV this time, and we'll just have to realize that there really isn't a bandage for that sort of wound. We'll see a city burn, then watch as "survivors" spend a month or two dying horribly. There's no fix for what would result from that.

[Broomstick]

The Japanese might have known they couldn't win, but they still believed the US could loose. Make the fight bloody enough and the Allies have to stop fighting. The nuclear bombs demonstrated that a single bomber can flatten an entire city. Now what happens when 300 bombers fly? The nuclear bomb meant the US couldn't actually loose. And once the Japanese realized this, that meant resistance to the death only meant death, nothing else.

^ This.

It wasn't just that the US would win - the Japanese couldn't touch them. No going down in a blaze of glory, with a last ditch swing to take as many of the enemy with you as you could.... No, atomic warfare meant the enemy would destroy your nation and kill you without even risking a scratch. No chance to poke the enemy in the eye and spit in his face as he shoots you, no, just death from the sky, and you can't reach him.

Of course, now we know the US simply didn't have enough A-bombs to do that... but the Japanese couldn't know that then. How many did we have? 2? 5? 10? Hey, we'd listed 30 cities on those leaflets, did we have 30 atomic bombs? How fast were we making them?