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The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan

#161

Post by greedo »

woodchuck64 wrote: post #49

Why revisit the issue? Modern society has evolved morally to be utterly revolted by the killing of civilians of another country intentionally and would never support the use of a nuclear weapon in this fashion. Isn't that all the moral judgement we need?

If you think that "modern society" is that evolved, you're very fortunate that we haven't had anything near total war in 68 years. Morals quickly fall by the wayside when a country's way of life or existence is threatened. Read up on SIOP and the Soviet equivalent, and you'll see that we trained thousands to use nuclear weapons, spent trillions, and the Soviets did as well. The gloss of civilization is a thin veneer that can easily be degraded.

Re: The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan

#162

Post by parennoob »

asperous wrote: post #129
gruseom wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is contentless. It doesn't address a single specific thing the article says. Instead it offers woolly generalities ("Japan was threatened on many fronts and made the best choice it could. That much is clear") and platitudes ("all of the actions, taken together, were the reason for the war to end. Yes, Stalin played a big role. But it's not an either-or situation"). It sounds like it's saying something; i…

>"Think for a minute about what this essay is asking "What if action X did not end the war in the Pacific?" I think it was addressing the overall idea of speculation in historical events.

What meaning of speculate do you mean? There are two that are nearly the opposite of each other (making this an almost-Janus word):

1. To meditate on a subject; reflect. 2. To engage in a course of reasoning often based on inconclusive evidence.

If you mean 2., the article doesn't do anything of the sort. It lays out specific pieces of evidence based on observed historical fact and draws specific conclusions from them. On the other hand, the top-level comment above is pretty vague in its rebuttal.

Re: The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan

#163

Post by ScottBurson »

kybernetikos wrote: post #107
sliverstorm wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The further we get away from the events of those times the easier it is to second guess those decisions and not be challenged by someone with first hand knowledge of the events. Great observation, summarizes one of my main quarrels with people trying to reimagine history.

The weird thing about this is that I've read excerpts from Trumans diary and I've read the result of the US Strategic Bombing Survey that was done at the time and both either say outright or strongly imply that the atomic bombing was not necessary to achieve the surrender of Japan. This is stuff written either immediately before the bombing or shortly afterwards. It's only now that people have had years of believing…

It's only now that people have had years of believing a narrative that we're exactly in that situation where stating that the atomic bombs were necessary is a view that can go unchallenged.

Indeed. Those throwing around accusations of revisionism need to question whether the history they accept is not actually the revisionist one.

Re: The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan

#164

Post by ScottBurson »

gruseom wrote: post #118
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #71

I love UFO stories, and I love history, and I love pseudo-science. Hell, I even like counter-factuals. What if Lee had won at Gettysburg? What if Patton had actually commanded the Normandy invasion? And so forth. But these things are the province of speculation, not knowledge. Think for a minute about what this essay is asking "What if action X did not end the war in the Pacific?" Well dang, Action X could be just ab…

This comment is contentless. It doesn't address a single specific thing the article says. Instead it offers woolly generalities ("Japan was threatened on many fronts and made the best choice it could. That much is clear") and platitudes ("all of the actions, taken together, were the reason for the war to end. Yes, Stalin played a big role. But it's not an either-or situation"). It sounds like it's saying something; i…

Agreed, and thank you for your posts. The amount of knee-jerking visible in this discussion is astounding and disappointing.

Re: The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan

#165

Post by saraid216 »

gruseom wrote: post #154
saraid216 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do Japanese historians have to say about how and why Japan surrendered in 1945? Given Japan's current record on how they engage with World War 2 history, I honestly wouldn't trust any of their claims. Wikipedia has an overview of the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes#Debate_in_J... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_contr... I'm not saying that they would lie, but at…

One really has to be careful with this kind of reasoning. That Japan minimizes its war crimes (as other countries do) and engages in propaganda (as other countries do) does not render irrelevant what Japanese scholars have to say about how and why Japan surrendered in 1945. Indeed, nearly all the important evidence on this is bound to be of Japanese origin (not to mention language), so it's the obvious place to start…

I absolutely agree; I'm not saying that it's irrelevant, but rather that there are still people alive and in power who have a demonstrated interest in lying on the matter. This is far less true in other countries.

What confuses me about this debate is what purpose is serves. Minus patriotism, why does it matter? I've maintained a neutral stance on the matter precisely because I don't understand this. (But I'm also a relatively non-nationalistic person, and I also have seen people who still think we need to get revenge for Pearl Harbor (4srswtf), so maybe it's just me.)

Re: The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan

#166

Post by tokenadult »

This is one of those cases where submitting the article with the original article title would be very helpful. Both on the page, as visible to readers, and in the HTML source code title element, the title of the article is "The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan... Stalin Did." The timeline that the article sets up claims that the (belated) declaration of war by the Soviet Union against Japan, which came only after Allied victory in Europe, is what forced Japan to consider surrender to the Allies.

Responding to this, I would point out that it was a known historical facts for a long time that Stalin had spies (plural) in the Manhattan Project, and generally had a good idea of how far the United States was progressing toward developing an atomic bomb. So one could just as well say that it is the advanced development of the bomb by the United States that prompted Stalin to declare war against a new enemy, right after a brutal and prolonged war against the European Axis powers.

Over the years, I have read many proposed ways to defeat Japan without dropping the atomic bomb in a variety of American sources. Submarine captains thought that submarine warfare alone could defeat Japan. (Near the end of the war, American submarines were operating freely very near the coast of Japan, and even in the Inland Sea between Shikoku and the other main islands of Japan.) American aviators were glad to have the bomb to continue to justify their existence, of course, but many have expressed the opinion that conventional strategic bombing alone could have defeated Japan.

Japan set up a rather harsh set of expectations by how fiercely it fought against the Allied landing on Okinawa. That made Allied war planners revise upward their estimate of the difficulty and cost in lives (both civilian and military) likely from a forced invasion on the main islands of Japan. That had to be part of the consideration as Allied war planners decided whether or not to drop the bomb. It's still a historical fact that no surrender was offered until after the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan.

Re: The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan

#167

Post by jbooth »

alexqgb wrote: post #152
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #71

I love UFO stories, and I love history, and I love pseudo-science. Hell, I even like counter-factuals. What if Lee had won at Gettysburg? What if Patton had actually commanded the Normandy invasion? And so forth. But these things are the province of speculation, not knowledge. Think for a minute about what this essay is asking "What if action X did not end the war in the Pacific?" Well dang, Action X could be just ab…

Did you even read the article, Daniel? Contrary to your assertion, the essay is not asking "What if action X did not end the war in the Pacific?". It is stating - categorically - that the commonly accepted narrative is based on an insufficient accounting of the facts, and that this narrative is unsustainable in the face of a more complete record of what actually happened. Here's the key passage: "It didn't take a mil…

It's also noteworthy that the Japanese troops in Manchuria were, from most accounts I've seen, their most veteran land-based army. And the soviets, having fought the Germans for the past 6 years, basically cut through them like butter. That will make you reconsider your position.

Re: The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan

#168

Post by oneiric »

I would like to see more comments on Ward Wilson's larger point, that atomic bombs should not exist.

This is merely one piece to that larger argument, which I find convincing, that atomic bombs are not useful in a modern world as a militaristic or diplomatic tool. Maybe some of the commenters that are demonstrably far more expert historians than I would explain whether they think this recollection supports that idea, or that atomic bombs are merely less influential than a large scale invasion from Stalin, a scary dude.

Re: The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan

#169

Post by dspeyer »

parennoob wrote: post #162
asperous wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Think for a minute about what this essay is asking "What if action X did not end the war in the Pacific?" I think it was addressing the overall idea of speculation in historical events.

What meaning of speculate do you mean? There are two that are nearly the opposite of each other (making this an almost-Janus word): 1. To meditate on a subject; reflect. 2. To engage in a course of reasoning often based on inconclusive evidence. If you mean 2., the article doesn't do anything of the sort. It lays out specific pieces of evidence based on observed historical fact and draws specific conclusions from the…

In talking about causality, the article makes two counterfactual claims: had the Soviets not invaded Manchuria, Japan would not have surrendered and had the bombs not been dropped, Japan would have surrendered. (In my opinion, the first claim is well-defended, the second less so). Since the bombs were dropped and the Soviets did invade, any discussion of these possibilities is a little speculative.

Re: The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan

#170

Post by kmasters »

It seems the implication of the article is to say that we have potentially drawn the wrong conclusion on "which straw" broke the camels back.

And that if we drew the wrong conclusion that somehow this might impact or could have impacted the rationale for developing nuclear arsenals.

It's also popular in the US war college that officers attend, the statement that "Wars cannot be won by air power alone".

But beyond these details, whether the history is exactly right on what caused the Japanese to surrender, there is no doubt that the conclusion of WWII precipitated an arms race and a space race as Nazi scientists and technology were divided among the superpowers.

Nothing would have stopped the advancement of war making technology, no convenient conclusions about the strategic causes or effects.

Technology will advance whether we want it to or not. And whether or not its in out best interests as we perceive them in our posited "future".

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