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Hiroshima (1946)

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Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#31

Post by WillPostForFood »

prmph wrote: post #28
InTheArena wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly untrue. Most of this narrative comes from Soviet propaganda that was later propagated by anti-Western and anti-war groups in the United States. More recently, it's gotten more attention as Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Rudolfovich Solovyov use it as a useful tool to build their narrative that only Russia was responsible for World War II's victory and to justify their constant threats of nuclear warfare.…

What came before the "Furthermore, ..."?

But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone — the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of our servants of the state, and the devoted service of our one hundred million people — the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#32

Post by pirate787 »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #31
prmph wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What came before the "Furthermore, ..."?

But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone — the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of our servants of the state, and the devoted service of our one hundred million people — the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.

That may be the greatest understatement ever written!

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#33

Post by ricksunny »

InTheArena wrote: post #25
ricksunny wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any global consensus on avoiding repeating this low point in human history needs to acknowledge the prime movers behind birthing the bomb into existence in the first place. Much ink has been spilt debating morality, but on the raw mechanics the historians are in alignment with each other - doesn't matter if you ask Richard Rhodes, Robert S Norris, or Alex Wellerstein: Vannevar Bush, more than any single individual, s…

In any moral framework that does not include perfect knowledge of the future, the nuclear bomb is morally defensible at worst, and morally required at best. Sheer number of lives saved? The Nuclear Bomb ended the war. Number of Japanese lives saved? Nuclear bomb wins. The "non-violent" option of a blockade? It would have resulted in millions dead. The Japanese farming system completely collapsed in 1944. Many still s…

That's the pitfall these discussions invariably fall into - debating the morality of deploying rather than the wisdom of developing a capacity in the first place. The primary justification for secretly studying the feasibility of the fission chain reaction was the fear that Germany (not Japan) might be developing an atomic bomb of their own (an early form of the subsequent Cold War's 'can't prove a negative' about what weapons the Soviets might be developing).

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#34

Post by baud147258 »

ricksunny wrote: post #20
Synaesthesia wrote: post #6

The singular horror of this event really is so difficult to describe, definitely one of the low points of human history which we must vow to never again repeat, under any circumstances.

Any global consensus on avoiding repeating this low point in human history needs to acknowledge the prime movers behind birthing the bomb into existence in the first place. Much ink has been spilt debating morality, but on the raw mechanics the historians are in alignment with each other - doesn't matter if you ask Richard Rhodes, Robert S Norris, or Alex Wellerstein: Vannevar Bush, more than any single individual, s…

> unnecessary blood on his hands

While the debate on the bomb is not and never will be settled, I'm not sure I'd call the bloodshed caused by Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be unnecessary: it ended up a war that had caused so far millions of death.

And what social epistemology, actually?

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#35

Post by georgeecollins »

InTheArena wrote: post #22
prmph wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I understand that Japan gave up, not so much because of the bomb, but mostly because of the Soviet invasion and capture of Manchuria (and the implied threat of an invasion of the mainland), after the war in Europe had been won. But I still struggle to understand the Japanese mentality. Were they OK with the prospect of city after city being atom- or fire-bombed, so long as no ground invasion occurred?

This is mostly untrue. Most of this narrative comes from Soviet propaganda that was later propagated by anti-Western and anti-war groups in the United States. More recently, it's gotten more attention as Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Rudolfovich Solovyov use it as a useful tool to build their narrative that only Russia was responsible for World War II's victory and to justify their constant threats of nuclear warfare.…

The other thing that gets glossed over in the "it was the soviets, not the bomb that caused the surrender" is that the USSR knew the US had the atomic bomb and realized it might end the war. They had territorial objectives of their own and wanted to join the conflict with (understandably) minimal casualties. If they had thought the war was going to last another year they might waited a bit longer to join.

I really strongly recommend Ian Toll's histories of the Pacific war, because there is information that is not in the early histories (at least the ones I read a while back) that is because things in the US and former USSR are more declassified. In particular, the US had a pretty good understanding of what is going on in the Japanese government. They knew a lot of civilian leaders wanted to surrender before Hiroshima, but were afraid they would be associated by a coup, as had happened in the 1930s. That's also what the Japanese leaders who wanted to surrender were worried about as well.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#36

Post by prmph »

pirate787 wrote: post #32
WillPostForFood wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone — the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of our servants of the state, and the devoted service of our one hundred million people — the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.

That may be the greatest understatement ever written!

Beat me to it. That's exactly what I was going to say

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#37

Post by decimalenough »

makeitdouble wrote: post #21
prmph wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I understand that Japan gave up, not so much because of the bomb, but mostly because of the Soviet invasion and capture of Manchuria (and the implied threat of an invasion of the mainland), after the war in Europe had been won. But I still struggle to understand the Japanese mentality. Were they OK with the prospect of city after city being atom- or fire-bombed, so long as no ground invasion occurred?

The war was dictated by a religious leader, to some (most?) there was just no stopping it until it tells them to.

It's not useful to paint Hirohito as a religious leader. Yes, he was technically the head of State Shinto, but he was not the one issuing orders.

Depending on how you look at it (and reams of paper have been expended on this topic), he was somewhere between a puppet and a symbol. Certainly not innocent, but also not the instigator.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#38

Post by prmph »

ricksunny wrote: post #20
Synaesthesia wrote: post #6

The singular horror of this event really is so difficult to describe, definitely one of the low points of human history which we must vow to never again repeat, under any circumstances.

Any global consensus on avoiding repeating this low point in human history needs to acknowledge the prime movers behind birthing the bomb into existence in the first place. Much ink has been spilt debating morality, but on the raw mechanics the historians are in alignment with each other - doesn't matter if you ask Richard Rhodes, Robert S Norris, or Alex Wellerstein: Vannevar Bush, more than any single individual, s…

The bomb would have been developed one way or the other, no matter what. The time was ripe for it.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#39

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

karlgkk wrote: post #30

The atrocities that the Japanese military committed, consistently and repeatedly and combined with their attack on pearl harbor, meant that Americans of the time on the front lines had few qualms or issues with dropping the bomb. Truman famously called Oppenheimer a "cry baby" when Oppenheimer expressed doubt. Truman had spent the past decade dealing with the war in his capacity as senator and vice president - seeing…

I agree. With the information they had at the time it made total sense to drop the bomb. After seeing how tough the Japanese military fought during the invasion of the various islands it was reasonable to assume that the invasion of the mainland would be extremely bloody.

I think whatever we learned (I have read that Japan was already ready to surrender). after should be applied to future wars but not be applied to situations where the information was not available.

If anybody is responsible for Japanese suffering it’s clearly Hirohito and his generals who were too cowardly to accept defeat and instead chose to have killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese while they were hesitating.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#40

Post by socalgal2 »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #6

The singular horror of this event really is so difficult to describe, definitely one of the low points of human history which we must vow to never again repeat, under any circumstances.

Why is this special? The Japanese killed ~7 million Chinese, 0.5 to 1 million Filipinos, 500k in Korea, you can keep adding them up. Then Japan loses 0.2% of all their atrocities and it's the worst thing ever? No, it's not the worst thing ever, not even close. Sure, we'd all like it to never happen again. But if I had to pick one thing not happening again I'd pick saving all others that died in WW2 over this one incident.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU

There's also the argument that it saved more lives than the deaths it caused. The same can not be said for Japan's atrocities.

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