The article below from Foreign Policy magazine is much better
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vdqHpr...
Why did Japan surrender? (2011)
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Re: Why did Japan surrender? (2011)
#52There's a thread on reddit a while ago that explains this quite well. http://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2j3xar/til_tha...
Re: Why did Japan surrender? (2011)
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article also poses the idea that its unlikely that the U.S. would surrender a war after a city was destroyed. Article also gives the example of UK not giving up after German bombing in WW2.
Yes, as I've already mentioned it deserves more thought than just two sentences when you're trying to sell the idea that nuclear weapons are not deterrents to large scale wars. So far modern history has already disproved Hasegawa's opinion. Ever since the advent of global ballistic weapons, we have yet had another major world war besides conflicts here and there. They have kept the peace.
World wars are uncommon whether we have nuclear deterrents or not, after all we had none before 1914. However we have had major near decade long regional conflicts and many wars by proxy between nuclear powers. While it's persuasive to think that nuclear weapons have prevented world wars, there isn't much evidence to support that idea.
Re: Why did Japan surrender? (2011)
#54Maybe Hasegawa's interpretation has new implications regarding nuclear deterrence theory, but not how the author suggests. The idea that the nuclear bombings were not decisive factors in Japan's surrender does not mean that nuclear weapons do not serve as a deterrence. Nuclear weaponry advanced so much in the aftermath of WW2 that now nuclear countries can literally reduce entire nations to pixie dust. And the potent…
"the potential of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) all but guarantees that nuclear countries will never attack each other for fear of nuclear escalation."
I would feel a lot more secure in the efficacy of MAD if war was rational in the first place. History shows it is anything but.
It hasn't even been 100 years since the last nuclear weapon was used offensively, but already the world has come dangerously close to starting a nuclear war.
Numerous accidents involving nuclear weapons have happened. Critical and very dangerous errors were made in detecting that nuclear war had already begun when it hadn't. Countries with nuclear weapons have come close to going to war with each other (India and Pakistan, Cuban Missile Crisis). Weapon-grade nuclear material and nuclear weapons have gone missing. The American nuclear weapon launch codes were all 0's for something like 20 years.
It is an open question how a nuclear power will react to having a nuclear weapon exploded on their soil (potentially by terrorists under a false-flag operation) but it likely won't be a calm and measured response against the perceived perpetrator. If this happens in a poweder-keg like the Middle East, the ensuing chaos could easily draw in other nuclear powers.
Crumbling nuclear-weapons and launch-detection infrastructure in the former Soviet republics is still a major concern because of continued and increasing potential for accidental launches of weapons still aimed at their former Cold War foes, not to mention the renewed possibility of a second Cold War that has been in the news recently, and Putin's overt threats of the use of nuclear weapons.
Re: Why did Japan surrender? (2011)
#55The comparisons made in this article and comments below seem to all but forget one major fact that completely changes everything. That is, Atomic bombs are NOT the same as carpet bombing say Tokyo. Why? RADIATION. If the major cities and sites of Japan suffered a disaster due conventional bombing The thinking would be – afterward we rebuild. You don't think that when your left with a radiation zone. So the theory tha…
I was under the impression that the long-term effects of radiation and nuclear weapons weren't well known at the time of the Japanese surrender. If that's so, it is unlikely such concerns as you describe played much of a role.
Re: Why did Japan surrender? (2011)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, I think there is a big open issue about the difference between the US policy on strategic bombing in Japan and against Germany. US bombing in Germany was designed to specifically attack industry. They flew during daytime, despite that leading to much higher causalities among their crews, and used bomb targets. It was the UK that firebombed Dresden during night without bothering to aim at specific targets. T…
I don't think there was a racial aspect in the sense that Germans were seen as more 'us'. We demonized both Germans and Japanese pretty similarly. There were Americans of German ancestry who changed their surnames to avoid discrimination and unpleasantness from other non German whites. I think we started firebombing Japan when it became difficult to tell industry apart from the general pop as they moved factories int…
Yet no German-Americans were herded in concenration camps, unlike what the American government did to all Japanese-Americans. Why was that?
Re: Why did Japan surrender? (2011)
#57August 6: bombing of Hiroshima August 7: 1. Japanese nuclear scientists determine that the bomb was indeed nuclear device. 2. Imperial Navy estimates that US has only one or two more bombs and Japan could endure the attacks. August 9: 1. bombing of Nagasaki 2. USSR declares war to Japan & Manchurian Strategic Offensive started. 3. Hirohito worried because USSR declared war and held an Imperial conference that authori…
> Even after Hirohito made the personal decision to surrender, the intention was to continue the war if the kokutai (Imperial institution and national polity) would not be preserved.
And here's where I don't understand the reasoning: Did they seriously think the kokutai would have been preserved if they had fought on? Did they seriously think the Allies would have allowed Japan to continue as it had? It seems the most obvious thing in the world to blockade and bombard the Home Islands for six to eight months, destroying farmland especially, and then engage in the beachhead assault that had already been planned.
The American Armed Forces are still using Purple Hearts made specifically for the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. They're all new-old stock, to use the common phrase; that's how serious the plan was.
Re: Why did Japan surrender? (2011)
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think there was a racial aspect in the sense that Germans were seen as more 'us'. We demonized both Germans and Japanese pretty similarly. There were Americans of German ancestry who changed their surnames to avoid discrimination and unpleasantness from other non German whites. I think we started firebombing Japan when it became difficult to tell industry apart from the general pop as they moved factories int…
Yet no German-Americans were herded in concenration camps, unlike what the American government did to all Japanese-Americans. Why was that?
Certainly we had people who thought that Japanese were more apt to side with our foe due to their being Japanese and being easy to tell apart. However as it pertains bombing, which is the discussion here, we were indiscriminate towards both. We did try to steer clear from cultural targets such as avoiding Kyoto. We did not have the same view on Dresden as it had more strategic importance. And people forget we had restrictions on Germans in the country and interned a few thousand as well though not to the extent we did Japanese. Italians on the other hand we didn't take seriously --not even sure we labeled them enemy aliens
Re: Why did Japan surrender? (2011)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think there was a racial aspect in the sense that Germans were seen as more 'us'. We demonized both Germans and Japanese pretty similarly. There were Americans of German ancestry who changed their surnames to avoid discrimination and unpleasantness from other non German whites. I think we started firebombing Japan when it became difficult to tell industry apart from the general pop as they moved factories int…
Yet no German-Americans were herded in concenration camps, unlike what the American government did to all Japanese-Americans. Why was that?
Hard to believe it was anything but European vs Asian. Not right, but it was war. And the British didn't do it like we did; and the British leaked secrets like a sieve. There was a highly-placed Japanese in UK govt, who sent everything on his desk back to Japan. So war is heck.
Re: Why did Japan surrender? (2011)
#60"Why/how did WW1 end" is an interesting question, too. Aside from cursory school classes and then some reading, I've never really looked into it in great detail. The elementary school version is "tanks broke the stalemate, and the US/UK rolled through to victory", but it was a lot more nuanced than that, with internal revolutions in multiple countries. WW1 clearly could have kept going for some extended period longer…
It's fascinating. I just finished "To End All Wars," by Adam Hochschild. He points out that Germany's military was doing quite well in July 1918 ... but that blockades had ruined Germany's ability to feed its people. Folks were getting by on 1000 calories/day; starvation was common, and with the Bolsheviks having stirred up Russia, socialist/pacifists were totally tired of fighting. After modest military setbacks, Ge…
As if WW 1 and 2 are in fact a single event with a strange picnic pause in the middle.