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This is of course just my opinion, but no horrors, imaginable or otherwise, that the Japanese could've possibly orchestrated at the time, with the means they had available, would've come close to the devastation caused by the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Look up the Rape of Nanking. Studying that alone made me believe the bombs were warranted. That's not even including Unit 731, and the fact that the Japanese government still will not acknowledge their attrocities.
The bombs were a sad necessity to stop the monstrosities.
What does that atrocity have to do with the civilians who were nuked?
Would you have preferred napalm, like Tokyo?
Or a ground invasion? Like Berlin?
It has to do with them in that their government would only listen to the sound of their screams. That was the only way to stop them.
Except the government didn't give a shit about the peasants or they would have surrendered earlier when so many were dying from previous bombings and the war was already obviously hopelessly lost. Let's pretend what you say is correct, do you think Americans should get nuked because of the US carrying out the Iraq invasion and occupation along with the many other war crimes that the US carries out on a regular basis? We'll find out just how much the government cares about these screams.
let's not say nukes are good. did the nukes undo those atrocities?
No, but they stopped more from occuring.
I will say nukes are bad, though.
>they stopped more from occuring
this can't be proven
"The trolley might have stopped on its own"
>Japan surrendered due to the Bomb drops.
we will never know whether they would have surrendered without them on the same time table.
Thanks for actually pointing out a specific atrocity committed by the Japanese, which did result in higher casualties than the bomb, though it happened over months rather than minutes, but ok, I'll accept it.
Still, the point is, what atrocities were the Japanese capable of perpetrating at the time the bombs were dropped, that were prevented by it, and couldn't have been prevented in a different way. There's a big chance that the Japanese were going to surrender anyways, and if not, maybe just the threat of dropping the bomb (maybe, say, after a demonstration at sea or otherwise away from civilians) would've been enough.
They believe their Emperor was a God. The invasion of mainland Japan would have resulted in the Japanese fighting to the last man, woman, and child. Millions of civilian casualties. You suggest a test of the bomb would have forced Japanese surrender. But history tells the exact opposite story. There was a 3 day gap between the first and second bomb. Japanese high command thought the allies only had one bomb, refused to surrender. They only surrendered after the second bomb, when they realized this was repeatable.
Of course, thats your prerogative, but then, quite frankly, you don't know enough about Japanese war crimes.
I'm sorry, what war crimes did the civilians of Nagasaki and Hiroshima commit?
None, but the state that governed them did, and the people are part of the state. What's you point?
My point is that targeting civilians is never okay. And if we are going to open the box to "well the state committed war crimes so civilians had to be targeted" I'd like to know your opinions on both 9/11 and October 7th, cause I bet there's gonna be some inconsistency to your belief.
But that whole argument concedes the point that the nukes stopped Japan. They did not. Japan was already sueing for peace. They were willing to negotiate and we know that what they were and were not willing to give up lines up with what we did end up agreeing to post war anyways. The nukes were pointless on top of being abhorrent.
You are incredibly naive. Total war between industrialized nations, as happened in WW2, is won or lost on industrial capacity. States literally need to cripple their enemy's ability and will to wage war, which means destroying industrial production, food production, access to safe water, and civil infrastructure. And that is why there should never be another great power war.
As for the USA's use of nuclear weapons in Japan, they weren't used to "win" the war. As you say, the Japanese were effectively beaten. Nukes were used to force an immediate surrender, saving millions of both American and Japanese lives.
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945. Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war. and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. - The United States Strategic Bombing survey (European war) (Pacific War) https://ia801903.us.archive.org/33/items/unitedstatesstra00cent/unitedstatesstra00cent.pdf
Sure, but that wasn't known at the time so it wasn't a relevant factor in the decision to drop the bombs.
But it was though. We had intercepted the communications between the Japanese foreign affairs head and the ambassador to the Soviet Union. The ambassador was attempting to get the Soviets to mediate a peace with the allies as they were not yet at war. We had their entire negotiation strategy. We had their intent and knew their wants, must haves and no go's. All of which lines up with the peace we ultimately would have.
We 100% knew. All we had to do was sit down and negotiate.
The Japanese were not ready to surrender unconditionally, and that was the internationally agreed endpoint of the war with Germany and Japan. Unconditional surrender and occupation was considered necessary to completely break the German and Japanese spirit and ensure no third world war. The Allies didn't want a repeat of the inter-war period between WW1 and WW2 where Germany was not occupied and could tell itself that it hadn't really lost WW1. The Allies agreed that the way to avoid this problem was to comprehensively defeat and then force unconditional surrender on the Axis powers, followed by occupation, re-education, and rebuilding. When you look at Japan and Germany's success after WW2, it's hard to argue that the Allies were wrong to take that stance. The atomic bombs are a side issue. The invasion of Japan would have been so much worse.
You're leaving out the part where the peace talks were already a non starter. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japanese-diplomacy-1945#:~:text=Japan's%20ambassador%20to%20the%20Soviet%20Union%20in%201945%2C%20Naotake%20Sato,That%20effort%20ran%20through%20Sato.
After what japan had done, there should have been more bombs dropped.
And I know your argument is disingenuous because the fire bombing of Tokyo killed more people.
You better have a good source if you're going to make such a bold statement.
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945. Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war. and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. - The United States Strategic Bombing survey (European war) (Pacific War) https://ia801903.us.archive.org/33/items/unitedstatesstra00cent/unitedstatesstra00cent.pdf
Fight war crimes with war crimes
Debatable. But as always with this topic; what else would force the Japanese surrender?
Maybe the fact they were already sueing for peace? Maybe the complete distruction of their Navy and Air forces? Maybe the blockaid we had on the island? Maybe the fact they were already sueing for peace?
Oh boy, fun! By all means, provide a source that states that Japan would have surrendered irrespective of the atomic bombings. This could be amusing...
Here's a whole video essay on the topic
https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go?si=67gvnic_eEXJRAPQ
Japan was already asking for peace but the US was turning them down.
Lmao, in your source, the narrator correctly claims that Emepeor Hirohito had to intervene and force the military to stand down following the atomic bombings. Literally, the first three minutes of the video.... gtfo
My man's here just read 2 sentences of an introduction and thinks that's the whole essay.
Yes that literally happened.
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945. Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war. and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. - The United States Strategic Bombing survey (European war) (Pacific War) https://ia801903.us.archive.org/33/items/unitedstatesstra00cent/unitedstatesstra00cent.pdf
Are you arguing that the strategic bombings were justified to end the war, but the atomic bombings were not? That's a unique opinion, to be sure.
20 million+
It’s fine to believe that — I’ve been wrong before, too.
I disagree. The proliferation of Fascist ideology, in Asia alone, would've far eclipsed the devastation of two nuclear payloads.
You're assuming that dropping those bombs was the only way to stop the Japanese.
Three things:
-This is moving the goal post of the argument that I was replying to and irrelevant to this conversation.
-Theorizing about the consequences at stake in the war doesn't assume anything retrospectively. The decision to deploy nukes was not made with the knowledge we possess after the fact.
-It's very likely that any other option that would finally result in the complete cessation of an enemy as ideologically tenacious as Imperial Japan would've far exceeded a price that was able to be paid that late into the second world war.