WWII Atomic Bombings

[Chronopolice]

As I've promised, the political implications of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

1) It showed to the world how destructive these bombs were. Those two atomic bombings are the only documented use of a nuclear weapon in a war. Let's hope it stays that way.

2) It showed that any nuke war is counterproductive if territorial acquisition is the main objective of a war. Most wars of past and present show that this is the case.

3) A nuke war will not wipe the human race off the planet. World War 2 is our most destructive war yet but we still manage to post a positive population growth. However it will severely impair if not cripple human civilization. Very bad if you want to maintain any semblance of political power.

These are the things I can think off the bat atm. I'm waiting for the TR maintenance period to end.

[Xenohumanity]

Were the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki warranted?
Yes. Torture, death marches, "hell camps", stealing Red Cross aid packages, and a total disregard for the survival of it's citizens warranted the bombs. We didn't even know about the radiation part until later.

Was it right for the United States to use atomic weapons?
Yes. 1945: You have any better ideas to scare them shitless?

Was the planned invasion of Japan a better alternative?
GOD NO: Millions (millions) of deaths on BOTH SIDES would result in making WWII even worse than WWI in terms of human suffering (excluding the Holocaust).

ALSO: If Germany had followed through with Project X and built it (namely, an artillery piece so big, it would shoot over the English Channel into London), we would have bigger problems than Japan.

[TenThousand]

OK we couldn't beat north Korea and its smaller then japan think about if we to nuked Korea too same salutation i think we should have done what was done or we would be singing the japans national anthem so 5 stars

[Wyvernspire]

One issue is that the bombing was based, at least in part, on racism. If it had been Germany or Italy which had survived to the last in WWII, I very much doubt that we would have dropped the atomic bombs, even to save millions of lives or intimidate the Soviet Union.

I do understand that much of what we know now was not available to the people who made the decision to drop the bombs, and that the battle to take Japan could have made D-Day look insignificant in terms of casualties. Also, the Allies were known for ruthlessness against the Nazis, hence the firebombing of Dresden in Germany. It is likely though that if it had been the Nazis who survived to the last instead of the Japanese (unlikely, given their general, blessed incompetence in the latter stages of the war), we would not have dropped the bomb.

[Enigmatic]

I have to refute you there. The bombs were built under the assumption that they would be used on Germany. As it was, Germany was defeated before the bombs were complete.

[Lakenburgh]

Hmm a complicated topic, sure it ended a war quickly and from the pure "cost/use" ratio it was absolutely the right and most efficient choice.

On the other hand it has been without the shadow of a doubt a warcrime of rather grim proportions. The intention to not only eradicate military targets but the whole city around it, with the intent to shock the enemy into surrender, makes the whole act inexcusable. Every comment along the lines of "was for the greater good, shorter war etc." is nice, but every warcriminal uses similar phrases. Even the Nazis in their delusional views had in their opinion a good reason to murder million innocent people for the greater good.
Seeing how strongly America reacted to the comparatively harmless destruction of the WTC I guess, that if Japan had thrown the atomic bombs on lets say Los Angeles and don't know Boston just to make a point and since invading America would have been impossible for them, the amount of positive comments would be considerable less.

In the end it's like every war a tragedy that so many had to pay for the ambition, pride, arrogance and greed of so few.
So in the end my real opinion isn't so much pro or con, but just sadness it happened.

[Shadowtech Demons]

I think the bombings were warranted and necessary. If a plan was made to invade Japan, many lives would have been lost. American, Japanese, and a lot of other lives would have been lost.

The atomic bombs put a quick end to the war and, even though many civilians were killed, many more were saved.

[Siromizu]

Were the bombings warranted? Yes. The war needed ending and the Japanese were not ready to surrender.

Was it right? Yes and no. The power provided by them was necessary, and it was the "right" decision so far as the bombing itself goes, but the after-effects may not have been worth it.

You mean the joint Soviet-American conventional assault? Absolutely not. Casualties would have been far, far higher on both sides. Considering the Japanese government's propaganda encouraged civilians to die before surrendering, I would imagine civilian casualties would also have been higher.

I honestly think that it was the best solution available at the time, and even if it was a horrible thing, so was the entire war. At the end of the day, we learnt some lessons that we could not have learnt any other way.

[Empierium]

The Americans used the atomic bomb because they honestly believed the japanese would fight untill everyone of them was dead (Which is sort of true as most would rather have died than surrender) and they also believed 10s of thousands of thier soldiers would have been killled

[Lakenburgh]

Assumptions and generalizations are very dangerous things in diplomacy and warfare. If you follow that logic Israel should already have abombed Iran to hell and back. The same goes for India and Pakistan, North/Southkorea and I guess we could find some more if we wanted.

[Enigmatic]

There's a difference between assumptions and generalizations and assumptions and generalizations based on years of conflict and active study of the enemy. It's not as if Truman woke up one morning and thought "I think I'll use the atomic bombs today." He agonized over the decision. His advisors agonized over the decision. The US had fought the Japanese in a "hot war" for years and in each battle with very few exceptions Japanese dead always outweighed American dead. The Japanese fought tenaciously and died almost to a man. Their resistance only became fiercer the closer Allied forces drew to the home islands. We now know that the Japanese were actively fighting harder in an effort to bleed the US into a truce before they reached Japan. Furthermore, Japanese culture going back centuries encouraged fighting to the death and consider surrender one of the greatest dishonors a person could commit.

The conflicts between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and North and South Korea, not to mention a few others around the world, are entirely different animals. You can't compare one of those to the Second World War.

[Cerb]

I actually have a fair bit of respect for the Japanese attitude in the war. I don't support what they did, but I do support their decision to try and bring their cultural values on to the battlefield.

I think a ground war on the Japanese islands would have been catastrophic for both the US and Japanese people. The chances of the Japanese surrendering when they can see an enemy and strike at him would have been slim indeed.

Ironically, I think the nuclear weapons (in this isolated case) probably saved more Japanese and American lives than if the war had gone on into a land battle for the islands.

I wish it hadn't been necessary but, I also have to believe that sooner or later, the nuclear genie would have been let out.

Perhaps it was better to do it before the technology got us into multiple-warheads with a megaton yield.

[Lakenburgh]

The Enigmatic Nation

At least in the case of Israel it still stands imo. Iran declared several times the aim of total destruction of the state and right now is assumed by half of the world to actively trying to create a nuclear bomb. After I think 6-7 "hot" Wars against several neighbouring arab nations, you could say they have a lot of real reason to throw some bombs around to secure their safety.
Especially since most of the government of these states are assumed to be under much pressure from influential religious groups to keep on trying.

Not to mention the Palestines, that for now over 50 years fight a constant guerrilla war against them and likely will never stop because their aim of total liberation is at its best delusional and at its worst set that high so those "leaders" can stay in power.

Sure in the end nobody sane would do it, because the fallout would harm themselves too, but I think as for "reasons" there are enough.


In the end we can't change it anyway but it would interest me, what would have been the conditions of a truce. Were they so ridicioulous only a total surrender of Japan was a viable option?.
Why were those targets chosen, if I want to demonstrate the massive destruction of the bombs wouldn't it have sufficed to throw it somewhere less intensive in civil lives. Was it really necessary to show "we are willing to eradicate every living thing on your islands".

On a last note as to the agonizing about that kind of decisions, seeing how many atrocities happen in well every war, how many cultures glorify their military leaders no matter what monsters they were, how little we learn of such occurrences and how speedily every major military power and several small ones tried to get their hands on those bombs too, I kinda doubt the moral implications are really that high.
Sure no one dared to use those since that time, since no one wants to risk getting bombed themselves as retaliation, but is this really the kind of world we want to live in?

I know it's easier said than done, but the slope of justifying the means with the end result, is one humanity should avoid because in the end we don't really care, since morals are just a construct easily changeable to our needs and wishes and even more easily forgotten.

[Enigmatic]

But Iran doesn't have a nuclear bomb yet and such an advancement can still be prevented by conventional means; and Israel has been able to defend itself from neighboring Arab nations quite successfully each time without the use of nuclear weapons. That doesn't mean that the reasons you mention aren't valid, but the cost does not equal the benefit. The nuclear fallout would harm Israel as you mention and so too would the political fallout. Things must change drastically for nuclear arms to come in to play.

As for moral implications, it depends on what kind of person you are. There are plenty of stories about soldiers dealing with the guilt of killing even when the kill was justified or even warranted. I think anyone with even the smallest of moral compasses will at least consider the implications of taking life and that consideration is only compounded the more power one has over life and death. I do not envy the decision that Truman was forced to make. Right in a military sense does not mean right in a moral sense. We live in a fallen and corrupted world and are sometimes forced to make decisions with no morally correct answer and do our best to deal with the guilt afterward.

[Lakenburgh]

I'm not quite sure if guilt for killing is really the same between killing someone yourself or ordering someone to drop a bomb from several miles above. Sure you still say its horrible and tragical and so on, but in the end you don't do it and you aren't really confronted with the victims. Maybe a bit later due to news stories/reports etc. but I doubt that it has the same kind of impact on a person.

Well sadly we'll never know, because the chances of finding someone who killed in combat, then later as a bomber pilot and then ordered himself bombs on civilian targets so he can really compare it, is a bit slim I guess.

[Enigmatic]

You're right we'll never know, but in my mind dropping a bomb, ordering a bombing, and taking the life would weigh on my conscious equally heavy. Actually ordering a bombing would probably affect me more. As soldier you can tell yourself that you're doing your duty and end the end it's one life. You can say something similar as a bomber/fighter pilot. If I were the one picking targets and giving orders, I think after a while I might start to consider myself a monster. Picking which lives to spare and which lives to destroy has to have a profound impact on a person. In any case, it's all conjecture as you say.

[Bigfist]

I'm not really for or against it but I just wanted to raise a point. Some people think that it was necessary because they torpedoed us at pearl harbor. However on the other end of the spectrum, that cost thousands of American lives which is a lot I know. But when we nuked them it cost them a lot more causalities than us. Plus post-nuke many more people died from radiation. Yet these people stubbornly insist that they(the Japanese) deserved it which leads us to another issue; do people think that American lives are worth more than other races. But that's another issue.

[Magthere]

The atomic bombs were probably our best option to end the war, if not a good option.

And for anybody who wants to take a good peak at some of the details about it, you should read The Last Mission by Jim Smith and Malcom McConnel, it gives good info.

Japanese civilians would definetly have been killed on the island of Kyushu, the southern most of the home islands 2 million Japanese civilians protested when they heard the Emperor broadcast his acceptance of the surrender, and that is just one of the four main islands, so millions of civilians would have fought to the end for Japan.

Also in regards to the targets of the bomb, they spent a good deal of time determining targets, Hiroshima of all the major cities still standing in Japan had the largest soldier to civilian ratio of any city, the reason no one thinks about that is that few of them lived to see the radiation effects, since the headquarters of their base happened to be near the epicenter of the blast...

Nagasaki on the other hand wasn't originally intended to get the second bomb it was originally meant for the city of Kokura which had higher military value, in fact Nagasaki was at the bottom of the list for potential targets but due to bad weather the crew had to scrub the bombing on Kokura and shifted to Nagasaki, the only city within fuel range, because there was no way in hell they were landing with that thing, so Nagasaki was both of victim of war and just plain bad luck...

Finally I want to bring up a point that nobody has brought up yet, there was another danger to invading Japan, the Soviets would have invaded before we could, ordinarily one wouldn't see a problem with this, however if you take a closer look it comes down to meaning that Japan would likely have been split in two like Germany, imagine what would have happened if their was a capitalist Japan in the South and a communist Japan in the north, this could have made for very interesting (a.k.a. domino theory scares to the tenth power) political decisions.

So the atomic bombings were basically an enema, necessary, but very, very unpleasant...

[Xenos V]

I really can't believe that so many people support the dropping of the atomic bombs on this thread

They were completely UNNECCESSARY - Japan had actually put together a statement of surrender before the bombs were dropped and the country was at its knees. Are you all seriously trying to tell me that Japan still posed a major threat by the time the bombs were dropped?

The main point that needed to be sorted was the issue of the Emperor - there was widespread Japanese public support to keep him but US and other western officials wanted to get rid of him, if a decision had been made over this sooner then perhaps the world we live in would be a very different place right now...

The dropping of the bombs was not warranted and essentially triggered the arms race during the cold war - the effects of which we are still paying for today.

I will get together some more evidence for my claims as I have studied the subject briefly as part of my history degree and try and post on here if anyone is interested...

[Lakenburgh]

Sure more information is always a good thing .

[Enigmatic]

If you're getting more information, then I'll hold off on my comments for the moment. Suffice to say I disagree with you, but I'd like to hear more of your opinion.

[Globexanter]

I disagree with the WWII Atomic bombings, America knew they where going to Fail against the Japs, so as they where too scared, they sent some atomic bombs. Because in regions of chemical Warfare, the USA was tiny next to the Japanese.

[Lakenburgh]

I seriously doubt that, simply because Japan was already on the loosing side.
To win a war you need a plan to get your enemy to submit and disarm and the resource to do it.
Japan had neither, simply making US Landings in Japan itself costly in lives, wouldn't have lead America to admit defeat and accept their terms. Especially since Japan had no way to get enough resources to keep on fighting.

It's comparable to Germanys defeat in a way, we didn't loose because the Americans were tougher, more intelligent and used strategies no one ever thought of. We had lost the second America joined, because we simply didn't have the manpower and the resources to fight at every corner at once.
Even if we had managed to guess right and make the landing in the Normandy even more the hell than it has already been, in the end, we maybe could have stretched out the war till both sides were exhausted enough to accept a truce and declare no one a winner, but the chance to win was gone. Some would even say it was already gone when our "glorious Führer" decided it would be good idea, against all recommendations, to attack Russia.

The same can be said about Japan, as soon as they had lost the conquered territories and the dominance over the ocean, they had de facto lost. Their very limited resources against Americas... it was only a matter of time. Time no one wanted to invest, time that would have cost soldiers their life in a war that was already going on to long and very unpopular at home.

[Enigmatic]

By 1945, the USA was no longer going to "fail" against the Japanese. The Japanese knew themselves that they had basically lost the war. Their strategy had become one of attrition. There goal was to force the US to lose enough men to cause them to sue for peace. The Japanese had never been ones for surrender or relatively bloodless battles, but the closer Allied forces got to Japan the more fiercely the Japanese fought. They wanted to make a complete Allied victory too costly. Japan could no longer win the war, but they could conceivably fight to a stalemate, especially given the fickleness of a democracy. The question was not if Japan would lose the war, but how many lives, American and Japanese, would be lost before the end.

[Magthere]

Sept 6, 2010 17:38:39 GMT -5 Xenos V said:

I really can't believe that so many people support the dropping of the atomic bombs on this thread

They were completely UNNECCESSARY - Japan had actually put together a statement of surrender before the bombs were dropped and the country was at its knees. Are you all seriously trying to tell me that Japan still posed a major threat by the time the bombs were dropped?

The main point that needed to be sorted was the issue of the Emperor - there was widespread Japanese public support to keep him but US and other western officials wanted to get rid of him, if a decision had been made over this sooner then perhaps the world we live in would be a very different place right now...

The dropping of the bombs was not warranted and essentially triggered the arms race during the cold war - the effects of which we are still paying for today.

I will get together some more evidence for my claims as I have studied the subject briefly as part of my history degree and try and post on here if anyone is interested...

The surrender documents were in fact not made for a while, War Minister Anami and his faction within the 6 members of the Privy council kept pushing it off and trying to revise its text in a delaying game trying to keep the war going. So Japan wasn't ready to call it quits yet. Further the night the final surrender was being recorded there was an attempted coup by a band of military officer to prevent it, and was only stopped by a bombing raid on an oil refinery at Akita.

So even the Atomic bombs were almost not enough. They were the best choice in a set of horrible options.

Invasion would have been a bad idea as well, as it so happens, the Japanese had predicted where we would land and guessed when we'd come in and were off by only two weeks, and they would be EARLY!

Tell me how that would sound for an invading force.

Further 2 MILLION members of the citizenry on the southernmost isle of Japan, Kyushu revolted for a short period after hearing the surrender mouthed by the emperor.

Invasion would have been even more devastating to the Japanese then the bomb. It was the lesser of two great evils.

[Lakenburgh]

What I ask myself after this whole thread, isn't so much were the bombs a better alternative than invading Japan, but was the total surrender of Japan the only option. Would it have been so inacceptable or impossible, to negotiate a peace treaty with a Japan that, although having lost all gained lands and clearly on the defensive, wasn't officially defeated.
Were the only two options to fight a costly land war or anihilate those two cities with all the people in them.

[Enigmatic]

I think the answer to that is in what Magthere said which I know I have said myself in the past though perhaps not in this thread. Japan really had no interest in surrender or ending the war. They didn't want to lose and they probably would have accepted some peace treaty so long as it was at least in some respect favorable to them, but they didn't want to lose their empire. The atomic bombings had more consequences than simply many deaths and the end a long and costly war. The way in which the Pacific War ended served to end the expansionistic mindset of the Japanese. Their days of empire building were over and their way of life changed. They are still a people with much pride and honor, but an empire they are not. Should we have entered in to some sort of agreement with them outside the unconditional surrender at the end of the war, I am very confident that the Japanese Empire would have been a threat again. I think the only way to end not only the war but also the threat of Japanese aggression was with either a costly invasion or the atomic bombings. Of course, that mindset(eliminating the threat) has had it's own set of consequences in the years since World War Two.

Also, darn you Magthere, stealing my post in response to Xenos. I knew I should have posted sooner. ;D

[Magthere]

What can I say I remember the info in a good book very well, and The Last Mission was a very good book! ;D

[Isles of Nixon]

Well when it comes down to the argument between atomic weapons or invasion - the answer is clear - atomic weapons. That was for the benefit of the United States as well as the Japanese.

But then Lakenburgh raised a good point - what about just coming to a peace treaty? Well there are few points to make as a result of that argument. First, one must realize that we did not ask for this conflict. We entered the war after being cowardly struck at Pearl Harbor. Certainly revenge was on people's minds. Then there's the point that the Japanese were clearly defeated but still not agree to come to the bargaining table. As a result, based off their desperation already being demonstrated in the form of kamikazes, it was entirely possible that letting them just wallow for awhile would allow them to plot against the United States in one last desperate attack. But clearly, it was too big of a risk and we brought them to the bargaining table quickly with the dropping of the atomic bombs. A similar tactic was used against the North Vietnamese when they refused to take the Paris peace talks seriously. In December of 1972, we launched Operation Linebacker II and leveled Hanoi, bringing the North Vietnamese to the peace talks quickly.

[Osea Island]

I believe that the atomic bombings were the most reasonable solution to end the war for the United States for a number of reasons.

1. It was the quickest way to end the war seeing as an invasion would encounter intense resistance from both the Japanese military and civilians.
2. The bombs saved numerous Allied servicemen's lives as well as Japanese lives.
3. It was far more efficient from an economics standpoint; manufacturing munitions, vehicles, medical supplies, repairs, etc. takes time and money.

In the long run it worked out quite well for both Japan and the United States.