Why use the atomic bomb on Japan?

[toucana]

3 hours ago, swansont said:

Implosion bomb, yes. They were quite confident the gun-type uranium bomb would work, since they had already done tests, though they didn’t do a full-blown (as it were) test like Trinity.

https://discover.lanl.gov/publications/national-security-science/2020-summer/why-wasnt-little-boy-tested/

“The scientists were not simply confident Little Boy would work, they knew Little Boy would work—it was a mathematical certainty. Thus, the weapon went into combat without a full-scale nuclear explosive test.”

As of May 1945, the USA had enough fissile material available to manufacture just 3 atomic bombs. One of these nicknamed ‘Little Boy’ was a ballistic gun-type device that worked by firing a slug of Uranium 235 along a barrel into another sub-critical mass of U235 to cause a chain reaction with a 15 Kiloton explosive yield. This was never tested because the engineers were certain it would work at the first time of asking - so they simply assembled and dropped it on Hiroshima  - but there was no other Uranium 235 available. The scientists had used up their entire stock of weapons grade Uranium 235 refined over a 3 year period in building this single weapon.

https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/fatman-littleboy-losalamosnatllab.pdf

The other two devices both relied on an HE implosion lens to compress a hollow sphere of Plutonium 239 into a critical mass with an explosive yield of around 21 Kilotons. This novel Plutonium implosion mechanism was a highly complex engineering challenge to perfect, and absolutely had to be tested by proof firing one of the devices nicknamed ‘The Gadget’ at Los Alamos to ensure it worked.

After the Trinity test on 16 July 1945, the USA now had just 2 atomic bombs left available for use - One Uranium device, and one Plutonium device nicknamed ‘Fat Man’. American military planners believed they would need to drop at least two bombs to convince the Japanese to surrender, and they reasoned it was better to actually run out of ammunition, rather than *look* as though they were running out of ammunition. It was a gamble that worked, because after the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9th, the Japanese concluded that America had an entire production line running, and that a third weapon would shortly be dropped on Tokyo if they did not offer their unconditional surrender immediately.

In reality the USA had no other nuclear weapons that could have been deployed against Japan at that time. It is said that they could have cobbled together another Plutonium 239 device by a cannibalising a laboratory test-rig nicknamed the ‘Demon Core’ - which is another entire story - and would have taken months.

 

[StringJunky]

59 minutes ago, toucana said:

As of May 1945, the USA had enough fissile material available to manufacture just 3 atomic bombs. One of these nicknamed ‘Little Boy’ was a ballistic gun-type device that worked by firing a slug of Uranium 235 along a barrel into another sub-critical mass of U235 to cause a chain reaction with a 15 Kiloton explosive yield. This was never tested because the engineers were certain it would work at the first time of asking - so they simply assembled and dropped it on Hiroshima  - but there was no other Uranium 235 available. The scientists had used up their entire stock of weapons grade Uranium 235 refined over a 3 year period in building this single weapon.

https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/fatman-littleboy-losalamosnatllab.pdf

The other two devices both relied on an HE implosion lens to compress a hollow sphere of Plutonium 239 into a critical mass with an explosive yield of around 21 Kilotons. This novel Plutonium implosion mechanism was a highly complex engineering challenge to perfect, and absolutely had to be tested by proof firing one of the devices nicknamed ‘The Gadget’ at Los Alamos to ensure it worked.

After the Trinity test on 16 July 1945, the USA now had just 2 atomic bombs left available for use - One Uranium device, and one Plutonium device nicknamed ‘Fat Man’. American military planners believed they would need to drop at least two bombs to convince the Japanese to surrender, and they reasoned it was better to actually run out of ammunition, rather than *look* as though they were running out of ammunition. It was a gamble that worked, because after the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9th, the Japanese concluded that America had an entire production line running, and that a third weapon would shortly be dropped on Tokyo if they did not offer their unconditional surrender immediately.

In reality the USA had no other nuclear weapons that could have been deployed against Japan at that time. It is said that they could have cobbled together another Plutonium 239 device by a cannibalising a laboratory test-rig nicknamed the ‘Demon Core’ - which is another entire story - and would have taken months.

 

The ''demon core' still killed a few although that was through naivete of its handlers.

[Airbrush]

On 3/18/2024 at 11:47 AM, Bufofrog said:

Well apparently even countries like Pakistan and North Korea did.

Yes, are you aware that most physicist were already aware a bomb could be made by 1940?

So, what you are saying is that the Soviet spies, who were inside the Manhattan Project, took such good notes that they were able to spread the word to their own country but also spread it to the world, even to Pakistan and N. Korea?  Pakistan and N. Korea were able to skip a Manhattan Project because they knew so much about the US Manhattan Project?

Japan was totally cut off from all supplies by US submarines and air force.  Japan would grind to a halt within a few more months.  The US had plenty of incendiary bombs and B29s to systematically reduce Japan to totally helpless and starving.  There would never be a need for the US to attack Japan with amphibious landings and therefore no 1,000,000 dead US soldiers.  All the US would lose is a few more B29s.

On 3/22/2024 at 3:25 AM, Evelyn_Guglielmo said:

This is quite sad to read, I hope our world will become friendly.

What is sad?  My own naivete that the US could stifle any progress world-wide towards other nations rediscovering what the US had discovered in the Manhattan Project?  Please excuse my naivete, since I am not a science expert.  Are experts the only ones who are allowed to post here?

On 3/18/2024 at 11:24 AM, Bufofrog said:

Of course not.  The worlds physicist all knew of uranium fission and the idea of a self sustaining nuclear reaction by 1940 at least.  The hardest part of making an atomic bomb is refining the uranium or plutonium.

Well please excuse me for not being a science expert.

[swansont]

27 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

So, what you are saying is that the Soviet spies, who were inside the Manhattan Project, took such good notes that they were able to spread the word to their own country but also spread it to the world, even to Pakistan and N. Korea?  Pakistan and N. Korea were able to skip a Manhattan Project because they knew so much about the US Manhattan Project?

Or spying on the subsequent Soviet efforts, or them sharing information.

Once reactors started being built, information was available that wasn’t there during the Manhattan project. Theory became more useful, and less experimentation would have been required. e.g. knowing reaction cross-sections means you can model things rather than doing empirical studies to determine critical mass.

27 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

Japan was totally cut off from all supplies by US submarines and air force.  Japan would grind to a halt within a few more months.  The US had plenty of incendiary bombs and B29s to systematically reduce Japan to totally helpless and starving.  There would never be a need for the US to attack Japan with amphibious landings and therefore no 1,000,000 dead US soldiers.  All the US would lose is a few more B29s.

Is starving and burning the population somehow more acceptable than using the atomic bombs?

[Airbrush]

3 minutes ago, swansont said:

Or spying on the subsequent Soviet efforts, or them sharing information.

Once reactors started being built, information was available that wasn’t there during the Manhattan project. Theory became more useful, and less experimentation would have been required. e.g. knowing reaction cross-sections means you can model things rather than doing empirical studies to determine critical mass.

Is starving and burning the population somehow more acceptable than using the atomic bombs?

Ok then, skip the burning part.  Just starve them out.  Japan has always been a resource-poor nation.  Everything needed to be imported.  How long could they endure living without everything they need and cannibalism?  If hindsight is 20/20, then the A bomb did not need to be used to force Japan to surrender.  And the US could have stalled world progress towards nuclear bombs, such as cutting off the supply of uranium to other nations.  Most nations would wonder "Why is the US buying up the world's supply of uranium?

[zapatos]

1 hour ago, Airbrush said:

Japan has always been a resource-poor nation.  Everything needed to be imported.

Hardly.

Quote

Sakoku (鎖国 / 鎖國, "locked country") is the common name for the isolationist foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate under which, during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countries were severely limited, and nearly all foreign nationals were banned from entering Japan, while common Japanese people were kept from leaving the country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku#:~:text=Sakoku (鎖国 %2F 鎖國%2C ",nationals were banned from entering

[swansont]

3 hours ago, Airbrush said:

And the US could have stalled world progress towards nuclear bombs, such as cutting off the supply of uranium to other nations.  Most nations would wonder "Why is the US buying up the world's supply of uranium?

You do realize there are countries that are not friendly towards the US, right? So they might not be inclined to sell uranium to the US. Areas that were part of the USSR are currently big producers of uranium. Hard to cut off the supply to someone when it’s under their direct control

Quote

Ok then, skip the burning part.  Just starve them out.

How/why is that more ethical or acceptable? You failed to address this.

[J.C.MacSwell]

2 hours ago, swansont said:

How/why is that more ethical or acceptable? 

IMO it's more acceptable in the sense that they have more time to realize the inevitability of the outcome and get to choose how much pain they want to endure. Of course that's as a Nation, not as individuals.

[MigL]

2 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

it's more acceptable in the sense that they have more time to realize the inevitability of the outcome

Sure. But we know that the military leadership had promised to fight to the last man; I don't think starving hundreds of thousands would have mattered much to them. J Stalin and Mao Zedong starved millions to achieve their goals.

I fail to see Airbrush's second guessing of the atomic weapon usage when he has no regrets of having used incendiaries to burn about 100000 people using chemical instead of atomic reactants in Tokyo.
Additionally there were 4 fire bombing raids on Dresden, the first of which killed about 25000 people.
I would guess the fire bombing of Tokyo and Dresden combined, killed almost as many as the two atomic weapons.

[CharonY]

2 hours ago, MigL said:

Sure. But we know that the military leadership had promised to fight to the last man; I don't think starving hundreds of thousands would have mattered much to them. J Stalin and Mao Zedong starved millions to achieve their goals.

I fail to see Airbrush's second guessing of the atomic weapon usage when he has no regrets of having used incendiaries to burn about 100000 people using chemical instead of atomic reactants in Tokyo.
Additionally there were 4 fire bombing raids on Dresden, the first of which killed about 25000 people.
I would guess the fire bombing of Tokyo and Dresden combined, killed almost as many as the two atomic weapons.

Leadership was split on surrendering and there was an attempt to sue for peace via the soviets, which were dashed after they invaded Manchuria. Well and obviously the British empire had some experience with starving folks, though to be fair it was mostly in colonies...

[Eise]

14 hours ago, Airbrush said:

So, what you are saying is that the Soviet spies, who were inside the Manhattan Project, took such good notes that they were able to spread the word to their own country but also spread it to the world, even to Pakistan and N. Korea?  Pakistan and N. Korea were able to skip a Manhattan Project because they knew so much about the US Manhattan Project?

At least for Pakistan I know the answer. Abdul Khan was a Pakistani who worked at Urenco in the Netherlands in the 70's. This company built ultracentrifuges to enrich uranium. Back in Pakistan, they were able to build them themselves. The greatest technical obstacle for building a bomb is not to construct a bomb, but the capacity to enrich uranium enough for the bomb. 

14 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Japan has always been a resource-poor nation.

Really? So poor that they always already had to import their food? Don't do so ridiculous. @zapatos is perfectly right in his reaction. For modern technologies you might be right, but not for producing their own food.

I would suggest, instead of just venting some opinions based on a few (alternative...) facts, read some books about the history of WW-II and about the development of the atomic bomb. Your posts show a gigantic lack of knowledge about, and understanding of history.

[toucana]

18 hours ago, Airbrush said:

 

Japan was totally cut off from all supplies by US submarines and air force.  Japan would grind to a halt within a few more months.  The US had plenty of incendiary bombs and B29s to systematically reduce Japan to totally helpless and starving.  There would never be a need for the US to attack Japan with amphibious landings and therefore no 1,000,000 dead US soldiers.  All the US would lose is a few more B29s.

There is a detailed discussion of most of the points you raise in an article by the military historian and Pacific War expert Richard B. Frank called ‘No Recipe For Victory” available on the website for the National WWII Museum New Orleans

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/victory-in-japan-army-navy-1945

There had been a long standing division of opinion since January 1943  between the chiefs of the  US Navy and the US Army over how best to achieve the unconditional surrender of Japan. The US Navy favoured a blockade that would have involved starving the Japanese population into surrender. The US Army favoured an invasion plan called operation Downfall subdivided into two parts: -

i. Operation Olympic to seize control of the southern island of Kyushu which was scheduled to begin in November 1945

ii. Operation Coronet to invade the Tokyo region on Honshu about 1 March 1946.

The argument over whether to go with a naval blockade or an amphibious invasion of the archipelago was settled in favour of the Army’s invasion plan at the Honolulu Conference in July 1944. Doubts then arose because of the massive casualties sustained during the invasion of Okinawa in May 1945 (49,000+ with 12,000 killed including the 4-star general in command of the operation). Admiral Nimitz privately said he could no longer support the invasion plan in the light of this, and even more concerns were raised by fresh military intelligence that Japan had moved such large numbers of troops and aircraft into Kyusuhu, that the US landing forces would be in a 1-1 combat situation with no numerical advantage there - a scenario described as “a recipe for a bloodbath”.

The main problem with a naval blockade was that it would have taken a very long time to complete. The US Navy’s own estimates suggested that the Japanese would not collapse until 1947 at the earliest. Critics pointed out that the high level of social control traditionally found in Japanese society along with the ruthless suppression of dissent by the Japanese military government would have led to the prioritization of feeding those involved in sustaining the war effort, while leaving millions of civilians to starve to death  - a prospect that even the most hawkish supporters of a blockade were reluctant to discuss in detail.

There was also considerable concern in the USA about a possible loss of will to carry on fighting an endlessly protracted war in the Pacific against an enemy with no history of military compromise or surrender.

Quote

The JCS identified two profound challenges to achieving unconditional surrender. First, no Japanese government had surrendered to a foreign power in Japan’s history— by Japanese count a span of 2,600 years. Second, no Japanese military unit had surrendered in the entire course of the war. Therefore, the JCS concluded that there was no certainty the United States could obtain the surrender of a Japanese government and even if it did, that Japan’s armed forces would comply with the surrender order. Thus, the JCS defined the ultimate American nightmare as not “the invasion of Japan,” but the even more dreaded prospect that there would be no organized capitulation of Japan’s government and armed forces.

Finally there is the question of the intense firebombings that began on 10 March with the 279 plane Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo which levelled 2 square miles of eastern Tokyo, and probably killed over 100,000 civilians. The Meetinghouse raid was quickly followed by similar raids against Nagoya on 12 March, Osaka on 14 March , Kobe on 18 March, and Nagoya again on the 19 March.  - These raids were deemed a military success by Major Curtis Lemay who was in command of the USAAF strategic bombing campaign - and yet these raids had had largely ceased by May 1945 - why ?

i. The USAAF had run out of incendiary ordnance. These raids had depleted their entire stock.

ii. From May 1945 onwards the USAAF had to urgently redeploy southwards to support the US invasion of Okinawa which had run into unexpectedly intense opposition including sustained kamikaze attacks.

iii. These fire-bombing raids had no discernible effect in weakening or deflecting the resolve of the Japanese leadership to carry on fighting to the bitter end - regardless of the civilian casualties sustained.

As a matter of fact the Japanese government did not begin to consider any diplomatic solutions to end the war until the morning of 6 August just after the first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and when they did, the first Japanese diplomatic overtures were made towards the Soviet Union in the hope of enlisting their help in brokering a cease-fire - hopes that were promptly dashed when the Soviet Union belatedly declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria.

[CharonY]

A

3 hours ago, toucana said:

As a matter of fact the Japanese government did not begin to consider any diplomatic solutions to end the war until the morning of 6 August just after the first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and when they did, the first Japanese diplomatic overtures were made towards the Soviet Union in the hope of enlisting their help in brokering a cease-fire - hopes that were promptly dashed when the Soviet Union belatedly declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria.

I believe the timing is off a bit. The Japanese emperor sent a private message to Stalin before the Potsdam conference (in July)  asking him to act as intermediary. I.e. these attempts pre-dated the bomb, which is one of the arguments of historians who argue against the traditional narrative regarding the bomb.

[MigL]

5 hours ago, CharonY said:

The Japanese emperor sent a private message to Stalin before the Potsdam conference

It is common knowledge the emperor wanted an end to the war: the military leadership was of a different opinion.

[toucana]

5 hours ago, CharonY said:

A

I believe the timing is off a bit. The Japanese emperor sent a private message to Stalin before the Potsdam conference (in July)  asking him to act as intermediary. I.e. these attempts pre-dated the bomb, which is one of the arguments of historians who argue against the traditional narrative regarding the bomb.

 

There is an entire chapter devoted to this subject in The Fall of Japan (1968) by William Craig  [Ch.3 ‘The Diplomacy of Defeat’ ]. There were some covert attempts made by high ranking Japanese officials to initiate diplomatic contacts in great secrecy with the Soviet foreign minister Molotov by passing messages between Jacob Malik the Soviet ambassador in Tokyo, and Naosoke Sato - the Japanese ambassador in Moscow. The idea was first raised by Emperor Hirohito in person on 22 June 1945  within hours of the death of General Ushijima on Okinawa.

This initiative stalled when Malik the Soviet ambassador failed to respond. The Emperor Hirohito offered to send Prince Fumimaro Konoye to Russia as his personal envoy to meet with Molotov in July 1945, but the Soviet leadership who were preparing for the Potsdam Conference failed to provide any opportunity of a meeting with Molotov. Stalin had already privately decided to declare war on Japan at a moment of his choosing very soon after the conference ended, and he regarded the Japanese initiative as moot.

On Monday 6th August 1945, the very day that Hiroshima was bombed, Shigenori Togo the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs sent an urgent telegram to ambassador Sato noting that Stalin and Molotov had just returned to Moscow that very day. Togo instructed Sato to demand an immediate meeting with Molotov and seek a definitive reply from him as to whether the Soviet Union would help broker a peace deal with the allies. Before Sato could reply, Togo sent another even more frantic telegram - he had just received an eye-witness report that said “The whole city of Hiroshima was destroyed instantly by a single bomb”.

Ambassador Sato sent a telegram back to Togo on the 7th August to say that Molotov had finally agreed to meet the Japanese diplomats the following day at 17.00. This meeting duly took place on the 8th August 1945, and Molotov used it to declare war on Japan. [see The Fall of Japan ch.5 for the timeline and full texts of the diplomatic cables].

[CharonY]

8 hours ago, MigL said:

It is common knowledge the emperor wanted an end to the war: the military leadership was of a different opinion.

Not entirely. They have been different factions and while the peace camp was arguably less influential, it is not a clear split between emperor and military leadership.

 

8 hours ago, toucana said:

There is an entire chapter devoted to this subject in The Fall of Japan (1968) by William Craig  [Ch.3 ‘The Diplomacy of Defeat’ ]. There were some covert attempts made by high ranking Japanese officials to initiate diplomatic contacts in great secrecy with the Soviet foreign minister Molotov by passing messages between Jacob Malik the Soviet ambassador in Tokyo, and Naosoke Sato - the Japanese ambassador in Moscow. The idea was first raised by Emperor Hirohito in person on 22 June 1945  within hours of the death of General Ushijima on Okinawa.

Yes indeed, but my point is that diplomatic solutions were considered before the bomb, including an uncharacteristic overture by the emperor himself. In fact, the official position since 44 was that they were willing to negotiate conditional surrender. The hope of Japanese leadership was always hat they could retain some of their occupied territories (from the onset of the war) while suing for peace after a series of conquests.

By 44 they were ready to broaden negotiations, with te exception of the position of the emperor. This was of course counter the Casablanca declaration.

 

[toucana]

7 hours ago, CharonY said:

Not entirely. They have been different factions and while the peace camp was arguably less influential, it is not a clear split between emperor and military leadership.

 

Yes indeed, but my point is that diplomatic solutions were considered before the bomb, including an uncharacteristic overture by the emperor himself. In fact, the official position since 44 was that they were willing to negotiate conditional surrender. The hope of Japanese leadership was always hat they could retain some of their occupied territories (from the onset of the war) while suing for peace after a series of conquests.

By 44 they were ready to broaden negotiations, with te exception of the position of the emperor. This was of course counter the Casablanca declaration.

 

 

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941, the plan was to cripple the US Pacific fleet for just long enough to allow Japan to seize control of other southeast Asian countries such as British Malaya, Singapore, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies, and consolidate them into their ‘Greater East Co-Prosperity Sphere’. The Japanese hoped they could force the USA to negotiate a political settlement from a position of weakness that would validate Japan’s seizure of these territories, and leave them in control on much more favourable terms than existed in the 1930s.

Perceptive Japanese strategists like Admiral Yamamoto who planned the Pearl Harbour attack knew full well that Japan could never defeat the USA in a prolonged war of attrition - so a negotiated diplomatic ending to hostilities with the allies was always a key part of the original Japanese war plan.

It went wrong from the outset because the Japanese failed to destroy the 3 main US aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbour (they were all at sea). The US carriers subsequently inflicted terrible damage on the Japanese fleet at the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Meanwhile the USA’s war aims became the total destruction of the Japanese military machine, and the unconditional surrender of their nation.

In the summer of 1943, Japanese Navy chiefs asked Admiral Sokichi Takagi who was one of their best strategists to carry out an independent survey of the course of the war. His report concluded that Japan must sue for peace if the USA captured the Solomon islands. The Japanese subsequently lost control of the Solomon Islands at the end of 1943, but the Japanese Army leadership defied all warnings from the Navy and carried on fighting  -  refusing to countenance any possibility of diplomatic negotiation or surrender.

[TheVat]

Given that politics includes moral philosophy,  I think one should consider that the actual use of a WMD tends to open up a tactical (and utilitarian) conversation that can drown out the moral one.  

For example, justification on the basis of saved lives is not always a compelling argument in other aspects of human life.  A worldwide totalitarian regime which forced contraception on every person on Earth could save billions of future lives.  Worldwide tobacco ban and death penalty for growers would save millions.  And so on.  Humans are not really utilitarians, for the most part.  

What is your moral sense of what America became, by using a nuke on civilians, and likely accelerating an international arms race?  And based on that, what should we do NOW?   

[toucana]

5 hours ago, TheVat said:

Given that politics includes moral philosophy,  I think one should consider that the actual use of a WMD tends to open up a tactical (and utilitarian) conversation that can drown out the moral one.  

For example, justification on the basis of saved lives is not always a compelling argument in other aspects of human life.  A worldwide totalitarian regime which forced contraception on every person on Earth could save billions of future lives.  Worldwide tobacco ban and death penalty for growers would save millions.  And so on.  Humans are not really utilitarians, for the most part.  

What is your moral sense of what America became, by using a nuke on civilians, and likely accelerating an international arms race?  And based on that, what should we do NOW?   

 

Oppenheimer has just been released in Japan.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-68691883

The BBC’s Japan correspondent Shaimaa Khalil spoke to residents in Hiroshima who had watched the film in a cinema located in the ground-zero area of the 1945 blast, and asked them what they thought of it. One young person responds to the question of  ‘Saved lives’ raised by TheVat.

[MigL]

On 3/29/2024 at 2:45 PM, toucana said:

One young person responds to the question of  ‘Saved lives’ raised by TheVat.

I'm surprised she found America's actions 'offensive'.

The Pacific theater in WW2 saw the death of an estimated 25 Million people, of which about 6 Million were combatants and about 110 Thousand Americans. 
Yet she finds the death of a couple of hundred thousand, to stop a brutal expansionist war that Japan started, offensive ?
Or maybe she found the movie offensive, as it detailed the life experience of a man who helped orchestrate a turning point in history ?

I just never realized morality has a PoV.

[MSC]

On 3/19/2024 at 3:42 AM, Eise said:

That is true, more or less. But Japan simply did not capitulate. So the war could have taken much longer, taking many lives of American soldiers.

Japan was actually in the process of brokering a conditional surrender mediated by the Russians, the Russian entry into the war in the Pacific was a much more crucial factor in the japanese decision to surrender than the dropping of the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The A-Bombs just provided a less shameful reason to surrender by pointing to an enemy super weapon capable of levelling any of their cities, than being afraid of another front of conventional warfare with Russia. 

On 3/19/2024 at 3:42 AM, Eise said:

If this fact had an influence on the decision of Hirohito is not known, fact is that he chose to capitulate

Except it is known that it didn't, because he was already trying to convince his ministers to end the war as early as June of 1945. The bombs weren't dropped until August. He was going to capitulate, bomb or no bomb.

A lot of people think that Japan Rejected the Potsdam Declaration, they did not. What they did was a little more nuanced. They publicly addressed their answer (to their own people) with Mokusatsu, which the press mistranslated into English as rejected, when it actually meant, in that context, to kill with silent contempt. Basically they ignored the demand for an unconditional surrender from the Allies because the preservation of the Emperors position wasn't immediately on the table, even though it was something the allies were discussing behind closed doors. There was also a disconnect between the Japanese Ambassador Sato, who was the ambassador to the Soviet union, and leadership back in Japan. Japans military leadership had it in their heads that if they caused more massive allied casualties during the expected allied land invasion of Japan, they'd be able to keep some of the land they conquered in a peace agreement, wanting something closer to a stalemate than a surrender. Sato believed his superiors had honestly lost their grip on reality there, as some of the land they wanted to keep, had already been liberated by allied forces. 

On 3/20/2024 at 10:36 AM, toucana said:

The Japanese government had absolutely no intention of surrendering to the US under any circumstances, Their premier Suzuki had rejected an ultimatum issued to Japan by the allies following the Potsdam conference on 2nd August using the Japanese phrase mokusatsu 黙殺  which means “with silent contempt”. Even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed on August 6 and August 9 respectively, high ranking Japanese military officers staged a bloody coup in a failed attempt to prevent the recording of Emperor Hirohito’s surrender speech from being broadcast on Japanese radio the next day.

As I said above, Mokusatsu means to kill with silent contempt. As in kill the ultimatum by ignoring it, meaning no formal answer, Suzukis announcement was directed at the people of Japan and the Americans heard about it due to mistranslation in the press. It doesn't mean rejected. Kyozetsu or Kyohi suru means rejection or refuse. If it helps, imagine you asked to borrow a hammer, if I directly say no to you, that is Kyozetsu. If I sneer, turn around and walk away, that is Mokusatsu. What Suzuki was effectively saying, was that the Potsdam conference and what they were demanding of Japan, wasn't even worth the dignity of a direct response. 

If the bombs had not been dropped, I seriously doubt the war would have lasted much more than a few months. Especially once the decision fell to the Emperor. 

On 4/2/2024 at 10:07 AM, MigL said:

I'm surprised she found America's actions 'offensive'.

The Pacific theater in WW2 saw the death of an estimated 25 Million people, of which about 6 Million were combatants and about 110 Thousand Americans. 
Yet she finds the death of a couple of hundred thousand, to stop a brutal expansionist war that Japan started, offensive ?
Or maybe she found the movie offensive, as it detailed the life experience of a man who helped orchestrate a turning point in history ?

I just never realized morality has a PoV.

Why are you surprised when she was Japanese and resident of Hiroshima? Might as well ask British people why they found the blitz offensive.

Morality in my opinion is all about point of view because we all have a different perspective on the context of our existence. Yes the japanese were absolutely brutal to those they conquered, civilian or combatant. A lot of it was absolutely evil and morally repugnant. Especially civilian casualties. However, there is an argument to be made in not sinking to someone elses level. 19 billion civilians, or a couple of hundred civilians, I don't think it's the numbers that are the morally significant factors but the fact that they were civilians. The majority of those civilians had little to no control over what their militaries and governments decided to do, especially in Japan which was not by any stretch of the imagination a functional democracy at the time. It was more like Tsarist imperialism if anything. 

As far as I'm concerned, most extreme military actions that are taken, are symptomatic of diplomatic failures, not the only options remaining. This was definitely true of the A-Bombs. Yes we can't change the past but that doesn't mean we have to like it either. Honestly I'm surprised that you're surprised. Really for all we know her great grandparents or some other recent ancestor was killed in those blasts. 

On 3/28/2024 at 10:31 AM, CharonY said:

A

I believe the timing is off a bit. The Japanese emperor sent a private message to Stalin before the Potsdam conference (in July)  asking him to act as intermediary. I.e. these attempts pre-dated the bomb, which is one of the arguments of historians who argue against the traditional narrative regarding the bomb.

Oh good, someone that actually is aware of this. +1

Have you also noticed that most of the historical sources that credit the bombings ending the war come from the USA? 

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, MSC said:

Have you also noticed that most of the historical sources that credit the bombings ending the war come from the USA? 

So, both, the traditionalist camp (i.e. the bomb resulted in capitulation) as well as the revisionist camp had prominent US scholars. For example the American historian Aleperovitz wrote (to my knowledge) one of the first publications arguing that the use of the bomb was ultimately a strategy toward the Soviet Union.

Funnily as student I was more familiar with the revisionist school of thought, as the lectures I attended were led by a very prominent (I was not aware of it at that time) scholar who was a proponent it. Which kind of shows how a perspective is heavily influenced where you go to school. 

[MSC]

4 hours ago, CharonY said:

So, both, the traditionalist camp (i.e. the bomb resulted in capitulation) as well as the revisionist camp had prominent US scholars. For example the American historian Aleperovitz wrote (to my knowledge) one of the first publications arguing that the use of the bomb was ultimately a strategy toward the Soviet Union.

Funnily as student I was more familiar with the revisionist school of thought, as the lectures I attended were led by a very prominent (I was not aware of it at that time) scholar who was a proponent it. Which kind of shows how a perspective is heavily influenced where you go to school. 

I wonder then what influences a person if they didn't attend higher education at all? Topic for another day I guess.

[J.C.MacSwell]

1 hour ago, MSC said:

I wonder then what influences a person if they didn't attend higher education at all? Topic for another day I guess.

I would expect regardless of how good the source was, first exposure, assuming the recipient considered it a valid source, would tend to be believed at that point and make counter exposures more difficult to believe.

My first exposure would have included the "saving American/Allied lives version" though I do remember thinking "why was the second bomb necessary, why so soon after the second, and was it not in part revenge?".

But that version, "saving more lives" isn't set aside in my mind by knowing Emperor Hirohito was in favour of, or considering, capitulation prior. It's just sad to think that the bombs were used, regardless if they were better used that not. I find it extremely hard drawing lines with regard to civilians and war in most cases. Sometimes it's easier than others. Sometimes I agree with what, say, the UN or international community might find acceptable and sometimes I find it bizarre.

[MigL]

On 4/19/2024 at 11:51 PM, MSC said:

Morality in my opinion is all about point of view because we all have a different perspective on the context of our existence.

Most people recognize the difference between an unprovoked action, and a re-action to it.
If you walk up to me and punch me in the face, no one will fault me for breaking your arm in response.
( not implying you would; you seem a nice enough person 🙂 )

It's brutal, but it's reality; if you don't want the consequences, don't do any harm to others.