Was it necessary to bomb Horoshima and Nagasaki, or it was just an useless act of cruelty? Also, how is it possible to appreciate people like Richard Feynman and at the same time see him as one of the worst criminals on earth?
>China said on Friday that Japan’s World War II violence is more worthy of remembrance than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, ahead of a historic visit by U.S. President Barack Obama.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/china-says-nanjing-more-worthy-of-remembrance-than-hiroshima
I don't understand Chinese people sometimes. There's a time and place for everyting.
It probably wasn't necessary, but it was practical.
hiroshimmie sure. they were trying out a weapon that maybe wouldn't have worked. and revenge isn't the worst ideoology
nagasaki is imo an act of cruelty and 1 bomb was enough
>inb4 le 2 bombs weren't enough maymay
It seemed necessary at the time. With the benefit of hindsight, we might conclude that surrender could have been achieved without it, but it isn't fair to judge the US like that. Besides, mass bombing was par for the course in WWII, and the only significant difference from firebombing Tokyo or leveling Dresden was this was 2 big bombs instead of thousands of little bombs.
>>1205743
Was the firebombing of Tokyo enough?
A better question is why people concentrate on Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the Tokyo firebombing killed many more people, for significantly less strategic effect.
The real act of cruelty is making ANOTHER one of these threads.
>>1205743
What people keep forgetting is that the nukes were used because the US insisted on an unconditional surrender of the Japanese meaning they weren't really "the only moral option"
Japan was by all accounts defeated by the time Summer of '45 came around, but the question was what was going to bring the Emperor and the military commanders to the negotiating table.
The US was originally planning Operation Downfall, the invasion of mainland Japan. between a joint US/Soviet invasion of the remaining imperial possessions, Japan wouldn't be able to defend against such firepower.
but there were a few factors that led to the bomb.
first was the Soviet Union, the US already saw the Soviets capture everything up to the Elbe river and started setting up pro-Russian governments. They knew that with a Soviet invasion coming from the north, whatever prizes they earn will go the same route, knowing the the Soviets would definitely seize at least Hokkaido for themselves. In the end they still received Manchuria and Norther Korea, as well as Sakhalin and the Kurils, so it just shows how much more the Russians would have received.
Next is casualty projections. the US easily could have lost an additional 500k to 1 million troops capturing the japanese homeland if Okinawa was any indicator of the level of resistance they'd receive. So the bomb was seen as a way to kill 300,000 of theirs and end the war rather than kill 1-2 million on both sides to get the same result.
in the end, the bomb did a lot of things. It saved time, money, and allied lives. and sent a grim message to the Soviet Union saying "we have a superweapon, don't you dare challenge us", giving the US more political leverage than ever when organizing the Post-WWII geopolitical map.
>>1205743
Accusing someone of cruelty in war is a meme which is equivalent to calling someone a cheater anyway. Humans are destructive creatures capable of rationalizing terrible shit and that's to our advantage.
Accusing someone of "War crimes" is just a way for people to even out the playing field in a ridiculous fashion. And not only that, but the only way to "enforce"against these crimes is to commit similar acts of violence against the perpetrators. It's hypocrisy at its finest.
I cant say killed people 「it was necessary」
It wasn't necessary but it was practical.
>>1205813
The bomb isn't what brought Japan to the acquiesce to an unconditional surrender.
To the japanese high command it was just two more cities wiped off the map. Considering the context that 68 cities had been burned to the ground BEFORE the A-bomb was dropped, it just seemed like one more city gone to them. They didn't place the kind of special consideration on Hiroshima or Nagasaki at the time that they have been imbued with after the war. The Japanese high command even declined a meeting to discuss the incident in Hiroshima on August 8th (2 days after it happened), deeming it not important enough for consideration. That isn't because they didn't know what an A-bomb was (Japan had their own nuclear weapons program) it was because the destruction of cities was not a pressing concern for the Japanese.
From the American POV using the bombs seemed practical and worth the shot. From the POV of Japanese leaders, the entry of the Soviet Union into the conflict was a much more important turn of events.
>>1205743
A peace through negotiation would have been possible but the Americans wanted unconditional surrender (and thus make the Emperor resign). So no, I don't think it was necessary.
>>1205876
>he thinks the Soviet Pacific Fleet could support an amphibious assault against the home islands
>>1205894
>and thus make the Emperor resign
That's not what happened nor what they wanted. The Japanese high command thought that they could get away with keeping their imperial territories if they sued for peace. Both Stalin and Churchill told Truman at the Potsdamn conference that they wouldn't support anything less than the dismantling of the Japanese empire, something Truman supported eagerly.
That's why unconditional surrender was an important demand, so as to cripple the Japanese military.
>>1205903
with the Japanese Navy virtually non-existent by the end of the war, it would be a rather simple task.
The Soviets invaded all the Kuril Islands amphibiously without a hitch, the same could've easily been pulled off in Hokkaido or northern Honshu.
>>1205903
One of the reasons Japan was stubbornly declining an unconditional surrender was they had hope of keeping their mainland possessions. At this point in the war they still occupied Manchuria, Korea & Indochina. The soviet's entry into the war meant these possessions were rapidly falling into the hands of an enemy anyway. That ALONE changes the arithmetic of the Japanese high command in regard to their present situation and the viability of a conditional peace far more than the A-bomb.
You're operating under this assumption that the USSR needed to bring their full military weight onto the Japanese islands for their entry to matter which is absolutely wrong.
We should have bombed Russia and China tbhfam
Stamp communism out at the source
>>1205956
We should have joined Germany and Japan to kill the Soviet Union in the crib. They were ultimately the greater threat.
>>1206023
This
Would probably have prevented the Holocaust too, so no Israel
according to McNamara in Fog of War it was an unjustified crime of war
>>1206039
It could have been avoided altogether. We still see the aftermath to this day, not least of which in Syria.
>>1205743
>Feynman
because he's the same as the rest of humanity
also do you mean Einstein? there were way more involved scientists than Feynman
>>1205743
We had this fucking thread all the fucking time. The bombs were justified, the US doesn't have to apologize worth a damn to Japan especially the shit WWII Japan pulled, and not carrying out Operation Downfall was a mistake along with putting MacArthur in charge.
>>1205743
By not having a shallow moral scope; being able to make -and justify- difficult decisions is what made feynman a good man. A man can't be good if he cruises through life on easy mode, and never has the opportunity to test his morals.
>>1205743
>Was it necessary to bomb Horoshima and Nagasaki
Yes, to demonstrate to the world (read: USSR) the might and power of uncle Sam.
>>1205923
Anon the IJN may not be existent, but the USN is and it's more powerful than the Soviet Navy with Britian sitting right under it.
Do you think the US would allow Soviet shit near it's kill?
>>1205776
>With the benefit of hindsight, we might conclude that surrender could have been achieved without it
>>1205813
>the question was what was going to bring the Emperor and the military commanders to the negotiating table.
>>1205894
>A peace through negotiation would have been possible but the Americans wanted unconditional surrender (and thus make the Emperor resign)
People, actually, still believe this crap.
Okay, first off, before we even dropped the first bomb, Japan had already offered surrender. They just wanted to keep some bits of Korea and China, and their Emperor.
Before we dropped the second bomb (and meanwhile, Russia had killed 700,000 Japanese troops in China in a week - more than we had killed in the past year), the only condition they had remaining is they didn't want us to *execute* their Empowered.
And what did we do when we finally got that completely unconditional surrender? We let them keep their emperor, as he was.
Between the two bombs we killed less than 3000 military personnel and a handful of military installations. It didn't affect the folks in charge, nor their ability to wage war, nor were the people ready to rebel against them as a result - indeed, they were ready to fight with women and children and bamboo sticks. But an unconditional surrender to the US looked a HELL of a lot better than an unconditional surrender to Stalin, who was already preparing to cross over.
We still needed to drop those bombs though.
Not to make Japan surrender - which had already happened... But if we hadn't dropped those bombs, the interim between WW2 against the Axis, and WW3 against Russia, woulda been all of two weeks. The cold war, woulda been a whole lot hotter, without that demonstration of power, and that brief period of time where Russia had no counter to the nuclear bomb save superior conventional force. They would have rolled over Europe with comparatively little resistance, set next to what they'd just gone through with Germany.
>>1206127
>Not to make Japan surrender - which had already happened... But if we hadn't dropped those bombs, the interim between WW2 against the Axis, and WW3 against Russia, woulda been all of two weeks.
Baseless speculation
>The cold war, woulda been a whole lot hotter, without that demonstration of power, and that brief period of time where Russia had no counter to the nuclear bomb save superior conventional force. They would have rolled over Europe with comparatively little resistance, set next to what they'd just gone through with Germany.
Speculation & has more to do with the almost mythological post-war narrative surrounding the bomb than first-hand accounts.
>>1206162
Look at Truman's debate with Woodrow, the remnants of League of Nations, the JIC, and his response to Leo Szilard's petition, and you can see that "baseless speculation" was the actual motivation of the time.
The idea that it was required for a total surrender was propaganda from day one. The Truman administration dropped that bomb for the sake of keeping Russia under wraps, not to make an already surrendered Japan surrender more. The surrender terms we gave them were far kinder than the ones they were offering for a reason.
>>1206219
I'm not denying that Truman took into consideration the potential usefulness of the bomb as a display of US military might to the USSR (it's well recorded that he dropped a hint about the US's 'super weapon' to Stalin at Potsdam) but the idea that if Hiroshima & Nagasaki never took place that the USSR was going or planning to immediately roll into Western Europe until Hiroshima & Nagasaki happened is baseless speculation.
It was a useful act of cruelty, as it got the job gone. The bombs (along with the Soviet entry in the war against Japan) woke the Japs up from their delusional state. They were completely ridiculous concerning surrender before and they were more realistic afterward.
Considering all the factors (won't bother listing them all, you should know), it was reasonable.
>>1205923
>land tiny invasion force with your shitty logistics
>it gets wiped out by Japs
>LOOK WE HELPED
10/10 national security threat would surrender again
>>1206249
I'll give you that. I think the main difference between FDR and Truman, and Stalin probably wasn't nearly as aggressive as Truman perceived, and FDR looked upon him fondly. Nonetheless it was the primary motivation, as that's what the Truman administration believed - the pacific war was really already over.
Am I the only one who finds this conversation farcical? What difference do atomic bombs have from large scale conventional bombing or firebombing? I don't understand the motivation or point of discussing this.
>>1206297
There's a rather vast difference in psychological impact. And, thanks to ICBM's, nearly the entire civilized world spent nearly a half century believing they could all be wiped out at any given second at the mis-press of a single button. Nevermind what carpet bombing with nukes would look like.
The destruction is so absolute, and there's so little you can do about it, it really changed warfare between nuclear armed nations forever. It gave us the cold war and the space age, and prevented us from having what might have been a WWII that never really ended, and just rolled into another war. (Speculation, yes, but it no one had nukes, the US and the USSR surely woulda been a whole lot more keen to go at it directly.)
>>1206297
It's an important topic (in my opinion) because of the mythological status of the bombs and H&N have a central role in creating that mythology. The difference between the A-bombs & the Tokyo Firebombing is that nobody credits the firebombing to 'ending the war' whereas you have vast amounts of people who fervently believe the the A-bombs are directly and primarily responsible for the surrender of Japan.
The narrative of the bombs only got stronger post-war. They were seen as 'super weapons' that almost single handedly 'brought japan to its knees' which elevated the bombs in the minds of many to a special status that belong to a different set of rules entirely than all other instruments of war.
Whether they were necessary or not in my mind is less interesting to how they shaped nuclear politics for the rest of history.
>>1206127
>Japan had already offered surrender
No. This is brought up in every thread by Jap apologists.
The closest Japan got to offering peace terms was their ambassador to the Soviet Union talked about some tentative terms that the Soviets would pass on to the Allies. However, when the ambassador sent these same terms back to the government back home, they were unanimously rejected by the Japanese government. Those tentative peace proposals never gained any official weight and were never passed on to anyone.
Japan never sued for peace until after the bombs were dropped.
>>1205923
Great, you have no resistance on the ocean.
Now you have to actually get the troops on land.
>>1206374
The mongols pulled that off in the 11th century with no problems. Somehow I think a nation pumping out a hundred tanks a day, that had just taken possession of the Japanese navy in China to boot, could work that out.
Only problem might be the American's getting in the way, but they were, for the most part, on the wrong side of the islands, and officially, your allies, so...
>>1206383
>The mongols pulled that off in the 11th century with no problems
The Mongols never invaded Japan in the 11th century. They did so in the 13th century, against a totally disorganized and inexperienced series of localized Japanese rulers, and failed. Not to mention how significantly easier it was to make a landing of 20,000 troops in 1274 than it would be to land hundreds of thousands of troops against a massive opposing army on the beach in 1945.
>a nation pumping out a hundred tanks a day
>Soviet Union
>nation
And preparing a navy to not only land soldiers but also bombard the shore and protect itself from land artillery from scratch can take years. The Japanese weren't about to surrender because of a hypothetical situation that far off.
>had just taken possession of the Japanese navy in China to boot
I'm looking this up now and I don't believe any portion of the Japanese navy was captured by the Soviets.
why did they have to bomb a city
>>1205743
>see him as one of the worst criminals on earth
He worked on the Manhattan project, but he didn't make the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The people working on developing the weapon thought it was necessary to develop it before Germany would be able to.
Even assuming that the decision had no justification at all, I don't see how you can blame the scientists and accuse them of being criminals. That's like blaming Boeing for 9/11.
>>1206437
Cities are the centers of production in a nation.
It is from cities that they refine all of their raw materials into tanks, planes, guns, ammunition, fuel, etc.
By bombing cities that are important to the war effort, you are gaining a significant advantage over your enemies.
It is simply a hard truth that civilians are an important part of the war effort and that makes them very good targets.
>>1206432
+/- Yeah, they got their asses handed to them. The point is they got there en mass in primitive little row boats. Not that hard to get to Japan from China.
And yes, Russia had just finished mopping up 700,000 Japanese troops in China. They had their boats. They weren't looking at years, they were looking at weeks, if that, and Stalin is a lot scarier than the US, when it comes to terms of surrender.
Nobody mentioned yet that they bombed civilians, not soldiers in a warzone nor inhuman criminals?
The next international agreement should be about transforming every "national army" into a "self-defense force", as well as Japan did.
>>1206610
There are no civilians in war. If you are performing any kind of labor in support of the war effort, you might as well be a combatant.
Yes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cherry_Blossoms_at_Night
>>1206348
>Japan never sued for peace until the Soviets declared war*
Fixed
>>1206626
This sounds like "If you're not with me, you're against me". Life is not that simple.
It was a real dick move. Warfare became shit after ww1
>>1206645
No, that's not what I said. I said you if you are building tanks, driving trucks carrying munitions or food to the military bases, working on rail roads, unlucky enough to be on an important bridge at the wrong time, or anything like that, you don't have any protection from being a target.
>>1206610
>Nobody mentioned yet that they bombed civilians, not soldiers in a warzone nor inhuman criminals?
tell that to all the civilians the Japs slaughtered in China. No one gave a shit about anyone on those islands by the time the bomb dropped
>>1206672
Let's say that you're a civilian living in the USA. Your country attacks another one for whatever reason (stealing oil, political destabilization...). That country reacts bombing your city, and you die. Maybe you've been against the decisions of your government, perhaps you've even been forced to produce weapons in a factory.
Would you say "There are no civilians in war" to your kids while the bomb falls?
>>1206594
Again, do you know how much easier it was to launch a marine invasion in the 13th century than it is now? Boats moved faster than feet did back then, so you always had a place to land where you didn't have to face troops. In 1945, once the Soviets landed they would have to be prepared to meet the full brunt of the Japanese defensive forces Also, skies were clear. You didn't have to wade through bombardments or aerial attacks or raiding vessels. To do that you need bigger ships with bigger guns, something the Soviets didn't have enough of.
>Russia had just finished mopping up 700,000 Japanese troops in China. They had their boats.
The Soviet offensive in Manchuria was successful but how many boats did the Russians capture from the Japanese? Looking it up it seems that the Japanese didn't keep any of their necessary ships sticking around in the ports in China, if there were even any left, which makes sense. The whole commitment of the IJN command had been against the United States. Why would they port their ships in China?
>>1205764
yeah but that's a pretty decent counterpoint to all the japanese and white guilters who think japan dindu nuffin
>>1206610
There weren't any military targets left to bomb. Which is among the reasons that, until then, we left Hiroshima alone.
>>1206817
I've yet to run into one of those... Seems nearly everyone agrees that Imperialist Japan was a mad animal that needed to be put down. Only debate is whether you to nuke two cities to do it.
WW2 Japs were freaking scary - dunno what came over them. I wish the US would stop pushing them to arm themselves better, just because it'd save us some money in the short term.
>>1206289
>FDR looked upon him fondly
source?
>>1206348
>that gif
>>1206837
Not a *good* source:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2015/0305/Roosevelt-and-Stalin-details-the-surprisingly-warm-relationship-of-an-unlikely-duo
But I find it's generally accepted that FDR was kinda fond of Stalin, and Woodrow was willing to trust him, at least - or at least a hell of a lot more than the Truman administration was.
Not to say that FDR approved of everything he did, though a lot of the worst he did happened after FDR died. I suspect things would have changed, had he been alive to see that (though, on the other hand, it also might not have happened.)
>>1206835
eh. American ex-pat in Canada, so the narrative up here is that using that level of force is never justified.
I genuinely have no idea how the japanese view the bomb. The government said they don't expect an apology and japanese people I've talked to about it either shrug it off or laugh.
>>1206835
>I've yet to run into one of those.
muh oil embargo muhfucka, Japan dindu nuffin
>>1206848
that's interesting, but I guess Stalin's brutalities didn't really come to light until after the war.
>>1206850
Ah, didn't ask anyone last time I was up in the 51st state.
The fact that Obama showed up was apology enough for most, from the interviews. I don't think anyone there thinks much of the "technically didn't apologize" thing. Their government, reportedly, doesn't want him to officially apologize, as that might lead to them having to lose some face in turn.
But the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that they interviewed seemed very grateful for the visit.
I don't think he really should apoligize, desu... But a "I'm sorry you were being a dick and we had to put you down." or equivalent would be enough. Really, leaving a few of the Trump extremists aside, there's no serious American is willing to say it wasn't a tragedy, only debate comes in as to whether it was a necessary tragedy. (But yes, I know what youtube comment page image you're about to post.)
>>1206550
yeah, but the potential of the bomb to destroy a city could have been shown to the Nips by nuking something less densely populated, couldn't it
Was Dresden a mistake?
>>1206883
There's no better way to demonstrate that something can level a city than by levelling a city.
>>1206889
no, Germany just sucks at committing war crimes via airplane and are buttblasted Britain isn't
>>1206896
were incendiaries not a thing until after the battle of britain?
>>1206896
never forgetti guernica (little reichs first warcrime)
>>1206855
The way I understood their relationship was that FDR made it his administration's policy to appease Stalin at every turn in the eager hope that this show of good faith would lead to unqualified cooperation between the two superpowers in building the post-war order. Though I believe, if i'm not mistaken, that FDR himself became more cynical about Stalin near the end of his life.
Truman himself was witness to the hardball (some might characterize it as dishonest) the Soviets were playing in Europe with the occupied territory so he always had a more skeptical (turning into outright hostile) view of the USSR.
>>1206902
Nah the Germans did drop incendiaries over Britain IIRC, but they just weren't going for full firestorm effects and they really probably couldn't even if they wanted to.
Remember that the Luftwaffe bomber raids peaked at maybe 200 bombers per raid, and all of those bombers were fairly low capacity medium bombers.
Meanwhile, the RAF pulled off thousand-bomber raids multiple times with bombers that could carry far more bombs.
>>1205807
>muh Tokyo fire bombing was much worse meme
Are people just incapable of preschool maths?
>>1206626
>There are no civilians in war.
What a disgusting position to take. That's what extremist groups like ISIS tell each other to justify killing Western journalists and everyday people, that they're all complicit and targets. Disgusting.
Ironically, in many ways I consider the devastating use of the bombs to be the final holdover tactic from the nineteenth century. The use of force to push for complete surrender, is comparable to Sherman's march through the South, the ultimate, literal, example of scorched earth tactics.
>>1206982
>>1207007
But they objectively were.
I think something many people forget is the divide between military and civilian administration, and even within the military there was the infamous Army vs. Navy rivalry. IIRC there was still an across-the-board hope of negotiated surrender until the combined shock of Soviet invasion (many among the leadership hoped the Soviets would be the impartial third party to negotiations between Japan and the Western Allies) and the nuclear bombs shattered their illusions. I think it wasn't so much a fear of Soviet occupation of Japanese territory as much as a realization that they wouldn't be able to worm their way out of their situation. The combination of the two may have served to mean that if they didn't surrender at that point, they would lose all of their colonies, their institutions of government (such as the Emperor), and face an occupation with the possibility of Japan being partially occupied by China akin to what happened in Germany.
One could conjecture that the civilian administration cared more about the nuclear bombs that directly affected the heart of Japan itself, while many in the military administration was more concerned about their colonial possessions and the subsequent loss of resources their loss would entail. This could explain why the some in the military were more willing to continue even with those shocks, as they may have still hoped to be able to wage a war of attrition in order to maintain some of their colonies while the civilians wanted none of it since they would bear most of the burden in terms of fighting and starvation.
>>1207007
>check death stats because I'm pretty sure this guy is full of shit
>at some point the top estimate for deaths from the nukes went up by 100k
huh
>>1206850
There were a bunch of conservative sites accusing Obama of being spineless apologist, they automatically assumed he was gonna apologize.
>>1207007
That wasn't really my point
>>1207110
The two are pretty much even in terms of estimates, with the low end being slightly lower for Meetinghouse. Unless of course you don't understand how numbers work past 100 or so.
>>1205923
>land forces on beach
>completely fuck it up but still take island
>agree never to do it again
The battle of Shumshu, folks.
>>1207110
Depends on how you measure it - ~70K for each nuke, directly, then a whole bunch more over time due to the fires and such.
Any way you slice it, while the fire bombing probably did kill more people in the long run, it also took a whole lot longer to do it.
Militarily, however, the bombing before the nukes certainly did the most damage - to the point where there was almost no military targets left to bomb, leaving aside the loss of nearly the entire navy, outside of some transport ships in China.
>>1205743
Depends on what you think the goal was. To end the war, it was not necessary. To end the war as quickly as possible, it was necessary.
There's a good chance I'm actually posting here today because of the bomb. My grandfather served in the Pacific and was going to be part of the invasion force of Japan before they surrendered.
Wouldn't continuing to napalm the nips until they retreated into caves have been just as effective?
Not to mention cheaper, the cost of the manhattan project alone far outstripped a few tens of thousands more gallons of gasoline + palm oil. And overall more environmentally conscious as well considering the environmental impact of irradiating entire square kilometers of land as well as atmospheric radiation...
What were they thinking?
>>1206127
Who cares? They had initiated conflict with the US first and as such had forfeited any possibility of future moral legitimacy. America would have been justified in dropping them even years after the war was over.
Do not even attempt to make the case that they would not have done far worse with the same technology.
Has anyone ever considered that the U.S could have dropped the bomb off the coast of japan to send the message?
>>1207831
>why didn't they just firebomb to send a message?
>>1207831
>Demonstrate the power of the bomb by destroying absolutely nothing
It stopped cherry blossoms at night. So it is good for me.
>>1207831
Didn't anyone consider that nations could settle their differences with a martial arts tournament instead of fighting wars?
>>1209016
yeah but if i lose i would try to overrun your country with my soldiers and rape your women
>>1206610
Did you forget the Army that had its HQ in Hiroshima along with about 20 000 troops?
>>1209308
also, Hiroshima was a city constructed of wood
nice big return from one bomb
>>1205743
idk bout none a dat but thx 4 da wallpaper.
>>1205764
He's 100% right though
