Bombing Japan Saved More People Than It Killed.

[commodore96]

I've made the same argument on here before, and a lot of people got mad.

 

[Lancer723]

While I totally agree with the OP, I'm surprised no one has really brought up 3 contributing factors to the decision to drop the bomb.

1) The exhaustion that the Allies felt after the hellish fighting on the European side of things, with none of the involved properties wanting another drawn out conflict

2) Growing distrust of the Russians and their original pledge to help the Allies take down Japan after hitler fell. Although admittedly the Russians had just as much, if not more motivation to see the Japanese fall.

3) Pressure from the Chinese to bring down the Japanese as quickly as possible after the atrocities Japanese soldiers brought upon the Chinese, especially Chinese civilians.

 

[winter2]

I thought the reasoning behind the bombing was well understood and accepted already.

 

[AlexNora]

can't tell if trolls... or just don't care cause it wasn't their nation that was bombed...

its war when japan choose to attack us the accepted the fact that some people where going to die that is what war is.

 

[Optimis Prime]

I'm History Master from Europe and I can tell you without a doubt that the bombs were not necessary. The Americans refused the initial Japanese peace offer. The Americans demanded unconditional surrender and warned the Japanese that they will retaliate with unseen might if they didn't surrendered unconditionally. The only condition that the Japanese wanted, was that their Emperor would be left untouched. That was the only condition. So the Americans dropped the bombs. The Japanese accepted the new American peace treaty without hesitation...this treaty had the condition the Japanese wanted before the bombing: the Emperor was left alone.

The Bombs were dropped for geopolitical reasons to show down the Soviets (not necessary because Stalin knew the development of the A-bombs was well underway trough espionage).

So can you Yanks drop the issue now? They did it because the people who wanted it done were playing alpha-male with the Soviets and Japan would be a perfect "England" on the Eastern side of the Eurasian landmass, something Japan also proved during the Korean War.

Do you have proof of this? I never knew the Japanese offered peace terms.

(Don't know the tags for links so forgive me for just copy pasting a wikilink)
http://mediawiki.arts.kuleuven.be/geschiedenisjapan/index.php/Atoombommen_op_Japan/capitulatie_in_1945
The excerpt is in Dutch, but originated from a Belgian University which has a good History department.

Peace terms between the Japanese and the American government were flying back and forth constantly (remember that Hitler offered a peace and truce after the conquest of Poland to the Allies and again after the conquest of France). After the German surrender and the Treaty of Potsdam, the only conditions the Japanese had left was retaining the Imperial dynasty and the sovereignty of the main Islands as the nation of Japan. US government knew full well that the Japanese would likely surrender if there were guarantees for the Imperial family. Because they denied these conditions...but gave them anyway at the actual peace treaty, the 2 A-bombs is considered by European historians as the first Cold War act.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

I recall my old history teacher telling me this argument, although he did pose an alternative America could have used (and was an alternative they considered)

Nuke an uninhabited island or patch of land near Japan and of course give them word that something major is going to happen there so they dont miss it (they had an island in mind, the name escapes me) and give them an ultimatum: surrender or this happens to a city.

Huh. Did your history teacher mention why they didn't do that in stead?

 

[Nikokvaj]

can't tell if trolls... or just don't care cause it wasn't their nation that was bombed...

All the major powers of the second world war carried out atrocities far worse than those bombs, yet all people seem to care about when pointing fingers are wmbd's...

 

[Zhukov]

Question:

Why drop two bombs? Surely one city being flattened was sufficient to make their point.

Or hey, drop a bomb outside a city. "Surrender or the next one hits the city."

 

[Axolotl]

Or the Americans could have accepted the conditional surrender the Japanese were offering.

But even if that wasn't an acceptable option I'd love to hear just how you'd justify the bombing of Nagasaki? After all the US had already shown it had the capability and the will to use nuclear weapons so what purpose did that serve?

 

[Nikokvaj]

I really don't see how anyone can defend the Japanese under the premise that "they were completely willing to surrender so long as they could keep their emperor".

The same man that sanctioned the whole damn mess to begin with!?

Of course the Americans couldn't allow him to stay in power, if anything, removing him should have been their number one priority.

 

[ninja51]

Top military commanders knew Japan was close to surrender anyway. Nuking inocents because a few more paid soldiers might die is not and will never be right.

Argueing for the bombing does make sense if the land invasion were to actually happen, but like I said, many military commanders and experts knew Japan was going to surrender, the bombing was hugely uneccisary

 

[theriddlen]

There comes a time when Big Bad Evil catches you and forces you to choose between it, and the second, bit lesser one. Unfortunately you usually aren't able to tell which one is which, and only the long-time consequences can prove you made the right or wrong choice.

Dropping nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was one of those decisions, and the lesser, but still big, evil was chosen. Less people died than they would in regular fight, war with Japan was over, and in long term US brought modern social standards and technology to Japan, basically setting up and kick starting the Japan we know today.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

I confess a complete ignorance of the US strategy, but the second nuke seemed a little unnecessary. Like they were rubbing it in Japan's collective face. "Look, we have absurdly destructive nuclear weaponry! Have some more radiation poisoning!"

 

[DarkRyter]

It may have been necessary. I may have been to only thing that could be done in that situation.

But goddammit, it'll never be right.

War. War never changes.

 

[Optimis Prime]

I really don't see how anyone can defend the Japanese under the premise that "they were completely willing to surrender so long as they could keep their emperor".

The same man that sanctioned the whole damn mess to begin with!?

Of course the Americans couldn't allow him to stay in power, if anything, removing him should have been their number one priority.

The Japanese Emperor had no real power then with Japan being ruled by the big chiefs of the military-industrial complex Japan had at that time.

If the Americans couldn't allow the man to stay in "power"...why did they let him stay in "power" afterwards anyway?

 

[Towels]

This is a false dilemma. The US didn't have to invade the mainland, nor did the US have to drop the bomb.

Japan had gathered all of their defenses in the South to fight off the US in Kyushu. Therefore, the USSR was rolling through the north like a hot knife through butter, and their army would have devoured Hokkaido and the northern half of Honshu, including Tokyo, in a matter of weeks.

Thus, we would have had Soviet North Japan, and democratic South Japan. Just like Korea is now. I think Japan is a lot better off than the Korean peninsula is now, don't you?

This brings up a good question: If the USSR could have dominated Japan, would they annex it into their empire?

After the first bombing President Truman was informed that the USSR had nuclear testing of their own. I speculate that the USSR would not use a nuke on Japan because they would be more interested in dominating it. They would probably save thier nukes for a a country that they would rather see dead than dominated, like oh... eh I don't know. I think I saw this happen in Modern Warefare 2.

Say what you will about the US foreign policy, but nobody in the United States would seriously want to annex the entire nation of Japan. Its too far to manage, the people would be too hostile to assimilate (and that's not considering blacklash from the popular Liberalism movement in the United States already), and there are not enough natural resources to make a costly conquest worth it. Sure, we put up some bases in Japan, but that was just necessary and any other nation would do the same.

However, just from considering how close Japan is to the former USSR, conquest seems like it would have been a viable option for them. You know, first Japan, and then Alaska.

*EDIT: I'm not really trying to justify anything here. I'm just pointing out that if conquest of Japan were to happen, it would be much more beneficial for the USSR than it would for the US.

 

[DSK-]

I can full understand and accept their usage but it doesn't meant I like the very bitter taste in my mouth that such a thought promotes.

I'm also not saying that the country of my birth (England/UK) is innocent in the slightest. A good example would be the bombing of Dresden.

Having said that though the people who didn't die but suffered due to contact with radiation in some manner must lived horribly.

 

[Hristo Tzonkov]

Funny that the trinity tests did some good.

 

[___________________]

I know that a lot of people will probably hate me for saying this, but I believe it is true. The death toll from the atomic bombs is numbered between 90000-166000 for Hiroshima, and between 60000-80000 for Nagasaki. The bombings were catastrophic, but they pale compared to the alternative.

Operation Downfall [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_downfall]: The Land Invasion of Japan.


Split into two parts, Operation Olympic, and Operation Coronet, the invasion had projected casualty rates in the millions for Allied Soldiers, and tens of millions for the Japanese.

Operation Olympic was targeted at southern Japan, specifically, the Island of Kyushu. To put into perspective how large this invasion would be, consider this: the naval armada would have been bigger than the Normandy Invasion. Operation Coronet would also be massive, with the largest seaborne invasion action in history. Coronet would land on the Kanto Plain, and make a drive inland for Tokyo.

On the Japanese side, all defenses were set on Kyushu, with thousands of Kamikaze planes hoping to overwhelm Allied Naval Forces through sheer numbers. Ten thousand kamikaze planes were built, with only two thousand deployed at the Battle of Okinawa earlier in the year. This left 8000 planes ready to collide with allied forces at Kyushu.

On the ground, the defenses numbered 900000 soldiers, or about 14 Corps. This is not factoring in the Patriotic Citizens Fighting Corps, which rounded up every able bodied man in the country to act as combat support. They numbered 28 million strong at the time. Despite weapons shortages, the Japanese were ready to fight to the last man to defend Kyushu, hopefully blunting the invasion force.

Proposed weapons included gas warfare and nuclear weapons, as neither the Japanese nor the Americans had signed the Geneva Protocol banning biological warfare at the time.

Oh, and if that wasn't destructive enough, this is all without considering that the Soviet Union was also about to declare war on Japan and invade them too.

So let's recap: The Japanese were ready to fight to the last man, woman and child to defend their homeland. Every last one. Had the bombs not been dropped, Operation Downfall would have had the potential to annihilate the entire country, with millions of deaths on both sides.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed that. At the relatively low casualties compared to the atrocious death tolls on the Eastern Front or the Second Sino-Japanese war, the atomic bomb was probably the best solution. The other advantage is that it brought about the major awareness of the destructive capabilities of nuclear warfare, which has so far ensured that they never be used again in case of Mutually Assured Destruction.

Was the bombing morally unethical? Possibly. Was it necessary? Yes. Could it have been much, much worse? Yes.

When faced with the alternative of genocide, I choose the option that ends the war with the least amount of death.

Well since you're a human like myself and like myself you don't possess powers that enable you to look into alternate versions of the world if something had happened differently, I'll say you can't be correct. But I'm not saying you're wrong either. At least about the numbers. Although you should have accounted for the thousands killed by radiation afterwards too. Anyway, dropping nukes is never an option. Especially when you're just testing out your new toy to show it off to the soviets. And if someone with proper studies in history reads your post and sees you used Wikipedia for a reference they'll just laugh at you.


I'm not trying to sound angry or anything at you. I'm just saying some things can't be changed no matter how you look at them. It won't make it ok even if the majority of the world's population agrees that it was great to blow them up because *insert reason here*.