Swollen Goat said:
Well, considering that this could have been a topic for an essay in my final exams, I better have a well-thought out response. Thanks though and hopefully, we can keep this civil. Now...
Couple of things I need to clear. First, the US at this time was not 'the world police', they were an isolationist nation (a complicated form of isolationism, I know, but the public perception was the US was country uninterested in world affairs, which explained why they did not join the League of Nations). The US can not claim the moral high ground since they entered the war for their own reasons, namely to fight the Nazis (shown in the Atlantic Charter, where, even though Japan brought the US into the war, the US aimed to eliminate Germany first). Second, I said
Indochina, a French colony that consisted of today's Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The Japanese did not invade Indochina, they requested to occupy the area and the Vichy French agreed. The occupation of Indochina was not aggressive in itself. (Indonesia was invaded after Pearl Harbour).
I'm not arguing that the embargoes were bad but that the US acted in a way to bring about war. The embargo itself was an attempt to avert war and, I agree, it was a warning. However, when the Japanese offered to withdraw from Indo
china and sign a peace treaty with China, the US refused. Why would a nation who demanded an end to Japanese expansion refuse when Japan said it would stop? Furthermore, the Americans demanded complete withdrawal from China. The US basically refused to negotiate with the Japanese. At a time when Japan was the only Asian Great, when Japan had the distinction as the only Asian nation to defeat a European nation in war, the US refused to negotiate. At best, the Americans fuelled the anger within the Japanese government since they disrespected the Japanese ever since the Meiji Restoration. At worst, they preyed upon the Japanese fixation on their honour. Either way, American foreign policy was instrumental in the Japanese decision to bomb Pearl Harbour.
It looks like you and I agree with the idea of a surrender that guaranteed the position of the Emperor... but a debate isn't fun if we don't argue
.
The American decision to
not not offer such an agreement means that they were driven by other considerations. If the Americans did use the A-bombs to avert loss of life, a surrender would have had the lowest death toll - 0. The fact the Americans used the bomb when the option of negotiation was available invalidates the argument that it was necessary and negotiations would have cost the Americans nothing either. The end result would have been the same... except an armistice would have meant 80,000 would have lived and the world would not be in the grips of MAD for ~50 years.
Note: Funny you mention Germany after WW1 though... my final also had a section on Germany. If the Allies had kept the Kaiser, WW2 may not have happened since, like the Emperor, the Kaiser was seen to be critical to the function of the State. If the Kaiser had 'blessed' the new democratic government, like Hirohito did with the new democratic government, the instability of the Weimar Republic may not have happened.
the clockmaker said:
The quote's from Foch, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during WW1 and he wanted a harsher settlement (to destroy Germany, not cripple it).
The Treaty of Versailles was inadequate on all fronts and should never be used as a model to end a conflict. It was a Frankenstein-esque combination of the conflict in goals of George, Clemanceau and Wilson, a spectrum that ranged from 'Destroy Germany' to a 'just peace'. The Versailles Treaty was bound to fail, everyone (including Foch) could see it. If the Allies negotiated with the Japanese and, at the very least, guaranteed the protection of the Imperial Family, Japan most likely would have surrendered. The biggest hurdle to a surrender from Japan was the position of the Emperor, since no one wanted to surrender if the Emperor would be tried.
As for the McCollum memo, the fact it exists reflects the fact that there were those within the US government that wanted to provoke the Japanese government to fire the first shot. While the McCollum memo wasn't implemented in its entirety, the behaviour of the US mirrors the confrontational behaviour that the memo called for with its actions. The best example of this is US behaviour during negotiations to end the embargo. The US had to option to end Japanese expansion but they chose to avoid a resolution in favour of their demand. Similar to their decision to ignore Japanese peace attempts through the Soviets, the Americans acted in a way that brought about the need to use the A-bomb.
