White People are... Better?

[UberNoodle]

Did the OP reach his conclusions before or after reading the history of invention and scientific advancement in China, the Middle East, etc? If he read about that at all. If he's actually interested in a theory as to why some cultures have failed whereas others have not, he should read or watch Guns Germs and Steel. Otherwise, to claim to be a history buff yet construe Anglosaxon culture as a paragon of advancement, is laughable.

Unless all he was talking about was a capacity for savagry, oppression and resource hoarding. In such a case, what exactly is 'better' about that culture and by what standard? When the largest library in Europe was a shelf or two in a particular royal home, China was filling entire buildings with scientific, biological, botanical and philosophical literatur. There is much to support that its treasure ships reached the Americas and found particular ocean passages well in advance of European exploration.

And if it's not about China, then examine the incredible advancements in human knowledge in the Middle East which lasted a century or two and was only thwarted by an unfortunate rise of fundamentalism the region has never recovered from. Yet there's a reason most of the stars have Arabic names. Algebra is Arabic.

 

[UberNoodle]

I had to laugh at the red herring of whether the Romans (and Greeks too?) were 'caucasian'.

Look, when the OP says 'caucasian/white' he doesn't think of some 'swarthy ancient Mediterranean' with possibly a toe or two in even the North African or west Middle Eastern genepools. He imagines someone resembling the band 'Bros'. The 'were romans technically 'causasian' argument is a red herring. Regardless of technicality, 'caucasian' doesn't mean anything but the picture below in layspeak, and the OP is a fluent speaker of it.
<img src="http://www.virginmedia.com/images/brothers-bros-431x300.jpg" /a>

Also, the people who chopped off POW's heads or massacred Nangking were not the civilian men women, children and elderly in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sure, fliers were supposedly dropped to 'warn' them of the impending bombs, but would Americans evacuate their cities if they found some foreign enemy dropped fliers? No. They'd likely call it propaganda, and that's what the Japanese called it.

Of course, in this period of total war, there was no where else to go, if you were allowed to leave, that is. I've met people who remember fleeing the destruction of one city just to end up in a city later destroyed. This whole 'we warned them' nonsense is an attempt at guilt displacement, and considering that more bombs were planned for every time Japan didn't surrender, the sincerity of those fliers becomes suspect.

NOw, it's common to cite Japanese wartime atrocity as a reason for the 'neccessity' of the bombs. It's also common to argue that the bombings of other major cities had just as much immediate destruction, or at least comparable. However, these two bombs were NOT prolonged bombing raids. They were single weapons which flattened entire cities, flayed skin off flesh and causes genetic mutation.

To argue that 'because of Nangking' somehow those two bombs were karmic, is a joke. Find me many Americans who'd say the same about 9/11. You realise that that attack was a long time in the making, and it's not a one sided affair. The posturing to alieviate responsibility for Hiroshima and Nagasaki is simply that. The cold hard facts is that the two most powerful weapons in wartime history were deployed by our side on civilian cities, not military targets, causing incredible loss of life and destruction, and a terrible cultural and genetic legacy. And to argue that some flier could have prepared anybody, let alone civilians broken by a total war effort and kept in the dark by their leaders, of the sureity of destruction of a weapon which until tht time was unprecentded and unimaginable, is a sham.

I'm not blaming anybody for those bombs. It was war and while you could argue that Japan was already about to surrender (it was bankrupt, approaching poverty and negotiating with the USSR, something the USA could not abide; there were huge cracks in the leadership), platitudes as to the 'neccessity' of the bombs have had their time. It is also valable to examine that decision outside of our nationalist pride.

 

[Ramzal]

-snip-

It depends on what you mean by "Better." Some in Africa believe it is better there then being in the US. Mainly for how the United State operates on it's opportunity operated society. You have the potential to go great lengths in the US, but what's the cost? You'd benefit while someone else doesn't and suffers a life of mediocrity. To succeed in most of the United States, you must be an opportunist, which can easily turn into greed in the long run.

Besides, you can have a wealth of technology, money and resources, but that doesn't mean absolutely that you are better off than someone who wears grass as coveralls and have no shoes. They could be living a more meaningful life and passing down their marks on their history better than most others are in the world. There's too much to measure as far as determining what is "Better" outside of an area with mass genocide, destruction and rape on a daily basis as compared to what is now considered civilized.

If it's a measure of capability of executing cruelty for benefit of a group, Caucasians are the most successful. If it's a measure of physical capabilities, Africans are the superior group due to their superior muscular and cardiovascular systems. Overall intelligence in use and execution measured by a group, it would be Asians.

There's...thousands of variables to work with here.

 

[Treblaine]

Also, the people who chopped off POW's heads or massacred Nangking were not the civilian men women, children and elderly in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sure, fliers were supposedly dropped to 'warn' them of the impending bombs, but would Americans evacuate their cities if they found some foreign enemy dropped fliers? No. They'd likely call it propaganda, and that's what the Japanese called it.

Of course, in this period of total war, there was no where else to go, if you were allowed to leave, that is. I've met people who remember fleeing the destruction of one city just to end up in a city later destroyed. This whole 'we warned them' nonsense is an attempt at guilt displacement, and considering that more bombs were planned for every time Japan didn't surrender, the sincerity of those fliers becomes suspect.

NOw, it's common to cite Japanese wartime atrocity as a reason for the 'neccessity' of the bombs. It's also common to argue that the bombings of other major cities had just as much immediate destruction, or at least comparable. However, these two bombs were NOT prolonged bombing raids. They were single weapons which flattened entire cities, flayed skin off flesh and causes genetic mutation.

To argue that 'because of Nangking' somehow those two bombs were karmic, is a joke. Find me many Americans who'd say the same about 9/11. You realise that that attack was a long time in the making, and it's not a one sided affair. The posturing to alieviate responsibility for Hiroshima and Nagasaki is simply that. The cold hard facts is that the two most powerful weapons in wartime history were deployed by our side on civilian cities, not military targets, causing incredible loss of life and destruction, and a terrible cultural and genetic legacy. And to argue that some flier could have prepared anybody, let alone civilians broken by a total war effort and kept in the dark by their leaders, of the sureity of destruction of a weapon which until tht time was unprecentded and unimaginable, is a sham.

I'm not blaming anybody for those bombs. It was war and while you could argue that Japan was already about to surrender (it was bankrupt, approaching poverty and negotiating with the USSR, something the USA could not abide; there were huge cracks in the leadership), platitudes as to the 'neccessity' of the bombs have had their time. It is also valable to examine that decision outside of our nationalist pride.

I was not trying to justify such a thing as the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor the firebombing of so many cities before it, nor the blockade that caused so much starvation... as "right".

No, I was merely making clear the motivations, that most certainly were not to intimidate the Russians. The Japanese people suffered but not for the machinations of Cold War manoeuvring.

The Cold War was not truly realised till 1949, when China came under Communist rule and Eastern Europe totally fell under Soviet control and gave new meaning the Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech, and probably most importantly, the Soviet union detonating their first Atomic bomb in the wake of discovering America's nuclear secrets being smuggled to the Soviets via an espionage ring.

It certainly wasn't Karmic. That implies the cities would have been nuked even after the surrender of Japanese forces when it was made UNAMBIGUOUSLY CLEAR that the bombings were because Japan had not surrendered and the bombing would go on till Japan surrendered, or totally destroyed.

It's not that atrocities HAD been committed, it was that atrocities were ONGOING! And that to END the war would STOP the atrocities.

"considering that more bombs were planned for every time Japan didn't surrender"

There is no suspect. The Allies we clear and adamant, surrender or be destroyed. They surrendered, and the bombings stopped.

And the allies were flexible, they banged on and on about an unconditional surrender but when the Japanese finally came with a surrender with jsut one condition, that the Emperor remain in power then the Allies relented and changed the terms to accept this conditional surrender, with the added clause that the Emperor not disobey any orders from the occupying military command.

There were no military targets for weapons like Atomic Bombs in Japan in 1945 especially considering how hard it was to drop bombs from the alititude necessary over Japan due to the jetstream and the sheer SIZE of the blast and Japanese fighters meant you couldn't come in low. The atomic Bombing of Nagasaki fell far wide of its intended centre of detonation. The bombs had to be dropped from 30'000 feet, they could only be used against cities.

There was no sham, the precedent of firebombing was clear of entire cities being destroyed. Often images of the firebombing of tokyo have erroneously but believably been posted as from the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. And even after Hiroshima the Japanese government did not respond to urgent requests to respond to surrender. Silence. They seemed to not think they could be able to do it again, that this might have been a one-off. It took as second bomb and the threat of many more bombs to finally force them to surrender.

They couldn't wait. What if the Japanese figured out how to intercept these bombers? Shot one down and then had a live nuclear weapon?

Also realise in 1945 people were quite indifferent to carcinogens like radiation. Almost everyone smoked would could smoke to spite knowing of how it cause cancer and didn't care. Asbestos was widely used. No one knew what DNA (not discovered for another 2 decades) was and hardly anyone knew about genes and even less knew about how radiation might affect genes. People didn't understand how radiation in your life can affect fertility. Realise most of what we actually know about the effects of radiation we know FROM Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Atomic Bomb was not considered a poisonous bomb when it was invented, it's intended purpose was just like high explosives only 1000 times as powerful.

Japan was NOT negotiating with The Soviets, that is for sure.

For one the Russians and Japanese were older and far more bitter adversaries and Communism and particularly any idea of Soviet rule was completely at odds with Japanese ideals. Japan had had close relationships with Britain and America and had got on well with them but NOT with the Soviets. They would avoid having to deal with the Soviets at all costs though they were pretty safely contained on the continent. But mainly, the Soviets were Allies with the British and the Americans, it couldn't negotiate a surrender with a country it was hardly fighting but was in alliance with countries it was fighting.

No. Stop this cold-war revisionist nonsense that America dropped those bombs afraid of the Soviets.

What is interesting though is that Soviet propagandist IN the cold war did spread this story. They sold the tale that the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to intimidate them and because they were afraid of the USSR getting a fair deal. Bollocks.

You are right, the bombs were not necessary. They could have starved the country to death but either way hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians die and they will die as army get priority in a famine. People with guns don't go hungry when people without guns have food. Or an invasion where hundreds of thousands of Americans would die as well as hundreds of thousands of Japanese would die as they were ordered to to fight to the death.

"It is also valable to examine that decision outside of our nationalist pride."

What is more valuable is that you examine it from the perspective of the ACTUAL people who made these decisions at the ACTUAL time. Don't think regurgitating Soviet cold-war era propaganda used to justify their own Nuclear Weapons build-up as an antidote to any possible national bias. Put yourself on Trueman's shoulder, who has just come back from AGREEING with Stalin to Invade Manchuria and govern all of that and Korea right down to the 38th parallel, does some who invites the Soviets in to attack the Japanese sound like someone worried more about the Soviets or the Japanese?

From the White House what would weight heavy on him is how his own nation is on the brink of bankruptcy, but probably more than that is how he will have to face the mothers of dead American servicemen and his duty is to his country, not the people of Japan.

What would you do? Without hindsight. You've told the Japanese till you are blue in the face, they won't surrender, they won't stop the atrocities, they won't release the prisoners, they will not stop fighting.

 

[Treblaine]

-snip-

It depends on what you mean by "Better." Some in Africa believe it is better there then being in the US. Mainly for how the United State operates on it's opportunity operated society. You have the potential to go great lengths in the US, but what's the cost? You'd benefit while someone else doesn't and suffers a life of mediocrity. To succeed in most of the United States, you must be an opportunist, which can easily turn into greed in the long run.

Besides, you can have a wealth of technology, money and resources, but that doesn't mean absolutely that you are better off than someone who wears grass as coveralls and have no shoes. They could be living a more meaningful life and passing down their marks on their history better than most others are in the world. There's too much to measure as far as determining what is "Better" outside of an area with mass genocide, destruction and rape on a daily basis as compared to what is now considered civilized.

If it's a measure of capability of executing cruelty for benefit of a group, Caucasians are the most successful. If it's a measure of physical capabilities, Africans are the superior group due to their superior muscular and cardiovascular systems. Overall intelligence in use and execution measured by a group, it would be Asians.

There's...thousands of variables to work with here.

There are also the simple things like Kansas Syndrome. That is the old "no place like home", Dorothy goes to a wonderful world of Oz and all these fantastical things but still misses grey old dustbowl Kansas because that's her home and even when everything is peaches and gravy after defeating the witch she can't wait to get back to black and white depression-era southwest..

People generally like where they grew up, where their memories are, where their friend and family are, even if they wish it was better in some ways, even more like a specific country, but broadly they want things to stay the same or at least familiar. Yeah, they may be fed up with malaria, but they're not going to move to Norway as a solution, not all of them.

 

[elbrandino]

If you're curious about this subject, I'd recommend Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. Fascinating read. It'll answer your question.

 

[Something Amyss]

Godwin's Law only dictates that as a discussion goes on, the chances that the Nazis will be mentioned rises greatly. It says nothing about whether a Nazi or Hitler mention is a bad thing or not.

Quite true, and it's both highly amusing and highly exsperating how people on the internet don't get that. Then again, I bet they don't know the constitutions of their nations, either, so meh...

But what I was saying is that in this particular case, Nazis had to come up not because we're having a discussion on the internet, but because of the historical facts.

Yeah, and I agree. I just felt like pointing out that mentioning Nazis is the ONLY thing Godwin's Law covers.

When you're talking superiority of white people, Nazis are certainly an inevitability (and for apt reasons, rather than the usual internet blowout).

 

[TotalerKrieger]

If they thought that the Japanese were a defeated force in mid 1945, then why were the Allies rushing troops from Europe to Japan shortly after V-E Day?

They weren't rushing troops from Europe to Japan after VE day. There were very few units which were deployed to both theatres of war, the largest probably being the 87th Infantry Regiment who fought in the Aleutian Islands and Europe. All of units who were to recieve orders of battle for Operation Olympic were already deployed to the Pacific.

Look, the Allies did not know how well the Japanese Armed Forces were faring up, it was entirely Retroactive the declarations that they would have surrendered with merely continued blockade after they were occupying the country. The intelligence the Allies collected on Japan was from 20'000 feet with cameras, not on the ground. It was the combination of Air-dropped sea-mines and the U-Boat campaign. But this was no "humane" act, unrestricted warfare on all shipping including civilians, explosive mine that persist decades after the war, starving an entire nation would lead to hundreds of thousands of people dying. The study of the effect of radiation on the population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been greatly disrupted by how malnutrition was affecting the population in such extremes.

The blockade was hardly passive, keep in mind a virtually unopposed air campaign was ongoing. Intelligence was collected from a variety of sources besides aerial photography. Many Japanese officials who sought peace were covertly in contact with the Allies. Allied cryptanalysis projects were well established and highly successful at this point in war.

The argument that the blockade was not "humane" is rather moot given that the alternative chosen was to vapourize two cities and subject large numbers of the population to the effects of nuclear radiation for decades after the war..

Japan had its own agriculture. For hundreds of years the country was extremely isolationist with virtually no overseas trade. Japan had the internal capacity to feed its army and its army would be fed but at the expense of the population, as happened in Germany the guys with the guns and the authority of their uniforms took the food they "needed" and tough luck to those who didn't. Don't doubt that many would resort to cannibalism when you force an entire nation to extremes, the problem was not that Japan had a shortage of food, it had great internal food production, the problem was too many people, the Army just gets fed first.

Agriculture which can be set ablaze from the air...

The Emperor would have capitulated before letting large scale famine occur. He actually had sent a peace agreement to FDR before Iwo Jima had even taken place. It was rejected as it was not the victory sought by the Allies, but it showed how far the Emporer had weakened in his resolve. Placed between a rock and a hard place (surrender or watch Japan starve to death), he would have given in to the same demands agreed upon after the nuclear bombings.

Yes, so many Kamikaze planes were held in reserve, this is why the Allies did not want to have to deal with. What makes you think they would hold these Kamikaze planes in reserve with intent to use them only to capitulate when their appointed time comes to attack the invading army?

The US estimated that Japan only had about 2500 Kamikaze aircraft. They knew they would hold these aircraft in reserve only to be used in the event of an Allied invasion. Allied air superiority (Big Blue Blanket) would make any attack on the US naval blockade a futile waste of precious resources. It is dubious that these planes could even reach the naval blockade given the fuel shortages. The Kamikazes would have only been useful when attacking an invasion fleet, in numbers, within close proximity to the mainland. If no invasion fleet is launched, due to the Japanese leadership capitulating, these planes would not have been used.

I did say ALL allied POWs which included British and other Allied nations' forces.

Approximately 80'600 Allied prisoners were released by Japan when it surrendered but the Allies excepted far more to be released as.

And these people were not dying in sudden explosions, they suffered long tortuous demise in horrific cruelty. They weren't soldiers any more, they weren't armed men fighting, they were prisoners, utterly helpless.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bataan/peopleevents/e_atrocities.html

And it was not just Allied prisoners who were suffering but also the people of the occupied territories where atrocities were ongoing and severe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

Suffering is not death. The US knew that dropping the atomic bomb would result in the deaths of thousands of civilians, it was an absolute. They did not know whether waiting would have resulted in the deaths of the POWs held by the Japanese. Nuclear bombardment of Japanese civilians was just as likely to insight large scale retaliatory executions of Allied POWs as it was to intimidate them into surrender, clearly Allied command was willing to sacrifice these men. The remaining occupied territories were rapidly being taken by the Soviets. The number of immediate civilian deaths nearly tripled the number of POWs potentially in danger, the US must have had resonable estimates as to what these numbers would have been.

You WOULD think impending famine would be a huge motivating factor for the Japanese to surrender, but in August 1945 the Japanese gave no explicit intention to surrender, the military were in control weren't going to give up even if The Emperor wanted peace the army did not want to give a bit of ground.

If forced to choose between the Emporer or the militarists in the central government, the army would have always remained loyal to the Emporer, as was seen in the Kyujo Incident. Famine and supply shortages would only have served to weaken the position of the hardliners, while emboldening the Emporer in seeking peace. Conflict would have inevitably arisen between these two factions and the army would have reacted in favour of peace-seekers lead by the Emporer.

Japan wasn't going to return to modern civilisation, it had essentially emerged straight from medieval feudalism to modern society. It had modern technology like repeating rifles, planes and steel ships and high explosives but they were still in a Medieval mindset. The case with Nazi Germany and other fascist states was that it wanted to return to the brutal age of the Teutonic Knights, Japan hadn't really ever left that by 1930's, it still clung to a warrior ideology and unlike Europe and America that had in 18th and 19th century developed ideas such as humanitarian surrender and restraint on prisoners, Japan had given only token gestures signing the Geneva conventions to be included when it suited them but drop it as soon as it didn't suit them.

Japan had been known to show a great deal of respect and restriant to their prisoners before the 1920s. It was the militarist coups that occured in the 20s and 30s that resulted in the cruel barbaric regime of WW2.

A Soviet invasion of Hokkaido was highly speculative. You think the Western Allies who had such extensive naval forces in the region and had been planning for years and Invasion of Japan who were so cautious, you think the Soviets could just roll up and secure a beachhead in a few months? D-Day which was a MUCH SIMPLER operation than X-Day (invasion of Japan) took years of preparation and planning. The soviets had few ships, little experience in Naval warfare especially against planes and ESPECIALLY against Kamikaze bombers. Who says they could even make it to Hokkido? Who says they could supply them? They were to be without their principal advantages they had in the fighting they had just endured of massed tank and artillery and close air-support. They didn't have any aircraft carriers, they had short range fighters that would have struggled to make the 400km round trip and fight effectively.

Both the Western historians Frank and Glantz disagree, stating that the Soviet invasion of Hokkaido was highly probable had the war continued into the fall. They would not have needed an invasion akin to D-Day of X-Day, only a raiding force capable of taking an holding lightly defended terriotry, similar in scale to the Dieppe Raid. The Soviets has plenty experience and resources in the area to carry out such an operation. They had successfully carried out three amphibious landings in northern Korea, one in Sakhalin, and one in the Kuril Islands throughout 1945 alone. They would have met no resistance from the Japanese Navy or Airforce as the remnants of these forces were deployed in the South in preparation for an Allied invasion. There simply wasn`t any Kamikazes in the area, most hidden in Kyushu and Tokyo with only enough fuel to reach a southern invasion force. The 4-5 army divisions positioned in the North were second-rate, severely lacking in ammunition and thinly spread over a highly mountainous piece of geography. The Kuril Islands would have provided an ideal staging area, closer to the mainland than even Okinawa. Soviet Naval Infantry had been highly successful throughout the war, frequently operating with little supporting forces. Many veteran amphibious commando units were deployed throughout east-asia at the time, these same units participated in landings throughout Manchuria, Korea, Sakhalin and the Kurils.

Look, Soviets had bigger fish to fry than the pipe dream of Hokkido, they were occupied with pretty much all of the vast country of China, in a de-facto-war with Chiang Kai-shek in support of communism. The Soviets took Sakhalin and that didn't get them any control of Japan. They were able to take Sakhalin as they already had a foothold on north Sakhalin, but an amphibious invasion these experts fighters would be amateurs. They had no way of getting the vast number of tanks across that they needed.

The Soviets swept through China in a matter of weeks, routing the Japanese across the entire region while rapidly capturing territory, the China fish had already been fried. Their ambitions in East Asia had changed.

The Soviet invasion force left many pockets of Japanese resistance behind in China instead marching all the way to Yalu River. Why bother marching to your logistical limits when your allies simply wanted a declaration of war and some troops sent into the theatre...Stalin wanted some lasting influence and potential allies in the east.

While their occupation in China certainly aided Mao and his supporters, the Soviets were never in any sort of war with Chiang Kai-shek.

Spurious. There was no need to rush American troops to the 38th Parallel, the Soviets stayed on their side. Yes the Americans rushed to South Korea as it was their responsibility to manage Korea south of 38th Parallel.

The Soviet invasion was stopped just north of the Yalu River, the beginning of the Korean peninsula, when even the aerial supply lines became unavailable. The amphibious forces already in Korea were able to establish some influence in the peninsula's north, but the ambition to take the entire peninsula was ended when American forces landed at Incheon on September 8, only six days after the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender...What was the rush if they had no concerns with their Soviet ally...The Western Allies were already present in Germany, complying with Potsdam was the only logical option for Stalin. Korea was a pennisula containing no Western forces. It would have been easy to justify an invasion of the South Korea based on need to engage Japanese forces in the area.
If the US was unable to occupy the South before the Soviets, who would have fostered the formation a Nationalist government while surpressing pro-communist sympathies...
Once it was ensured that a Communist government was to take power in Korea, the Soviets could comply with Potsdam and move north of the 38th.

No, They used The Bomb out of fear of Japanese Imperialism, not fear of their soviet ally.

Japanese Imperialism was dead by August 1945, everyone knew it was only a matter of time. Fear of communism had been influencing Western policy since 1917, that is why the US, UK and France sent men to help crush the Bolseviks during the Russian Civil War. That was why Churchill had been pushing for Soviet invasion contingencies before Germany had even surrendered.

 

[Treblaine]

If they thought that the Japanese were a defeated force in mid 1945, then why were the Allies rushing troops from Europe to Japan shortly after V-E Day?

They weren't rushing troops from Europe to Japan after VE day. There were very few units which were deployed to both theatres of war, the largest probably being the 87th Infantry Regiment who fought in the Aleutian Islands and Europe. All of units who were to recieve orders of battle for Operation Olympic were already deployed to the Pacific.

Look, the Allies did not know how well the Japanese Armed Forces were faring up, it was entirely Retroactive the declarations that they would have surrendered with merely continued blockade after they were occupying the country. The intelligence the Allies collected on Japan was from 20'000 feet with cameras, not on the ground. It was the combination of Air-dropped sea-mines and the U-Boat campaign. But this was no "humane" act, unrestricted warfare on all shipping including civilians, explosive mine that persist decades after the war, starving an entire nation would lead to hundreds of thousands of people dying. The study of the effect of radiation on the population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been greatly disrupted by how malnutrition was affecting the population in such extremes.

The blockade was hardly passive, keep in mind a virtually unopposed air campaign was ongoing. Intelligence was collected from a variety of sources besides aerial photography. Many Japanese officials who sought peace were covertly in contact with the Allies. Allied cryptanalysis projects were well established and highly successful at this point in war.

The argument that the blockade was not "humane" is rather moot given that the alternative chosen was to vapourize two cities and subject large numbers of the population to the effects of nuclear radiation for decades after the war..

Japan had its own agriculture. For hundreds of years the country was extremely isolationist with virtually no overseas trade. Japan had the internal capacity to feed its army and its army would be fed but at the expense of the population, as happened in Germany the guys with the guns and the authority of their uniforms took the food they "needed" and tough luck to those who didn't. Don't doubt that many would resort to cannibalism when you force an entire nation to extremes, the problem was not that Japan had a shortage of food, it had great internal food production, the problem was too many people, the Army just gets fed first.

Agriculture which can be set ablaze from the air...

The Emperor would have capitulated before letting large scale famine occur. He actually had sent a peace agreement to FDR before Iwo Jima had even taken place. It was rejected as it was not the victory sought by the Allies, but it showed how far the Emporer had weakened in his resolve. Placed between a rock and a hard place (surrender or watch Japan starve to death), he would have given in to the same demands agreed upon after the nuclear bombings.

Yes, so many Kamikaze planes were held in reserve, this is why the Allies did not want to have to deal with. What makes you think they would hold these Kamikaze planes in reserve with intent to use them only to capitulate when their appointed time comes to attack the invading army?

The US estimated that Japan only had about 2500 Kamikaze aircraft. They knew they would hold these aircraft in reserve only to be used in the event of an Allied invasion. Allied air superiority (Big Blue Blanket) would make any attack on the US naval blockade a futile waste of precious resources. It is dubious that these planes could even reach the naval blockade given the fuel shortages. The Kamikazes would have only been useful when attacking an invasion fleet, in numbers, within close proximity to the mainland. If no invasion fleet is launched, due to the Japanese leadership capitulating, these planes would not have been used.

I did say ALL allied POWs which included British and other Allied nations' forces.

Approximately 80'600 Allied prisoners were released by Japan when it surrendered but the Allies excepted far more to be released as.

And these people were not dying in sudden explosions, they suffered long tortuous demise in horrific cruelty. They weren't soldiers any more, they weren't armed men fighting, they were prisoners, utterly helpless.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bataan/peopleevents/e_atrocities.html

And it was not just Allied prisoners who were suffering but also the people of the occupied territories where atrocities were ongoing and severe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

Suffering is not death. The US knew that dropping the atomic bomb would result in the deaths of thousands of civilians, it was an absolute. They did not know whether waiting would have resulted in the deaths of the POWs held by the Japanese. Nuclear bombardment of Japanese civilians was just as likely to insight large scale retaliatory executions of Allied POWs as it was to intimidate them into surrender, clearly Allied command was willing to sacrifice these men. The remaining occupied territories were rapidly being taken by the Soviets. The number of immediate civilian deaths nearly tripled the number of POWs potentially in danger, the US must have had resonable estimates as to what these numbers would have been.

You WOULD think impending famine would be a huge motivating factor for the Japanese to surrender, but in August 1945 the Japanese gave no explicit intention to surrender, the military were in control weren't going to give up even if The Emperor wanted peace the army did not want to give a bit of ground.

If forced to choose between the Emporer or the militarists in the central government, the army would have always remained loyal to the Emporer, as was seen in the Kyujo Incident. Famine and supply shortages would only have served to weaken the position of the hardliners, while emboldening the Emporer in seeking peace. Conflict would have inevitably arisen between these two factions and the army would have reacted in favour of peace-seekers lead by the Emporer.

Japan wasn't going to return to modern civilisation, it had essentially emerged straight from medieval feudalism to modern society. It had modern technology like repeating rifles, planes and steel ships and high explosives but they were still in a Medieval mindset. The case with Nazi Germany and other fascist states was that it wanted to return to the brutal age of the Teutonic Knights, Japan hadn't really ever left that by 1930's, it still clung to a warrior ideology and unlike Europe and America that had in 18th and 19th century developed ideas such as humanitarian surrender and restraint on prisoners, Japan had given only token gestures signing the Geneva conventions to be included when it suited them but drop it as soon as it didn't suit them.

Japan had been known to show a great deal of respect and restriant to their prisoners before the 1920s. It was the militarist coups that occured in the 20s and 30s that resulted in the cruel barbaric regime of WW2.

A Soviet invasion of Hokkaido was highly speculative. You think the Western Allies who had such extensive naval forces in the region and had been planning for years and Invasion of Japan who were so cautious, you think the Soviets could just roll up and secure a beachhead in a few months? D-Day which was a MUCH SIMPLER operation than X-Day (invasion of Japan) took years of preparation and planning. The soviets had few ships, little experience in Naval warfare especially against planes and ESPECIALLY against Kamikaze bombers. Who says they could even make it to Hokkido? Who says they could supply them? They were to be without their principal advantages they had in the fighting they had just endured of massed tank and artillery and close air-support. They didn't have any aircraft carriers, they had short range fighters that would have struggled to make the 400km round trip and fight effectively.

Both the Western historians Frank and Glantz disagree, stating that the Soviet invasion of Hokkaido was highly probable had the war continued into the fall. They would not have needed an invasion akin to D-Day of X-Day, only a raiding force capable of taking an holding lightly defended terriotry, similar in scale to the Dieppe Raid. The Soviets has plenty experience and resources in the area to carry out such an operation. They had successfully carried out three amphibious landings in northern Korea, one in Sakhalin, and one in the Kuril Islands throughout 1945 alone. They would have met no resistance from the Japanese Navy or Airforce as the remnants of these forces were deployed in the South in preparation for an Allied invasion. There simply wasn`t any Kamikazes in the area, most hidden in Kyushu and Tokyo with only enough fuel to reach a southern invasion force. The 4-5 army divisions positioned in the North were second-rate, severely lacking in ammunition and thinly spread over a highly mountainous piece of geography. The Kuril Islands would have provided an ideal staging area, closer to the mainland than even Okinawa. Soviet Naval Infantry had been highly successful throughout the war, frequently operating with little supporting forces. Many veteran amphibious commando units were deployed throughout east-asia at the time, these same units participated in landings throughout Manchuria, Korea, Sakhalin and the Kurils.

Look, Soviets had bigger fish to fry than the pipe dream of Hokkido, they were occupied with pretty much all of the vast country of China, in a de-facto-war with Chiang Kai-shek in support of communism. The Soviets took Sakhalin and that didn't get them any control of Japan. They were able to take Sakhalin as they already had a foothold on north Sakhalin, but an amphibious invasion these experts fighters would be amateurs. They had no way of getting the vast number of tanks across that they needed.

The Soviets swept through China in a matter of weeks, routing the Japanese across the entire region while rapidly capturing territory, the China fish had already been fried. Their ambitions in East Asia had changed.

The Soviet invasion force left many pockets of Japanese resistance behind in China instead marching all the way to Yalu River. Why bother marching to your logistical limits when your allies simply wanted a declaration of war and some troops sent into the theatre...Stalin wanted some lasting influence and potential allies in the east.

While their occupation in China certainly aided Mao and his supporters, the Soviets were never in any sort of war with Chiang Kai-shek.

Spurious. There was no need to rush American troops to the 38th Parallel, the Soviets stayed on their side. Yes the Americans rushed to South Korea as it was their responsibility to manage Korea south of 38th Parallel.

The Soviet invasion was stopped just north of the Yalu River, the beginning of the Korean peninsula, when even the aerial supply lines became unavailable. The amphibious forces already in Korea were able to establish some influence in the peninsula's north, but the ambition to take the entire peninsula was ended when American forces landed at Incheon on September 8, only six days after the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender...What was the rush if they had no concerns with their Soviet ally...The Western Allies were already present in Germany, complying with Potsdam was the only logical option for Stalin. Korea was a pennisula containing no Western forces. It would have been easy to justify an invasion of the South Korea based on need to engage Japanese forces in the area.
If the US was unable to occupy the South before the Soviets, who would have fostered the formation a Nationalist government while surpressing pro-communist sympathies...
Once it was ensured that a Communist government was to take power in Korea, the Soviets could comply with Potsdam and move north of the 38th.

No, They used The Bomb out of fear of Japanese Imperialism, not fear of their soviet ally.

Japanese Imperialism was dead by August 1945, everyone knew it was only a matter of time. Fear of communism had been influencing Western policy since 1917, that is why the US, UK and France sent men to help crush the Bolseviks during the Russian Civil War. That was why Churchill had been pushing for Soviet invasion contingencies before Germany had even surrendered.

Look, I can't agree with what you are saying.

Many groups were moved to the Pacific Theatre, not least all the Soviet troops for the Manchuria campaign but also British bomber squadrons and Australian troops.

The bombing campaign was not unopposed or weakly opposed. The Allies had great advantage over the Japanese but they were still inflicting significant losses that could not go on indefinitely. Realise that bombers damaged had a LONG slog back to bases and bailing out over Japan was into a fate many would consider worse than death. The B29 was their most advanced, most expensive bomber was designed to be untouchable, they were losing hundreds of them and they couldn't afford to keep replacing them.

Stalin couldn't change anything in August 1945, everything had been agreed before hand and signed on. the USSR was to join the pacific campaign "within three months" of German Surrender and they did literally down to the last hour, only going by the Moscow timezone did Stalin not break the terms of the deal. Yes, it looked like the USSR was going to do nothing on August the 6th when the first Atomic bomb was dropped, it was not till August 9th that the USSR declared war on Japan when Nagasaki was bombed.

So it wasn't a case of "holy shit, Stalin is invading Manchuria! Only now will we consider using these atomic bombs that we made at great expense, but only because we are afraid those damn reds with take Japan from us" but quite the other way.

This was all agreed months earlier that Japan's unconditional surrender would be overseen by the Americans on the Japanese home Islands and the British through the Malay Archipelago, and the Soviets in Manchuria and Korea down to the 38th parallel. By August it was too late to change anything, it was a done deal. Soviet declaring war and Atomic bombs wouldn't change the political outcome only accelerate it.

"It would have been easy to justify an invasion of the South Korea based on need to engage Japanese forces in the area."

Not really. The surrender was going like clockwork. Hundreds of thousands of troops did need to be disarmed and processed (don't want those millions of guns and bombs going "missing" and causing trouble after the war). Below 38th parallel was America's responsibility, above it was USSR's responsibility.

I don't think you can trivialise famine. It's spurious to compare which is "less humane" or "which is so bad the other is trivial" BOTH ARE BAD! Japan was not going to surrender without people suffering in the extreme.

The only "humane" thing to do would be to just leave Japan alone, a constant threat for the future. You'd have to raise the blockade and disband most of the regiments but Japan would still be deadly, Japanese Militarist Imperialism was FAR FROM DEAD in August 1945, and it was far from being no-threat as it still held almost 100'000 Allied Prisoners of war.

You raise the issue of japanese murdering all the Allied prisoners, well they had started doing that before any atomic bombs, entire prison camps were completely exterminated and not in gas chambers, they were heared into a hut and doused with gasoline and burned to death. This incident is only known for how one survived and corroborated the story, showing where they'd hidden the charred bodies with burning inside the lungs as clear indication of being immolated alive. This made the Allies desperate, they started trying to seize POW camps in stealthy night raids but it became clear that Allied POWs were already being threatened with a horrific death. They were not just suffering, they were dying. And threatened with all being killed en mass.

The Japanese had resorted to using chemical and biological weapons in mainland Asia. Japanese "Balloon bombs" where landing in America and the dual application was clear.

The Emperor was a puppet in 1945, he wanted to end the war but because the cabinet wanted to fight on so they did. He had very little decision making to spite how much the masses revered him.

As the to "big blue blanket" the Kamikaze attacks in the battle of Okinawa were planes flying over a long distance, plenty of time for the air-force to intercept yet still they inflicted unacceptable losses. And invasion of mainland Japan would be under defences of AA and shorter range, much less time to intercept. There would have been more Kamikaze and harder to deal with, support ships would have to have hung way back.

Look, the Soviets utterly baulked at the Dieppe Raid as utterly insignificant, even the entire North Africa campaign. They demanded a large scale invasion of mainland Europe in 1943 not 1944. They got that with Scilly and Italy in 1943, quite pointless diversions as the Axis could easily hold them up the length of Italy and especially around the increasingly mountainous North.

A Dieppe style invasion of of Hokkido wouldn't get Soviet forces ANY right to administer Japanese surrender on the Home Islands. As it had all been agreed in advance, Japanese sovereign territory (that the Allies stipulated in the surrender terms) were to have the surrender administered by The Americans, not "whoever gets there first" that's ridiculous. Allies let the USSR have Sakhalin without any issue and the Soviets invaded Sakhalin as they realised in the terms of Surrender left it's status ambiguous. There was no ambiguity over Hokkido. Any invasion of Hokkido wouldn't get any Berlin style partition of Tokyo.

The china fish being fried you answer with routing Japanese forces (who were extremely unprepared) but the issue in Manchuria was not the Japanese but the Chinese government who was more afraid of the growing Communist insurrection that the Japanese Imperialists. And Soviets had some "arrangements" to be made in securing the success of their socialist brothers and sisters. That fish would keep frying till 1949 when China came under communist rule... as an ally of the Soviet Union. Also North Korea putting their man in charge rather than the native Korean movement to form a liberal government when the Japanese left.

"Once it was ensured that a Communist government was to take power in Korea, the Soviets could comply with Potsdam and move north of the 38th. "

That's not enough time. It takes time to decide who is the right puppet government, round up and "deal with" dissenters. In a matter of weeks American troops and politicians would be bothering Soviet commanders why the hell they were so far south of the 38th? They couldn't claim "well it's Chaos here, someone has to administer the place with the Japanese gone" with so many American troops in the area?

Stalin didn't dare openly defy the 38th Parrallel, they had to do it via a proxy with North Korea and then China even 5 years later with much more backing.

"That was why Churchill had been pushing for Soviet invasion contingencies before Germany had even surrendered."

And where was Churchill in August 1945? He was unemployed. His anti-communist rants had cost him the general election in 1945 with a major landslide victory for the (then) VERY left leaning Labour Party. The Labour Party who just handed over their top secret jet engine design and manufacturing brief, as "a gift". 5 years later that British Jet engine would be powering Communist fighter Jets over the mountains of Korea and they were on par with the best fighter jets in the world at the time.

But at the time, it seemed like a good idea. Roosevelt said openly he totally trusted the Soviets not to Annex the territories they administer after the surrender.