The Japanese Navy was a flaming wreck long before we dropped nukes. The islands were defensively fortified against a ground invasion, but the country was already being starved into submission. They had no fuel, no raw materials to rearm themselves, and no allies willing to lend support.
The idea that we could not have simply withdrawn to surrounding islands and sued for peace never once enters these fuckers' minds. The Japanese home islands simply became a punching bag for the Pacific Fleet as Naval Officers sought to carve out their own pound of flesh in retaliation for prior engagements at Pearl Harbor, Midway, and the like.
What's more, Hiroshima/Nagasaki weren't military targets. They had no strategic importance and were lightly defended. These cities were used as weapons' testing sites, with the expectation that the US would continue to wage war across the globe for years to come.
My understanding is that Japan was already entertaining peace offers when the bombs were dropped. I've also been told that the bombs were not a factor in the decision of the Japanese government to surrender.
They were trying to get the Soviets to broker a peace for them, but then the Soviets declared war on them so that didn't work out. The only thing left was to get the top brass to realize that the only thing left that they could do was talk to the Americans, but going through the cables between them it doesn't seem that the nukes factored into that discussion at all - they just saw it as yet two more bombings in a whole host of bombings they had suffered at that point.
They were arguably a factor in the terms and the speed of acquiescence. But then so was the famine and the fuel shortage and the routing of the Kwantung Army.
You didn't need a mushroom cloud to see the writing on the wall.
The idea that we could not have simply withdrawn to surrounding islands and sued for peace never once enters these fuckers’ minds
because the japanese were occupying and killing people in half of China and SE asia. the japanese empire was still inflicting violence & persecuting the war while the metropole was bombed and blockaded. even completely cut off from supply the japanese military thought they could trade that territory for post-war concessions which is why they were so resistant to the unconditional surrender terms
because the japanese were occupying and killing people in half of China and SE asia.
The Soviets were running Japan out of Manchuria well before we dropped bombs. One argument for the bombings was to end the war before the Russian military could position itself for a Japanese land invasion. The Japanese mainland Kwantung Army was in full retreat before formal surrender was announced. Japanese holdouts in Indochina, Indonesia, and Taiwan surrendered shortly thereafter. By this point in the war, the rank-and-file were cut off from resupply and could do little more than scavenge supplies out of hostile territories.
The kindest thing that can be said of our nuclear bombardment is that it was not fundamentally worse than any of our other conventional or chemical warfare assaults. Firebombing Tokyo ended the war as effectively as nuking the southern peninsula. And, again, this was against an adversary that couldn't even gas up their planes for a full bombing mission.
even completely cut off from supply the japanese military thought they could trade that territory for post-war concessions which is why they were so resistant to the unconditional surrender terms
Sure. Which would have meant a new Japanese government vulnerable to Soviet influence rather than one that could be entirely subsumed by American occupying forces. Rather than a Sunagawa Struggle, we could be talking about a Japanese Vietcong or DPRK or GDR splitting the country over western efforts to seize and expropriate Japanese capital.
The Soviets were running Japan out of Manchuria well before we dropped bombs
the first nuke was three days before the Soviets entered Manchuria. the conventional bombing & blockade began months before. that the nukes came the same week as the invasion of manchuria (which shattered the absolute delusion that the soviets would mediate a negotiated peace) makes it problematic to claim either bombs or soviets are singularly responsible. japanese generals cite the soviets, hirohito cited the bombs.
the Soviets were unable to mount an invasion of Japan, and had to use landing craft provided by the US for the invasion of the Kuril Islands.
i have no idea what you're talking about with post-war japan being vulnerable to soviet influence under a negotiated peace. the japanese wanted to exchange occupied territory for keeping their government, internal disarmament, internal war crimes trials, or even pie-in-the-sky shit like keeping korea or taiwan. they wouldn't have surrendered to & been occupied by the soviets instead. the only way the soviets could've influenced post-war development is by physically getting there before the US, which they simply did not have the capacity to do in japan
the Soviets were unable to mount an invasion of Japan, and had to use landing craft provided by the US for the invasion of the Kuril Islands.
The US was the premier naval power in the Pacific and afforded Soviets their cheap excess surplus.
But any US invasion of the southern islands would have exposed the north to attack. Russians had a Pacific Fleet at Vladivostok. Nuking the southern islands was wholely unnecessary to force the home islands to submit. It was simply an expedient.
i have no idea what you’re talking about with post-war japan being vulnerable to soviet influence under a negotiated peace. the japanese wanted to exchange occupied territory for keeping their government, internal disarmament, internal war crimes trials, or even pie-in-the-sky shit like keeping korea or taiwan.
The Japanese wanted to end the war, rebuild their domestic infrastructure, and to not be saddled with crippling levels of war debt a la Germany in '17.
Everything after that was a question of leverage. And once the mainland forces were swept, that leverage evaporated.
Again, no need to drop nukes. These cities were not pivotal in securing foreign territory and its not like Japan had enough fuel for it to matter even if they did.
This was entirely about keeping China/Russia out of a negotiated surrender and avoiding a schism in Japan compariable to Germany.
the icelandic navy could've sailed japanese waters unimpeded at this point in the war; it doesn't mean shit for conveying an army to a hostile shore. the soviets needed landing craft.
the division in germany was an acknowledgement of the fact the red army was occupying half of germany and eastern europe, not a function of soviet presence at the surrender. there is no negotiation that would've granted the soviets an occupation zone where they had no armies. and i don't know what you mean by the soviets/china being kept "out" of the peace, they signed the surrender too---and both supported the enforcement of unconditional surrender on the japanese (hence why the soviets did not intercede for a negotiation when asked by japanese diplomats). if the US were so keen on soviet noninvolvement in post-war asia why the hell did they ask the Soviets to open a new front? or give them those landing craft?
there is no negotiation that would’ve granted the soviets an occupation zone where they had no armies. and i don’t know what you mean by the soviets/china being kept “out” of the peace, they signed the surrender too
I mean the US functionally had three choices
Broker a peace with Japan quickly which would have kept a large scale US occupation off the home islands and Japanese domestic leadership free to triangulate between remaining rival powers. (No good, Americans wanted unconditional surrender)
Wait for the Soviets to mass in East Asia and threaten an invasion of the home islands to compel unconditional surrender. (No good, Americans didn't want to share the home islands)
Bomb Japan into a hasty surrender, rush US Marines and Infantry onto the mainland and invite foreign commanders in for a photo op after the fact. Then crush local dissident groups sympathetic to opposition government. (The Western Europe / South Korea / South Vietnam model)
One of these involved slaughtering a lot more of the civilian population than the other two.
No good, Americans Everyone wanted unconditional surrender
No good, Americans didn’t want to share the home islands
why would they have to do this. where is stalin pulling thousands of landing craft out of thin air? how many times can i reiterate this crucial point to you?
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The Japanese Navy was a flaming wreck long before we dropped nukes. The islands were defensively fortified against a ground invasion, but the country was already being starved into submission. They had no fuel, no raw materials to rearm themselves, and no allies willing to lend support.
The idea that we could not have simply withdrawn to surrounding islands and sued for peace never once enters these fuckers' minds. The Japanese home islands simply became a punching bag for the Pacific Fleet as Naval Officers sought to carve out their own pound of flesh in retaliation for prior engagements at Pearl Harbor, Midway, and the like.
What's more, Hiroshima/Nagasaki weren't military targets. They had no strategic importance and were lightly defended. These cities were used as weapons' testing sites, with the expectation that the US would continue to wage war across the globe for years to come.
This is a thing a lot of ppl don't talk about.
My understanding is that Japan was already entertaining peace offers when the bombs were dropped. I've also been told that the bombs were not a factor in the decision of the Japanese government to surrender.
They were trying to get the Soviets to broker a peace for them, but then the Soviets declared war on them so that didn't work out. The only thing left was to get the top brass to realize that the only thing left that they could do was talk to the Americans, but going through the cables between them it doesn't seem that the nukes factored into that discussion at all - they just saw it as yet two more bombings in a whole host of bombings they had suffered at that point.
They were arguably a factor in the terms and the speed of acquiescence. But then so was the famine and the fuel shortage and the routing of the Kwantung Army.
You didn't need a mushroom cloud to see the writing on the wall.
because the japanese were occupying and killing people in half of China and SE asia. the japanese empire was still inflicting violence & persecuting the war while the metropole was bombed and blockaded. even completely cut off from supply the japanese military thought they could trade that territory for post-war concessions which is why they were so resistant to the unconditional surrender terms
The Soviets were running Japan out of Manchuria well before we dropped bombs. One argument for the bombings was to end the war before the Russian military could position itself for a Japanese land invasion. The Japanese mainland Kwantung Army was in full retreat before formal surrender was announced. Japanese holdouts in Indochina, Indonesia, and Taiwan surrendered shortly thereafter. By this point in the war, the rank-and-file were cut off from resupply and could do little more than scavenge supplies out of hostile territories.
The kindest thing that can be said of our nuclear bombardment is that it was not fundamentally worse than any of our other conventional or chemical warfare assaults. Firebombing Tokyo ended the war as effectively as nuking the southern peninsula. And, again, this was against an adversary that couldn't even gas up their planes for a full bombing mission.
Sure. Which would have meant a new Japanese government vulnerable to Soviet influence rather than one that could be entirely subsumed by American occupying forces. Rather than a Sunagawa Struggle, we could be talking about a Japanese Vietcong or DPRK or GDR splitting the country over western efforts to seize and expropriate Japanese capital.
the first nuke was three days before the Soviets entered Manchuria. the conventional bombing & blockade began months before. that the nukes came the same week as the invasion of manchuria (which shattered the absolute delusion that the soviets would mediate a negotiated peace) makes it problematic to claim either bombs or soviets are singularly responsible. japanese generals cite the soviets, hirohito cited the bombs.
the Soviets were unable to mount an invasion of Japan, and had to use landing craft provided by the US for the invasion of the Kuril Islands.
i have no idea what you're talking about with post-war japan being vulnerable to soviet influence under a negotiated peace. the japanese wanted to exchange occupied territory for keeping their government, internal disarmament, internal war crimes trials, or even pie-in-the-sky shit like keeping korea or taiwan. they wouldn't have surrendered to & been occupied by the soviets instead. the only way the soviets could've influenced post-war development is by physically getting there before the US, which they simply did not have the capacity to do in japan
The US was the premier naval power in the Pacific and afforded Soviets their cheap excess surplus.
But any US invasion of the southern islands would have exposed the north to attack. Russians had a Pacific Fleet at Vladivostok. Nuking the southern islands was wholely unnecessary to force the home islands to submit. It was simply an expedient.
The Japanese wanted to end the war, rebuild their domestic infrastructure, and to not be saddled with crippling levels of war debt a la Germany in '17.
Everything after that was a question of leverage. And once the mainland forces were swept, that leverage evaporated.
Again, no need to drop nukes. These cities were not pivotal in securing foreign territory and its not like Japan had enough fuel for it to matter even if they did.
This was entirely about keeping China/Russia out of a negotiated surrender and avoiding a schism in Japan compariable to Germany.
the icelandic navy could've sailed japanese waters unimpeded at this point in the war; it doesn't mean shit for conveying an army to a hostile shore. the soviets needed landing craft.
the division in germany was an acknowledgement of the fact the red army was occupying half of germany and eastern europe, not a function of soviet presence at the surrender. there is no negotiation that would've granted the soviets an occupation zone where they had no armies. and i don't know what you mean by the soviets/china being kept "out" of the peace, they signed the surrender too---and both supported the enforcement of unconditional surrender on the japanese (hence why the soviets did not intercede for a negotiation when asked by japanese diplomats). if the US were so keen on soviet noninvolvement in post-war asia why the hell did they ask the Soviets to open a new front? or give them those landing craft?
I mean the US functionally had three choices
Broker a peace with Japan quickly which would have kept a large scale US occupation off the home islands and Japanese domestic leadership free to triangulate between remaining rival powers. (No good, Americans wanted unconditional surrender)
Wait for the Soviets to mass in East Asia and threaten an invasion of the home islands to compel unconditional surrender. (No good, Americans didn't want to share the home islands)
Bomb Japan into a hasty surrender, rush US Marines and Infantry onto the mainland and invite foreign commanders in for a photo op after the fact. Then crush local dissident groups sympathetic to opposition government. (The Western Europe / South Korea / South Vietnam model)
One of these involved slaughtering a lot more of the civilian population than the other two.
why would they have to do this. where is stalin pulling thousands of landing craft out of thin air? how many times can i reiterate this crucial point to you?
im tapping out this is just :wall-talk: