Like Hiroshima, it was an industrial target. However the main point was to prove that Hiroshima was not a fluke or some one time deal. We could do that to ALL their cities was the point. Indeed after Nagasaki we gave the final ultimatum that we would do to all of Japan what we just did to those cities.
And It Worked, it spared the lives of millions of American and Japanese who would have died in the titanic struggle that would have been Operation Downfall.
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The problem with that is the timing of Nagasaki. What's the point of bombing them again to drive the message home that we will do "that" to all their cities, when we don't give them enough time to figure out what "that" is? Nagasaki was only three days after Hiroshima, after all.
As sad as it is, I agree. We can speculate on how the world might be, but what matters is how it turned out. In retrospect, the leaders of the time were very lucky, as it could have turned out a lot worse.
Edited to clear up really poor phrasing.
edited 4th Sep '11 10:17:55 AM by TotemicHero
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)The point being to prove we had the capability and that we possibly had more of these weapons in stock for immediate use. Also it proves the will to do just as we threatened.
A convential aerial campaign, as pointed out earlier, would have been more devastating and killed more people. A blockade and bombing them into submission would have been as bad.
A land invasion would also have been as devstating. Anyone who is familiar with urban warfare can tell you it would have been very bloody. Japan had some dense population centers and large portions of the populace still supported the military stance of resisting.
This would have been almost a Pacific War equivilent of the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan with the fighting in the population centers.
As nasty as the nuke is, their use from multiple view points, saved likely millions of lives both military and civillian. Not to mention spared some of Japans infrastructure that a intensive bombing campaign would have destroyed.
edited 4th Sep '11 12:43:23 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?You may not have realized this, but we were already launching said campaign months before the nukes were dropped
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The idea that World War Two was Black-and-White Morality in the first place is ridiculous, so the assertion that "America was no better than the rest of the powers" is ridiculous because anyone who claims that we were in the first place is simply stupid. A case could be made that we had the lowest ratio of war crimes to proper acts of war, but that's not saying much.
Also, you're an idiot if you think that "prolonging the war to evade the nuclear option" is a good idea. More people would have died that way. It wasn't the number of deaths that mattered for the nukes, it was how fast it went. We leveled Tokyo and they didn't even give a damn. But when we can literally vaporize a city in an instant? That's when they finally considered giving up, and it was still a very narrow thing.
Finally, there's the fact that if we hadn't gotten unconditional surrender, there would have been another war in another generation. It would have been World War One all over again.
The idea of "just don't invent the nuke" is absurd. It was destined to come. At the very least, the way it went meant we knew what we were dealing with. Just think, if we'd never had H&N, we might have gone into the Korean War thinking MacArthur's idea to nuke the Chinese would be A-OK...
edited 4th Sep '11 1:22:04 PM by USAF713
I am now known as Flyboy.Which is why I said spared some. I know we had started bombing the shit out of them but by comparison if we had just sat there and plastered the Island from end to end and leveled the cities it would have been much worse. We were using the standard bomb the crap out of it with normal munitions first then fire bomb the remains to make sure.
Who watches the watchmen?Unconditional surrender is "whatever we say, goes," which usually involves complete demobilization and occupation...
I am now known as Flyboy.True in a sense, although it needs a bit more clarity.
To explain, most surrenders have one condition: the opposing side's lives will be spared. There may be other conditions, but this is the key one.
An unconditional surrender does not even guarantee that. It's pretty much an open license to Rape, Pillage, and Burn, and at the time everyone saw it as such. Which is part of the reason the Japanese were fighting so fiercely: combined with their whole values of honor, they believed they were going to get screwed over either way, so they might as well go down fighting.
The only reason it wasn't bad is because the American military was, for the most part, far more ethical than any other country's military at the time. That's why I said the leaders of the time were very lucky.
Incidentally, if we had launched the land invasion, I doubt that restraint would have been there, due to the nature of the conflict (see: Vietnam). That's why I do agree a land invasion would have been the worst possible outcome.
edited 4th Sep '11 1:37:13 PM by TotemicHero
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)No, we already covered that. Actually, they went past "tried to convince them that it was a fluke" and into "tried to pull a coup to stop them from surrendering." It was a very narrow thing. They almost made all those people's deaths be for nothing, and then Downfall... well...
Also, damn... if that Purple Hearts thing is true...
I am now known as Flyboy.I still disagree that we had to invade.
We owned the Japanese skies. Flattening every port, shipyard, and airstrip was a trivial task. Whether or not they wanted to fight to the last man, woman, and child, every last man, woman, and child could have stayed on the damn island until their leadership was willing to play nice. With U.S. naval dominance, reinstating the old Tokugawa regime's position of isolation from the outside with a blockade would have been easy. This is still granting the argument that they weren't ready to surrender, which I don't fully buy.
The issue was the Russians. They would have had the resources and manpower to invade Japan, as ruinously as possible. A Soviet invasion of Japan is not happy to imagine.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.The Soviet Invasion of Japan is right up there with Operation: Sealion on the list of "most unlikely things to ever have happened successfully in World War Two."
Also, why in fuck's name would we want to try and blockade them to death when we had a way of ending the war then? That would cost more lives and more money in the long-run. Also, Japan would certainly not have been any better off as a very large bull's-eye target instead of an actual country with a proper democratic government...
I am now known as Flyboy.It's not happy because it can't happen. The few remaining ships in the Tsushima Straits region would have effortlessly sank the Soviet Pacific Fleet. The Soviet Union had no real naval power and they needed naval power to so much as even threaten to come over to Japan.
It's less probable the Soviets would have landed on Japan at all than Operation Sealion actually succeeding.
The usual argument in favor of blockading Japan is that it would have prevented loss of life among Japanese civilians.
Of course, the fact that the U.S. was firebombing Japanese cities pretty much proves that the U.S. commanders had no real regard for that anyway, so I'm not sure why people try to argue that.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)In theory, yes.
In reality, some people tend to view the situation like Ender: you don't just defeat the enemy, you do whatever it takes (including total annihilation) to ensure they will never ever be a threat again.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)Total war is good in a long-term sense. You can choose to kill a lot of people now and not a lot later, or a few now, and tomorrow, and the next day, forever. Because without total war, there is no victory and there is no real peace—just a short period of cool down before you go at it again. Look at the history of Europe, before and after the Second World War...
I am now known as Flyboy.

Ur probably right about the moral comparisons...
I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.