Re: Hiroshima and Nagasaki

From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Tue Nov 27 2001 - 14:04:06 MST


On Tuesday, November 27, 2001 1:12 PM John Clark jonkc@worldnet.att.net
wrote:
>> In fact, the Japanese were already making peace feelers to the Soviets
in
>> 1945 before atomic weapons were used.
>
> Suppose we

There's that word again. I wish people would stop using "we" here. None of
you were part of making these decisions back then. This rampant
collectivism is part of the problem.

> had agreed, one of the many conditions the Japanese insisted on was
> no occupation of the mainland so the military would still run things.
> A perfect set up for another US Japanese war about 1950.

If you're going to do counterfactual history here, at least focus more on
Japan's internal politics. By 1945, the Japanese military was damaged
beyond repair. At home, I'm sure this would have meant non-military and
non-militaristic factions reasserting control. (Notably, this happened in
Argentina after the Falkland Islands War and in Germany late in WW1
(militarists lost power in the government there).)

In fact, part of the reason the militarists got power in the first place was
because of FDR's heavy handed diplomacy with Japan. (This is only part, but
it was probably decisive for starting a war between the US and Japan.)

BTW, most nations, societies, and even chess clubs are like this. They
don't all march lockstep. Treating them like they do can lead to things
like total war. (Total war is costly, in terms of lives and extropy. To
destroy a society obviously creates more entropy, but in order to accomplish
that the destructor society often has to create massive amounts of entropy
internally, such as the economic disorder created in the US by the wartime
economy.)

So, I don't think Japan would have been ready to go to war again in five
years. Add to this, it took until the early 1950s for Japan's economy to
really start cranking again -- after the price controls and such of the
occupation were lifted. I doubt a war ravaged Japan would have been able to
rise from the ashes to threaten America. Also, Japan's traditional enemies,
China and Korea, would be more likely targets of any reawaekened imperial
ambitions. By 1950, I doubt Japan would have been able to attack a united
and militarized PRC.

> Suppose we hadn't agreed but didn't use the bomb.
> The Soviets declared war of Japan soon after these feelers so if the war
didn't end
> mighty damn quick you'd now have a poor communist totalitarian North Japan
and
> a rich capitalistic South Japan just as you have in Korea. Neither is a
happy prospect.

The Soviets were too busy grabbing Manchuria to start an invasion of Japan
itself. (They only attacked where Japan was weak.) Even though they manage
to grab a few Northern Islands, don't you think this contradicts your thesis
about saving American lives? Would the Japanese be able to fend off an
American invasion but not a Soviet one? This seems even less likely given
that the Soviet Union was not as good at amphibious warfare during most of
its existence, especially during World War Two. (The Soviet ally North
Korea was hit by a massive amphibious assault by American forces in 1950
which lead to its almost total defeat until the Chinese got into the Korean
War.)

> As I said before however I do with they'd waited a few days before they
bombed Nagasaki

Granted, though I've read Tojo actually didn't care about the atomic bomb
drops. He wanted to dig in and fight.

>> You are narrowing the options down to bomb or invade.
>> If the US had sought _conditional surrender_, an invasion and subsequent
>> might not have been necessary.
>
> The US got a conditional surrender, not in name but in deed, it allowed
Japan to
> keep the Emperor.

True, though this was a minor, last minute concession. The point is the war
was prosecuted up until that point with the stated goal of unconditional
surrender. Until the actual surrender took place, this is what both sides
understood. (Notably, too, Emperor Hirohito's reassertion of control -- in
other words, taking command from the Tojo faction -- that led to the
surrender. Again, Japan was not a monolith, then or even now.)

> The US had peace feelers of its own, they responded with
> a word in Japanese that can be interpreted as "decline to answer at this
time"
> or as "too contemptible to answer" or as simply "silence". To this day
even the
> Japanese argue about what they meant. It seems to me that with thousands
> dying every day it was their responsibility to eliminate baffle gab.

Without an invasion, how would more US soldiers have died? Surely, the
Japanese still had troops in China and elsewhere. Is that what you mean?
Explain...

Cheers!

Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/



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