Hiroshima: necessary?

Heh heh heh heh I missed this earlier. Ally, I can certainly see how you would see that quote from "A Beautiful Mind" would seem pretentious as hell. It seems I fergot to mention that the characters were discussing this very debate, which is why it seemed appropriate to me at the time.

Imagine this: It is August 1, 1945. Everything about the war has occurred exactly as history indicates except for one item - the Trinity test of the first uranium bomb failed because the design was wrong, and Los Alamos determines that the design flaws will take several years to fix.

Now ask: could the war with Japan successfully be ended within that time frame, without the bomb's availability? If so, then the bomb was not (strictly speaking) necessary to end the war, but only sufficient.

It is pretty clear to me that the bomb was not necessary by that time. That is why the question in thread is probably the wrong question in my view. The answer is too obvious.

By the same token, there is no doubt whether the bomb was sufficient to end the war, as the events of history prove that it was.

I am pretty sure Truman knew this, too. He had a weapon sufficient to end the war, but not strictly necessary. Under those conditions he was ultimately responsible, as no one else was, for weighing the pros and cons of using it and deciding what approach would provide the "best" result. That is why I focus on him. It was in his hands exclusively. No one else. No one. Period.

Since Truman, like any other person, could not foretell the course of the future with any accuracy or great confidence, he simply did the best he could and selected the line of reasoning that seemed to him to be the strongest. We do not know his reasoning, only the outcome of it and the official explanantion for it.

In arguing over the merits of this decision, it seems to me that we have to grant that Truman could not have known what answer was "correct" and neither could we, in his place. We, too, would have been reduced to doing our best, choosing the strongest line of reasoning we could identify, and sticking to it.

Our basic problem now, in 2006, is that we cannot discover the actual line of reasoning Truman based his decision on and so we cannot effectively either criticize it or commend it. We are blind men feeling an elephant.

If we consider the different question of whether the bombs ought to have been dropped, then we immediately engage in speculations similar to those that limited Truman's view of the future outcome of his decision; we cannot say what would have happened with any accuracy or great confidence. We can argue from probability only.

I don't doubt there are justifications in Truman's autobiography or in the records of Dean Acheson and George Marshall; but I'm not going to dip into those at the moment.

"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his." - General George Patton

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender/?page=full

interesting!

we've argued about this on other threads, but i don't think the nuclear bombing are morally special or different from, like, the plain old bombings we were doing

Nagasaki was necessary because it occurred on 9 August, which is also my birthday

― dave q, Monday, 20 August 2001 Bookmark

The real reason for this revival...

The important part of Hasegawa's argument is that Nagasaki was totally needless. We couldn't give them a week to surrender? And the third bomb was on its way!

But I have a lot of problems with that article:

1. Yes, Tokyo's firebombing was worse. But Tokyo was essentially a tinderbox-- a forest of paper and wood. The atomic bombs showed that one single weapon could obliterate any city. There are important psychological and practical effects to that.

2. A big reason that the Japanese likely weren't pushed to surrender by the atomic bombs is that they didn't know what the fuck happened. At that point most of Japan's military leadership was secluded in a bunker and they weren't able to get a full picture of what had really happened in Hiroshima. Indeed there was some speculation that the US was exaggerating. If they had actually known fully what the Americans had done, and what they were threatening to do again and again, who knows what their reaction would have been?

3. The worst part of the article is the idea that this somehow disproves nukes as a deterrent. My usual conception of nuclear deterrence is that nukes are an amazingly powerful weapon that can literally destroy an entire country. It isn't that one nuclear bomb is so horrible. It's that theoretically we could destroy EVERY city in a country. Complete obliteration is the "deterrence" of nuclear warfare, especially with ICBMs in play. And again, nukes are just more powerful than anything else.

Hasegawa doesn't (and probably can't) bring up the cabinet meeting where Hirihito bascially overrode his govmt and told them a last-ditch stand was off the table. Was he more influenced by the Soviet declaration of war or the bomb? How about both? It was definitely one of the first rounds of the Cold War, regardless, and as I have increasingly come to think, Truman could not have afforded to NOT use the bombs since their existence would at some point or another have become public and mourning mothers and families would have excoriated him.

The worst part of the article is the idea that this somehow disproves nukes as a deterrent. My usual conception of nuclear deterrence is that nukes are an amazingly powerful weapon that can literally destroy an entire country. It isn't that one nuclear bomb is so horrible. It's that theoretically we could destroy EVERY city in a country. Complete obliteration is the "deterrence" of nuclear warfare, especially with ICBMs in play. And again, nukes are just more powerful than anything else.

― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, August 9, 2011 8:34 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark

i can't remember when 'deterrence' on that scale became the big thing. but it wasn't immediate. it may not even have been till after the worst of the cold war. either way, wasn't part of the point of dropping the bomb (and bombing dresden) to show off to the russians how hard we were?

slight self-contradiction there but ehh

yeah IANAH but showing the russians you have The Bomb would be a good way to get them on your side

The worst part of the article is the idea that this somehow disproves nukes as a deterrent.

I'm not sure that this what the article tries to do, though. Had we publicly had the bomb in Dec '41 would they have foregone Pearl Harbor? Probably. At this point, he's saying that the Japanese decision to surrender instead of fighting it out was more about the fear of their neighbor (and recent victim) getting territory off of them than about nuclear bombs. How many bombs did they or the USSR think we had then, though?

as I have increasingly come to think, Truman could not have afforded to NOT use the bombs since their existence would at some point or another have become public and mourning mothers and families would have excoriated him.

just naive thinking i suppose, but i always wonder what would have been the problem with demonstrating the power of the atomic bomb OUTSIDE of a major city, as a warning shot.

then, if we had to be bloodthirsty and all of that, we could have said "we calculate that this will murder 100,000 of your citizens. we will decimate one of your major cities in 72 hours unless you surrender."

That sorta sounds like how India and Pakistan treat each other, i.e. Oh yeah? Watch us test THIS.

*punches self in face*

"Now imagine if that hadda been YOUR FACE."

hard to see the japanese high command believing it, still less surrendering on the basis of a threat, but either way the US wasn't in the business of making threats. it had already levelled tokyo.

need to go away and revise this topic though.

Very good and classical point, ZS. It's often said they chose two sites of dubious (or middling importance) and different topography 'cause they wanted to see what kind fo mayhem their gadgets would unleash in different circumstances.

My point above was that I don't think the confluence of racism and anger is well understood now. Ppl really wanted to fcuk Japan up; not just 'cause they were 'yellow', not just because of Pearl Harbor, and not just because of the atrocities that were known but because they were tenacious fighters who killed a lot of American boys.

Interesting thread this.

i thought dresden was basically revenge

I'm not sure that this what the article tries to do, though. Had we publicly had the bomb in Dec '41 would they have foregone Pearl Harbor? Probably. At this point, he's saying that the Japanese decision to surrender instead of fighting it out was more about the fear of their neighbor (and recent victim) getting territory off of them than about nuclear bombs. How many bombs did they or the USSR think we had then, though?

― publier les (suggest) bans de (Michael White), Tuesday, August 9, 2011 8:24 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark

Hasegawa’s scholarship disturbs this simple logic. If the atomic bomb alone could not compel the Japanese to submit, then perhaps the nuclear deterrent is not as strong as it seems. In fact, Wilson argues, history suggests that leveling population centers, by whatever method, does not force surrender. The Allied firebombing of Dresden in February of 1945 killed many people, but the Germans did not capitulate. The long-range German bombing of London did not push Churchill towards acquiescence. And it is nearly impossible to imagine that a bomb detonated on American soil, even one that immolated a large city, would prompt the nation to bow in surrender.

If killing large numbers of civilians does not have a military impact, then what, Wilson asks, is the purpose of keeping nuclear weapons? We know they are dangerous. If they turn out not to be strategically effective, then nuclear weapons are not trump cards, but time bombs beneath our feet.

then, if we had to be bloodthirsty and all of that, we could have said "we calculate that this will murder 100,000 of your citizens. we will decimate one of your major cities in 72 hours unless you surrender."

― future events are now current events (Z S), Tuesday, August 9, 2011 8:27 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah, what about the idea of blowing the top off Mt. Fuji?

How many bombs did they or the USSR think we had then, though?

― publier les (suggest) bans de (Michael White), Tuesday, August 9, 2011 8:24 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark

Good question! I think they would have to presume that we could make them fairly quickly, right? Since we'd obviously cleared all of the significant hurdles.

I think the third bomb that was ready to ship out to Japan was the last one we had ready to go.

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_26253535/barton-j-bernstein-american-conservatives-are-forgotten-critics

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/oct/23/descent-hell/

Two things jump out about this big book. One is that it is unusual to read extensive personal accounts of civilians on the enemy side who suffered in large numbers during World War II. The second is that, at least to judge by the inhabitants of Okinawa, many Japanese civilians, together with their emperor, were unwilling to surrender.

The huge US offensive in Okinawa—the only part of Japan where US forces fought on the ground—lasted eighty-two days in the spring of 1945 and cost about as many lives altogether as the atom bombs themselves. The US invading force of 1,050 ships carrying 548,000 men vastly outnumbered the 110,000 Japanese soldiers defending the island. But the Japanese held out with remarkable tenacity, and 77,000 Japanese soldiers and over 140,000 civilians would be killed before the US could declare victory. On the US side, more than 14,000 troops lost their lives, including 4,900 sailors felled by Japanese kamikaze—“divine wind”—suicide pilots, of which there were 3,050. As Hanson W. Baldwin, the New York Times war correspondent, described it, “Never before had there been, probably never again will there be, such a vicious sprawling struggle.”

I was thirteen at the time and recall my feelings of pride that American soldiers were yet again beating the fiendish, barely human Japanese. This was bolstered by the press and by super-patriotic films like Wake Island, in which Americans lost but only temporarily. Later, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a new belief took hold among liberal and leftist Americans: that the reasons given for dropping the bombs—among them, above all, that the Japanese would never surrender unless pulverized—were self-serving and false. Because of this new book I am thinking again.

Per that last bit, I've noticed hearing more about the sadism and extreme brutality of the Japanese more in recent years, too. They were like a different kind of Nazi, with similar theories of superiority but slightly different means of expressing it.

One of these days I need to read a good book about World War II, one that explained how the Germans and Japanese managed to hook up in the first place.

marriage of convenience - Japan useful to Germany as a counterbalance to Russia and later America etc.

Yeah, but how did it even come about? How often did Germany and Japan cross paths? How did this come up? "By the way, we want to take over the world, you in?"

I have recently been reading Catastrophe by Max Hastings, which delivers what you are requesting, but for WW1 as an unravelling theatre of death with lots of splendid period flavour. I'd guess there is a similar WW2 type book somewhere. probably try the book thread.

There was a lot of debate internal to the Nazi party. Germany had a policy of siding with and sending advisors to aid the Kuomintang in their suppression of the Chinese communist party. Hitler thought the Japanese military government were more potent anti-communists, hence the Anti-comintern Pact of 1936, followed very shortly by the second Sino-Japanese War in 1937.

Its easy to forget these days that in 1937, Germany was a serious player in the far east, with the leased territory of Qingdao, trade ports at Hankou, Beihai, and Harbin, and missionaries travelling the interior. Everyone (including America) had their fingers in the Chinese pie at the time. Indeed WWII was as much created by the China grab and post-1918 anti-Communism as it was by resentment over the Versailles Treaty. Germany, or at least Hitler, thought they could get a better deal from Tokyo than Chiang Kai-shek,

I'm really skeptical of any "the Japanese would have fought tooth and nail for every inch of Japan" argument - some of them quickly verge into racism, but even the ones that don't seem to assume that "the Japanese," having been programmed for tenacious, relentless civilian defense, would all stay in that mode forever, regardless of whatever else developed, unless what developed was an atomic bomb, in which case they would all switch over to being okay with surrendering. It kinda doesn't compute on its face, but it also just imagines that, had the war continued, it would have been somehow ahistorical and continuous in its progress, nothing changes, the ongoing invasion and the ramping-up of the already-severe deprivations and limitations of civilian life as a result of the water have no effect on the home front.... You'd think even just the Soviets declaring war on Japan would have been a game-changer.

The surrender of Japan hinged entirely on the decisions of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War and the emperor. It was never a matter of the Japanese people being programmed for tenacious, relentless civilian defense, but more a matter of disobedience to authority being so socially unacceptable as to verge on the unthinkable. The people were heartily weary of the war and dreaded being asked to make further sacrifices, but they would have obeyed.

this is a good read

http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/05/25/classic-hiroshima-bombing-gets-hollywood-makeover/

i've always found the 'it was necessary to avoid more bloodshed' a convenient yet unconvincing excuse but i haven't done enough reading on the subject.

anything of recommendation on either side of the aisle?

bugger "both sides", if you want to know about the bomb and how decisions on when and where to use it were made you need to check out alex wellerstein, full stop.

thanks

a thread from last year, pretty informative:

Today is the 74th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki. Often overlooked, compared to Hiroshima, as merely the "second" atomic bomb, the Nagasaki attack is far more tricky, and important, in several ways. THREAD pic.twitter.com/UQYoz6ftzN

— Alex Wellerstein (@wellerstein) August 9, 2019