The Nuking of Japan

[greneknight]

I might not be the most knowlegable about the pacific war, but from my understanding we had already destroyed japans power to make war in the pacific ocean by the time we decided to nuke them. And like other members have said Russia was already in the mix and forcing japans hand. I don't think we needed to nuke or invade japan, just kick their ass till they don't want to fight us which we did.

This may offend people but Pearl Harbor was not justification for Hiroshima. The death count is just not balanced nor the after effects. And if you want to weigh civ casualties it's even more one sided.

I think America has always viewed things from a global perspective. The nuclear bombs were not a mere retaliation of Pearl Harbour. They were intended to stop Japan in the face of its crimes against humanity committed all over Asia. That was one humanitarian factor that America must have considered. And it wasn't wrong. There's a bigger picture than merely the bombing of Pearl Harbour.

[JohnDG]

Ah yes I forget about the poor Asian countries sometimes. Yeah you are right on that because there was genocide and brutal oppression from the Japanese in other Asian countries.

I would suppose every country is pretty fucked up then no matter how you look at it. Especially in WW2.

[Shell B]

I think America has always viewed things from a global perspective. The nuclear bombs were not a mere retaliation of Pearl Harbour. They were intended to stop Japan in the face of its crimes against humanity committed all over Asia. That was one humanitarian factor that America must have considered. And it wasn't wrong. There's a bigger picture than merely the bombing of Pearl Harbour.

Sorry, you're wrong. The United States was a separatist nation before World War II. We were only involved in World War I for a matter of months. Between then and World War II we weren't involved militarily. Pearl Harbor was really an excuse to do what we were going to do anyway and it didn't have anything to do with the violence, sadly. We had invested interest in China. If Japan kept it up, we lost money. We demanded they leave. They agreed to a meeting. We showed them up and stop trading with them. They attacked Pearl Harbor. I hate to be an asshole, but I don't think crimes against humanity had fuckall to do with the decision. If that were the case, we would have been in the European Theater years before we showed up. It was about money. We weren't losing any until Japan started pushing our buttons.

[Creed of Heresy]

Gotta make a couple replies. Earlier you mentioned someone you knew who was a teacher in Japan. I have to point something out real quick, and then ask something. The pointing: There are three professions in Japan that no matter where you are from or where you live, they will always earn you a far higher level of respect from the locals than otherwise. Namely teachers, engineers, and programmers. The reasons are pretty obvious, of course. If you are any of those careers in Japan you are helping the Japanese interests at their greatest levels; education in the case of teachers, a field Japan is striving to excel and break into the global market in in the case of programmers, and honing one of the greatest strengths and one of the largest exports Japan has, in the form of professional engineered products, especially cars, robotics, and automation. And if you are in Japan and in one of those careers you're obviously working for a Japanese company or Japanese branch of government. Essentially it becomes a matter of "you help us in ways that we feel matter; ergo, welcome!"

Now the question: Does he happen to live on the island of Okinawa? They tend to be much more open and inviting than the "mainland" of Japan. Fun fact; Okinawans do not consider themselves "true Japanese." ...Something they say with a bit of pride, I might add. Also, what does he teach, just largely out of curiosity.

And yeah, we weren't so much separatist as we were neutralist. We were following the old adage our founding fathers had stated we should follow; commerce with all nations, alliance with none. Quite simply we felt we should leave the world alone and hopefully it would leave us alone. Alas, that is never the way of things. The US would never have actually attacked Japan first (which you kind of sort of implied we were going to;

Pearl Harbor was really an excuse to do what we were going to do anyway

As of 12-7-1941 we had the 17th largest nation in the world. Romania had a larger, better-equipped military than we did. Without such a dramatic attack by the Japanese, the US would never have gotten into it with Japan. The oil embargo was a dramatic threat but in all honesty if the Japanese had attacked the fleets attempting to enforce it, it would not have had such a dramatic impact. But the wholly unprovoked attack galvanized the population of the US into a seething hatred that propelled us into WWII...though, I may be wrong on this assumption on the US never attacking. It is very worth noting that the majority of Americans were becoming more and more upset by our leaders' inaction towards the conflicts in Europe and, yes, Asia. Lotta people felt the US had a kinship with England, given our histories and the warm relations the two nations had built up over the past half-century, and more still were outraged by the atrocities committed by the Japanese against smaller Asian nations, and the Nazis against...well, everyone. The demand for aggressive action may very well have forced US policy into involvement either way. Maybe later, and not with quite such a furor, but it might still have happened.

Some evidence of this can be found with American colonial attitudes towards those nations they considered colonies; condescension and "civilized-man" arrogance, mixed with a sort of paternal fondness and encharmed idealism. For example, the Philippines? The civilian contractors and government agents who were working in the country on development and infrastructure tended to write of the Filipines as being "ignorant, dumb, but lovable and charming in their own primal ways," to quote one source [Ghost Soldiers, which in turn quoted it from the direct source]. Basically we were smug but in that way of someone who knows they are smarter than the person they are educating but nevertheless feels a fond attachment to their student and desires for them to learn as much as they have. This attitude was very common, and it was generally felt by the American public that it was American involvement that was going to uplift the poorer nations of Asia into becoming business partners and colonial interests. American colonialism was basically founded on the idea that the British did it wrong; no heavy-handed approaches, but rather learning and investing and letting the cultures develop on their own after investment with only minimal involvement and the occasional nudging in the right directions. Then the Japanese came in, started dominating everyone else through sheer brute force and torture and terror tactics, especially in China, where, as you pointed out, we had vested interests in.

It was kind of like investing in a bunch of elemantary school bake sales, and you were just going to trim some of the profits as per an agreement with the schools. And then some guy comes in, starts slapping the kids around and takes their money. You get up in his face to tell him to knock it the fuck off or you're going to retaliate. You are, up to this point, a gentle giant and the jerk is tough but he's not THAT tough. He realizes he wants more, and that he'll have to deal with you now or later and that if he gets into it with you later, he's gonna get floored. So he opts to take a crowbar to your kneecaps so you're no longer a threat. However he doesn't break your kneecaps, though they now hurt like a motherfucker. So now you're pissed, and you get into a fight that he inevitably loses despite his attempt to hobble you.

...Fuck, I really do love my analogies, don't I?

Also, I would like to express my sincere appreciation for everyone in this thread; everyone has remained unbelievably calm, polite, respectful, and mature...and I figured this would be one topic where nobody could be given the subject nature. If I could kudos peoples' involvement in a thread I totally would. Hm. A "thread kudos..." That's an idea. Tib, get on that!

[jonb]

There seems to be a presumption that Japan at the time of the bombs only controled its Islands, but actually the area under Japanese control was still huge and the ability of Japanese troops to take revenge actions for a landing on the homeland could not be discounted. Plus there would be an option to move headquarters to Korea which the Japanese hierarchy thought about in the same way as the brits thought about Ireland until the twenties.

Also even after the surrender in very large areas the Japanese troops were left in control for many months as the allies did not have enough troops to simply replace the Japanese let alone fight them.

[festive1]

I think it's also appropriate to point out that Japan, up to mid-1800's was almost completely isolated. If the Allies had contained Japan, nothing would have changed within Japan, they just wouldn't have been able to go about their imperial conquest. Isolated for a long period of time, who knows what Japan would have become, it probably would not have become more accepting (as others have pointed out, they aren't very accepting of outsiders even now). Japan could have even taken the train to crazy town, albeit they would have had to figure out a way to get there without oil, but the Japanese are very adaptive and intelligent. In 1854, they were a completely closed feudal, agricultural based society. The fact that within a century they were able to catch up and in some respects surpass the West in terms of technology and industrialization shows how adaptive and industrious they are as a people. I don't think shutting them off from the world would have solved the problem, just delayed it.

[Creed of Heresy]

Well it's worth noting that the reason why they seemed to learn so fast was because they did what just about any nation realizing it's behind the times and wanting to modernize will do; send people abroad to study the outlands and bring back information to adapt to. A lot of people tend to think Japan is far more tech-oriented than the US, but this is a grave misunderstanding. Robotics is something that Japan is known for but when compared with the robotics research and development in the US, and the lengths of what robotics can do, US engineering firms tend to have them beaten pretty squarely, largely because most of the time they have the eager backing of the extremely highly-funded US military behind them...and the US is the most robotic-equipped military in the world.

Case in point: After the Tsunami that laid waste to a huge portion of Japanese land and resulted in one of their nuclear reactor complexes being heavily damaged, they realized they needed robotic assistance; areas inside the reactor were too "hot" or inaccessible for humans to safely get into to begin repairs or activate safety protocols. So they brought in robots. Where? The US. Yes, the land of creepy human-looking robot things had to ask the US for its more practical designs to repair their reactors.

Still, for the last 20 years they've been whipping us on the car front. Because our car companies are run by morons and penny-pinching, greedy fucks who don't actually know shit about managing a car company, and theirs are run by people who have a need AND a drive to succeed. Which is why Flint and Detroit and Lansing and Pittsburgh are fucking ghetto wastelands, and Tokyo and Hamburg are car manufacturing metropolises.

[Shell B]

I think it's also appropriate to point out that Japan, up to mid-1800's was almost completely isolated. If the Allies had contained Japan, nothing would have changed within Japan, they just wouldn't have been able to go about their imperial conquest. Isolated for a long period of time

Yes, it would have. The point is that isolating them would have led to a surrender with the terms we desired. Being "isolated" to Japan meant not letting people in. Cutting off trade with them is the point, not restricting visitors. Cutting off trade was enough to make them start a war. Do you really think they just would have went all, "Meh. It's too bad we're cut off. Guess we'll just sit here going crazy?" *sigh*

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Gotta make a couple replies. Earlier you mentioned someone you knew who was a teacher in Japan. I have to point something out real quick, and then ask something. The pointing: There are three professions in Japan that no matter where you are from or where you live, they will always earn you a far higher level of respect from the locals than otherwise. Namely teachers, engineers, and programmers.

He didn't go there a teacher. He went there as a really young man with practically nothing. He's been there for a long ass time.

Now the question: Does he happen to live on the island of Okinawa?

Nope, mainland. And he teaches English.

And yeah, we weren't so much separatist as we were neutralist. We were following the old adage our founding fathers had stated we should follow; commerce with all nations, alliance with none. Quite simply we felt we should leave the world alone and hopefully it would leave us alone.

Semantics. We were uninvolved.

Alas, that is never the way of things. The US would never have actually attacked Japan first (which you kind of sort of implied we were going to; [quote] Pearl Harbor was really an excuse to do what we were going to do anyway

Oh, that very much depends. Their alliance with Italy and Germany, plus a success in China would have been very bad for us. We would have lost our interests in China. It would also have meant that the Axis became more powerful and a British defeat more likely. We would have avoided that at any cost. By that point, we were already secretly sending planes and pilots to England. Let's not forget all of the tanks too.

Yes, you're right. It could have happened later, but it was nearly inevitable that we would become involved.

[Minimalist]

the ability of Japanese troops to take revenge actions for a landing on the homeland could not be discounted.

Actually, it can. Japan's merchant shipping was virtually annihilated by 1945. What wasn't sunk/damaged was stuck in port due to fuel shortages. Those isolated garrisons were in little position to undertake offensive actions.

Part of McArthur's strategy was to bypass larger IJA garrisons and leave them to wither on the vine. It was largely successful due to American sea and air superiority.

[jonb]

the ability of Japanese troops to take revenge actions for a landing on the homeland could not be discounted.

Actually, it can. Japan's merchant shipping was virtually annihilated by 1945. What wasn't sunk/damaged was stuck in port due to fuel shortages. Those isolated garrisons were in little position to undertake offensive actions.

Part of McArthur's strategy was to bypass larger IJA garrisons and leave them to wither on the vine. It was largely successful due to American sea and air superiority.

You don't have to take offensive actions to take revenge.