A question for those who are against the use of atomics bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

[Dial H For Hero]

On the 75th anniversary of use of an atomic bomb of the city Nagasaki, I would like to pose a question to those who think that the US should not have ussd them on those targets:

What would you done to defeat Japan?

Specifically, presuming you are against the use of atomic weapons on any Japanese city during WW2, Here are the major strategies we used or anticipated using against Japan, starting in March of 1945. Which of the following would you use?

1) Firebombing of Japanese cities

2) Attacking military targets using conventional forces

3) Mining Japanese waters to destroy shipping ("Operation Starvation" )

4) Invasion of the Japanese Home Islands ("Operation Downfall", projected to begin in March, 1946)

If you have an alternative, please list it.

Lastly, when do you anticipate Japan would surrender based upon your decisions?

[Demonaut]

1. we still have the shame of using the atomic bomb on civilians

all options are terrible

[Dial H For Hero]

2. If you don't choosse any of the options listed, how would you have defeated Japan?

[Happy Hoosier]

73. And we firebombed German civilians.

Total war was the rule of the day back then.

My mother lived in Berlin in WWII..... her stories....

[Under The Radar]

3. Two bombs did exactly as anticipated

It ended the war immediately. The other option was multiple bombs that would in effect create more damage into other areas with probably more deaths.
The emperor has said that he did not support the militarization of his country by the rogue actors, and those actors committed suicide instead of being taken prisoner. How do you negotiate with that?

[Dial H For Hero]

38. Exactly. Any other realistic option, from an invasion of the Home Islands to simply blockading them

into starvation would have killed many more of the Japanese people than the two A-bombs did.

[LuvLoogie]

4. Set up a soap box in downtown Tokyo this week

and pose your question. You can argue how they deserved it for their past sins.

[Dial H For Hero]

7. I cant's fly there. Please answer the question. What would you do to defeat Japan in 1945?

You can argue how they deserved it for their past sins.

Please show me where I said they deserved it for their past sins.

Take your time.

[Hoyt]

5. Set nuke off on an Island close by, and followed with ultimatum.

Besides, they were surrounded and badly beaten. At worst, one would have been enough.

[Dial H For Hero]

10. They didn't surrender after we nuked one of their cities. Why would a single demonstration bomb

have done the trick?

For the sake of argument, let's say we do set off the demo bomb and they don't surrender.

Now what?

[LanternWaste]

14. So you're not asking for responses out of curiosity...

but rather simply to validate your own opinions.

I'd guessed as such.

Film at eleven.

[Dial H For Hero]

23. Sure I did.

but rather simply to validate your own opinions.

I'd guessed as such.

Film at eleven.

I simply wish to understand why he thought his solution would work, given that Japan didn't surrener until two cities had been destroyed by nucelar weapons.

[Hoyt]

20. They were surrounded, beaten, and starving. What the heck were they going to do to us?

[Dial H For Hero]

33. They were no threat to the USA in March 1945. But they still had to be defeated.

If nuclear weapons are off the table, we would have blockaded and bombed.

It would have taken until mid to late '46 (about the projected end of Operation Olympic, and would have forced surrender by late 1946 at a tiny fraction of the cost (in Allied lives) of invading Japan.

Cut off all the food imports, fertilizer imports, energy imports by using a combination of submarines, B-29 deployed mines, and surface combatants. Kill anything you find, down to small fishing boats.

Flying out of Okinawa means that almost all of Japan is now in range, except northern Hokkaido. 10-20 square miles of urban territory are burned each night until there are no more urban areas that large, after that 3-5 sq. mi. in two or three different cities per night.

In daylight the road/rail networks, especially bridges are hit be medium bombers. if it has wheels and doesn't have a Red Cross, it's a legitimate target. Wallies had already established that in the ETO. At night hit the roads with Mosquitoes and P-61s (the P-61 intercept radar was quite effective at picking out ground targets). Even the food being produced can't get to market in anywhere near sufficient volume.

5 to 10 million Japanese dead, but at least they weren't nuked, amirite?

The least bloody alternative was mushroom shaped.

[Aristus]

42. "Two booms - No Americans died. War over. Yay us" is a misnomer.

186 American POWs interned in Nagasaki died in the nuking.

It's August, 1945; do you want to tell their family members that we killed them, but it's okay? Seriously, tell those grieving families "Better your kid than someone else's".

[Dial H For Hero]

47. Yes, the Nagasaki A-bomb killed 180 POWs. And our bombers killed 68,000 French citizens over the

course of the war. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have dropped them.

It's August, 1945; do you want to tell their family members that we killed them, but it's okay? Seriously, tell those grieving families "Better your kid than someone else's".

I would tell them that an invasion of Japan would have cost hundreds of thousands of American lives, and that their country was grateful to them for their sacrifice.

And in any case, do you reeally think those 180 men would have been alive two years later after we invaded and/or starved Japan into surrendering?

[Auggie]

6. Do you have a link to who came up with these "major strategies?"

[Dial H For Hero]

11. Sure! Here you go:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan#Naval_air_attacks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Starvation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

Enjoy!

[Squinch]

8. .

[Dial H For Hero]

13. Points for being brief, I suppose...but would you care to answer the question?

[Squinch]

16. Your pointless question? No.

[Dial H For Hero]

34. Alas and alack.

[Jeebo]

9. I've always thought we should have used the atomic bomb...

...against a MILITARY target instead of against a Japanese city. Then we could have threatened to use the second bomb against a city if they did not surrender. Was that option ever considered? Why wasn't that option among the ones you listed? I can't believe it's because you didn't think of it.

-- Ron

[sarisataka]

18. Have you considered that perhaps Hiroshima

was a military target?

[Dial H For Hero]

19. Hiiroshima was a military target.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#cite_note-effects-116

Hiroshima was a supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications center, a key port for shipping, and an assembly area for troops. It was a beehive of war industry, manufacturing parts for planes and boats, for bombs, rifles, and handguns

[The Magistrate]

21. We Had Been Attacking Japanese Cities For Some Time, Sir

We burnt, boiled, and baked over a hundred thousands in Tokyo on one night. Wholesale destruction of cities was nothing out of the ordinary. All that was new was that a single plane now could do it, where it had taken hundreds to burn out Tokyo and other cities.

[betsuni]

32. "If we had lost the war, we'd all be prosecuted as war criminals."

From the excellent documentary "The Fog of War":

[Jeebo]

29. Let me clarify.

We should have used the first bomb against a target that was SOLELY a military target. Hiroshima might have been a military target, but it also was a city with hundreds of thousands of civilians living in it. When I said we should have used it against a military target, I meant that we should have found a cluster of Japanese battleships in a harbor that wasn't near a populated area or something like that. Anything to minimize the human suffering while diminishing their ability to continue to wage war. That aim should have been co-equal with the goal of ending the war. For humanitarian reasons. If that didn't work, there was the threat of using the second bomb against a city that was ALSO a military target. But for the first bomb, we should have figured out a way to use it without causing so much human suffering against so many innocent civilians. Maybe I'm being naive, but they should at least have tried. Did they? Or was using the bombs to end the war their ONLY goal, exclusive of any other goal?

-- Ron

[The Magistrate]

35. There Are No Such Animacules, Sir

The Japanese fleet was stranded for lack of oil, and of scant military significance. Major military targets in a homeland do not exist separate from major cities. By the middle years of the war, all sides took the working population, the people who staffed the factories and shops turning out weapons and other military equipment as the chief target, and best means of weakening an enemy's ability to continue fighting. The sort of distinction you are trying to draw simply did not exist at the time. Le May's fliers burnt people wholesale just about every night, for months prior to the single plane attack on Hiroshima. There was nothing unusual about the attack, in context of the time, save that it took but one plane, not hundreds, to wreak the havoc.

[Karadeniz]

12. The Japanese were barbaric from Korea to the Philippines. Pearl Harbor was uncivilized.

We moved to Japan in 1954 and we kids loved everything about Japan, food, people, baths, people, everything. I believe the Japanese were warned, but their veneration of suicide over defeat meant thousands more would die. The atom bomb is harrowing, but I don't see many other options for the times. Look what it took to get them to stop fighting. That was probably the only thing that made them realize they couldn't possibly win against that weapon. They're only now apologizing for the comfort women. Have they apologized for Pearl Harbor? Anything? I know from my Japanese students that it isn't taught factually in schools...but you should read the signs at the Arizona memorial...you'd think the attack was the result of brilliant strategizing and what geniuses an unprovoked ambush was.

[Tanuki]

44. "the Japanese were warned..."

My late dad was stationed in Japan with the U.S. Army for a few years in the 1950s. My mother was told by people who lived through the war there that the Americans dropped leaflets in the cities prior to the bombings to warn civilians to evacuate, but that the Japanese government dismissed it as propaganda (or otherwise did not want people to believe it and act accordingly). She said the civilians were told that they would be shot if they so much as picked up one of the leaflets from the ground. I can't vouch for the veracity of this, but that is what she was told.

[EX500rider]

56. Wording of the leaflets dropped on Hiroshima Nagasaki and 33 other Japanese cities on 1 August 1945

Read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or friend.

In the next few days, some or all of the cities named on the reverse side will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories which produce military goods.

We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique which they are using to prolong this useless war. But, unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America's humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives.

America is not fighting the Japanese people but is fighting the military clique which has enslaved the Japanese people.

The peace which America will bring will free the people from the oppression of the military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and good leaders who will end the war. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked but some or all of them will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately.

[Tanuki]

57. Thank you very much for sharing this information!

[albacore]

15. The Japanese were defeated...

Surrounded... blockaded.. no food... no supply... no military worth talking about.
We'd about run out of bombing targets.
We didn't need to invade.... just wait. That's nearly as cruel as the bombs, and would probably kill more, but then they did it to them.... not us.

Why can't we just admit that we used the bombs in a geopolitical move to threatened the Russians?

[The Magistrate]

25. If Threatening The Russians Was The Reason, Sir

Are there many cogent objections to making Stakin perhaps think twice?

I am not sure I follow your reasoning otherwise. You endorse blockade and mass starvation as weapons of war, and show awareness these are cruel measures. But you seem to suggest that if you prevent people from eating, and they starve, they are to blame for their deaths, not those who prevented them getting enough to eat.

[Eko]

17. drop them

far enough outside of each city that it wouldn't harm them but scare the mess out of them. Drop them on military targets, drop them on economic targets, there are tons of other options.

[Timewas]

22. I think

I recall reading somewhere that there were many more killed in the firebombing than the A-Bombs...

[The Magistrate]

28. Quite True, Sir

[if..fish..had..wings]

24. No

Your question is inauthentic. It assumes war is inevitable. Given we are building a pacific empire and Japan is building a pacific empire, war was going to happen. That's what empires do.

How you fight each other over the resources is not the question - a-bombs, rocks, sticks - why you accept mass slaughter and destruction is the question.

[Merlot]

26. This: Your question is inauthentic

[Dial H For Hero]

36. Was the question of what to do inauthentic for Harry Truman? What should he have done in 1945?

[EX500rider]

85. "Given we are building a pacific empire"

What "Pacific Empire" was the US building at the time exactly?

Both Hawaii and the Philippines had happened almost 50 years earlier.
And Midway was unoccupied and claimed in 1856, Wake Island was also unoccupied and claimed in 1899.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

27. Hindsight is better than foresight.

HST didn't have seventy five years to think about his decision. I'm grateful I didn't have to make it.

[Sherman A1]

30. Early this year I read the book "Hell to Pay"

Operation Downfall. Regarding the invasion planning by both sides. The information drawn from the Japanese military post war and it simply would have been a bloodbath. They knew where we had to land, had prepared very well for the coming invasion and were far from beaten.

My question to ask is why is there seemingly no guilt placed upon the Tokyo regime for prolonging the war if they were so very much beaten?

I fully support President Truman’s decision to use these weapons.

[The Magistrate]

37. You Ask A Good Question, Sir

Unfortunately the answer is that to some minds, moral agency is a property peculiar to the United States, and the West in general. All other peoples only react to what the West does, and so are not responsible for what they do. They were made to do it, by some flaw of the West.

A useful understanding of the phenomenon can be gained from Orwell's 'Notes on Nationalism':

https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/

[burrowowl]

41. Thanks for link!

[Silver Swan]

31. I was conceived immediately after the bombing of Nagasaki, born in May 1946.

If the bomb had not been dropped, I would not be here. I have no right to an opinion.

[I asked my mother once if she and my father had said, "The war is over, let's have a baby." She replied, "Something like that!"]

[Iggo]

39. OH MY FUCKING GOD!!

Seriously?

Every goddam year trying to pick a fight over the same goddam bullshit?

Give it a fucking rest! Take a goddam year off, why don’t you people.

Fuck!

[Dial H For Hero]

54. It is the 75th Anniversary. Tell you what: I won't start another thread about it until 2044.

Fair enough?

[Iggo]

88. I have a better idea.

Fair enough?

[0rganism]

40. possibly nothing? iirc, the Japanese were already considering surrender at the time

from what i recall, it wasn't a sure thing, but it was an idea being raised. Japan had already lost most of its territorial gains in the Pacific and was heading for a costly and brutal end.

> when do you anticipate Japan would surrender based upon your decisions?
hypothetically, 1946.

naturally, the use of atomics had another purpose: intimidate the post-Hitler USSR, which was in a position to take Japanese holdings on the Asian mainland. so i guess it did that? yay.

> If you have an alternative, please list it.
one alternative would have been to not target a city on the first atomic bomb - use it off-shore or on a harbor, somewhere the Japanese people would be able to readily observe the effects and have more information when discussing surrender.

[Ex Lurker]

53. Japan wanted conditions for an end to hostilities that were intolerable to the allies

Including keeping its military intact, which obviously was a non-starter. Even after Hiroshima, the Japanese government was split on whether to surrender. One faction attempted a coup in order to keep the Emperor from ordering a surrender. The coup failed, but delayed and disrupted things long enough for the Nagasaki bombing to take place. The U.S. wasn't even sure if that would be enough and had a third bomb ready for use. After that, there were no more in the pipeline, so ironically if the Japanese had held on long enough, they could have waited out the atomic threat, at least for a few months

[BannonsLiver]

43. I've spoken to about 50 WW2 veterans at length about their experiences

Many of them, if not virtually all of them, said how relieved they were that the a bombs ended the war. Some of them expressed regret that there was a loss of life but they all expressed relief. Particularly those who had fought in a Europe, survived that, and then faced the grim task of fighting in the pacific. I respect their views, and understand that it’s real easy to sit back 75 years down the road and pontificate on morality. Frankly, if I had been in their shoes I would have been relieved too.

[Aristus]

45. How come nobody ever says "Do you know how many Americans would have been killed

if we had invaded Hitler's Fortress Europe in 1944"?

Why were American casualties an acceptable result of fighting the white European Nazis, but not fighting the Japanese? Why were we so eager to nuke non-Europeans?

And BTW, MacArthur wanted to use nukes in Korea. Curtis Lemay wanted to use nukes in Vietnam. Why are nukes only an imperative resource when the adversaries are not white Europeans?

[Trumpocalypse]

49. There were no atomic bombs in 1944

The first one wasn't tested until July 1945, two months after Germany surrendered.

And if you think the atom bombs dropped on Japan was bad, you should read about the bombing of the German city of Dresden in early 1945.

[Ex Lurker]

50. The bomb wasn't ready in time

It was originally developed for use in Europe and would have been used if the war had lasted longer.

[Dial H For Hero]

52. We didn't have nuclear weapons until after Germany was defeated. They weren't an option in 1944 or

fhe first half of 1945.

Why were American casualties an acceptable result of fighting the white European Nazis, but not fighting the Japanese?

Um, we lost over 40,000 soldiers fighting the Japanese.

Why were we so eager to nuke non-Europeans?

Have you considered that they were the only member of the Axis still fighting against us at the time?

[Aristus]

55. We lost a hell of a lot more than 40,000 fighting the Nazis.

Why did we turn into a bunch of fainting nancies when the subject of fighting the Japanese came up?

The fighting on Okinawa was horrific. But we went through with it anyway.

[Dial H For Hero]

58. The nature of the war in the European Theater of Operations was completely different.

By 1944 the Japanese Navy had been almost completely neutralized, and the ranks of their pilots decimated. We still had to go toe to toe with them as we island hopped, but in contrast we lost over 40,000 aircrew in the European theater.

Why did we turn into a bunch of fainting nancies when the subject of fighting the Japanese came up?

If you're given the option to possibly end the war by dropping a couple of nukes, or invading conventionally and losing hundreds of thousands of your men, why on Earth wouldn't you choose the former over the latter?

[Trumpocalypse]

46. It is actually a myth that Japan surrendered because of the atomic bombs.

Japan surrendered because the Soviet Union declared war on them on August 9th. Their fear was that we would invade from the south and the Soviets would invade from the north. The country would then be split in two with a communist north and democratic south.

Since it served the interests of both America and Japan to not admit that, they let the history be written that Japan surrendered because of the atomic bombs.

However, I don't think Truman did the wrong thing to drop the bombs. He has a responsibility to win and end the war with the loss of as few American lives as possible.

[Brainfodder]

48. Good ? for Death Count Donnie, he should consult with Hara Kiri *cough* Charlie ASAP?

Thank you!

[A HERETIC I AM]

51. Ah yes. The annual Atomic Bomb dropped on Japan threads. YAY!

[Trumpocalypse]

60. There was no third atomic bomb at the time

They only had two after the test in July. Those were the ones dropped on Japan. It took almost a year to make more.

[hunter]

62. That's a simple falsehood.

Further bombs would have been assembled at the rate of at least two or three a month.

Atomic bomb construction was put on pause briefly when Japan surrendered for safety and economic considerations.

I frequently wonder what horrors slave and prison labor suffered in early Soviet nuclear weapons development, or now, in North Korea.

It was plenty bad enough in the U.S.A..

[Trumpocalypse]

63. No it's not

There was no third bomb to drop on Japan at the time.

[hunter]

64. If it helps you sleep at night...

.

[Trumpocalypse]

65. Yes the truth helps me sleep at night

And the truth is there was no third atomic bomb in August.1945.

[hunter]

70. Bomb assembly was postponed because Japan surrendered.

The U.S.A. was capable of producing a plutonium bomb every ten days at that point.

Had Japan refused to surrender the next bomb would have been ready by August 19th.

There was also enough U-235 for a few more bombs of the type that destroyed Hiroshima.

Here's a good source of primary material:

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/

Document 67 and 72 are relevant.

[Dial H For Hero]

66. But had Japan not surrendered, we surely would have ramped up production. As evidence:

http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/04/25/weekly-document-the-third-shot-and-beyond-1945/

It is a transcript of a telephone conversation between General John E. Hull, who was involved in Allied planning in the Pacific theatre, and Colonel L.E. Seeman (here incorrectly noted as “Seaman”), an assistant of Groves, on August 13, 1945. The subject is the “third shot” — the next bomb ready for use after Nagasaki, which was anticipated to be ready by August 23 — and the shots beyond that.

From the transcript:

S[eaman]: … Then there will be another one the first part of September. Then there are three definite. There is a possibility of a fourth one In September, either the middle or the latter part.
H[ull]: Now, how many in October?
S: Probably three in October.
H: That’s three definite, possibly four by the end of September; possibly three more by the end of October; making a total possibility of seven. That is the information I want.
S: So you can figure on three a month with a possibility of a fourth one. If you get the fourth one, you won’t get it next month. That is up to November.
H: The last one, which is a possibility for the end of October, could you count on that for use before the end of October?
S: You have a possibility of seven, with a good chance of using them prior to the 31st of October.
H: They come out approximately at the rate of three a month.

[Trumpocalypse]

67. Very interesting

Thanks for posting.

But my original point was at the time the two bombs were dropped, there was no third atomic bomb available for another strike.

[Dial H For Hero]

71. Your original point is correct; it would have been another two weeks before a third A-bomb could be

dropped. After that, we could have hit them with three per month until they surrendered.

[hunter]

61. History doesn't work that way.

U.S. Americans tend to believe so much bullshit most of them can't even ask reasonable questions.

The U.S.A. had the bombs, many more were in the pipeline, we used them.

All your questions became instantly moot with the success of the Trinity Test.

The plutonium production reactors and refineries near Hanford were built huge. At the end of World War II the plutonium inventory was measured in tons, enough to build hundreds of bombs. It wasn't all cool enough to safely assemble into bombs yet, but the assembly lines were being designed and built.

The U.S.A. had made more than 100 of the "Fat Man" bombs of the type that destroyed Nagasaki by 1950 and these were already obsolete and being replaced with "better" bombs.

Some of the more evil genesis of the U.S.A., the sort who would have just as gleefully worked for Hitler, really wanted to see what a plutonium bomb would do to a living city. Some of them even wanted to go after the Soviet Union next. But they were not the ones who had Truman's ear. Thank goodness. And the U.S.A. was tired of war.

In any case, if Japan hadn't surrendered we would have kept dropping atomic bombs on them until they did surrender or there was nothing left of them.

You know what's fucking amazing? With the development of the hydrogen bomb, we humans actually created weapons that even marginally rational people were afraid of.

Another great U.S. American myth is that the Soviet Union wouldn't have had the bomb without its spies. The Soviet Union had the industrial and intellectual capacity to build its own bombs, the spying simply advanced their nuclear program by a few years at most. The biggest secret was that an atomic bomb could be built.

[H2O Man]

68. Legalize Lonnie Anderson's hair.

[ornotna]

69. Finally!

A sane alternative.

[Codeine]

72. You grow ever-increasingly transparent. nt

[Dial H For Hero]

75. This thread was intitally removed for kooky, extremist, or hate content I appealed, pointing out

that it was none of those things and that all the options discussed in the OP were actions either taken by the US or ones which were considered.

The administrators reinstated the post. Isn't that interesting?

[Codeine]

77. So transparent as to be nearly invisible. nt

[Dial H For Hero]

78. Cool...!

[frogmarch]

74. I shouldn't post on this thread because

I can't answer your question, but I will say that as a young child I lived in Tokyo with my family after the war and saw some of the widespread devastation wrought by Little Boy and Fat Man. My dad, an Army sergeant, was a telegrapher at MacArthur's headquarters. My mom had been an ARC nurse during WWII, and when we lived in Japan after the war, whenever she could do so without the Army finding out (before walking to work, Dad would hand her the Jeep keys), she took my sister and me to "Ants Town" (Ari-no-machi) to bring medicine, food, clothing, and other supplies she'd collected, to try to help fire-bomb (atom bombs weren't bad enough, apparently) survivors, the so-called "rag-pickers" living there in makeshift hovels, eating garbage and rats and worms and bugs. Some of the victims had oozing sores and some were horribly disfigured and had no hair left on their heads. My little best friend Asako had one leg left and no feet. I used to daydream of taking her with us someday when we went to America, so she could get new ones. OK, fuck it, that's it. I'm out of here.

[marie999]

76. Alternative, we didn't have to do anything.

For all of you who don't know history. Japan wanted to surrender weeks before the bombs were dropped. The only thing that they asked was to keep their emperor. Truman refused. He then dropped the bombs and allowed Japan to surrender and keep their emperor. Here is the whys. Japan wanted to surrender so they would not lose some of their islands to Russia who was getting ready to attack Japan. Truman did not accept the surrender because he wanted to show Russia that we had the atomic bomb. He dropped the second bomb to show Russia we had more than one.

[maxsolomon]

79. My oppostion or support is irrelevant.

It happened.

Next up: if you could travel back in time and murder baby Hitler, would you?

[Dial H For Hero]

80. Do you feel the same way about every single event in history?

[maxsolomon]

81. Pretty much.

History is a catalogue of horrors.

[hunter]

83. Every time I've killed Hitler, things have turned out worse.

It usually works out better for the traveler to put the time calculations aside and enjoy the day with their spouse.

Annorax works diligently in his study. His wife enters and asks him to enjoy the day with her. Annorax hesitates for a moment, and then decides he can "make the time" for her. They leave while his work remains on his desk, depicting the calculations for his initial alteration of the timeline.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_Hell

Maybe Leibniz got it right, "Die beste aller möglichen Welten."

For Leibniz, an additional central concern is the matter of reconciling human freedom (indeed, God's own freedom) with the determinism inherent in his own theory of the universe. Leibniz' solution casts God as a kind of "optimizer" of the collection of all original possibilities: Since he is good and omnipotent, and since he chose this world out of all possibilities, this world must be good—in fact, this world is the best of all possible worlds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_of_all_possible_worlds

Philosophy and religion aside, the global thermonuclear war of the later twentieth century is a hell of a thing. We always want to avoid that.

[Paladin]

82. The A-bombs were a savage but necessary action against Japan.

No need to jerk off in glee about it.

[madinmaryland]

84. It really came down to two horrible choices...

One would have meant bombing the shit out of them for possibly months on end or dropping the A-Bomb. Either way it would have been brutal. Dropping the bomb helped end it quicker. Japan was not going to surrender until they a-bombs were dropped.

[Paladin]

86. An invasion of Japan would have cost hundreds of thousands of allied lives.

Their country was run by lunatics, supported by a brain-dead fanatical public. Very similar to what this country has become, thanks to an all-too-powerful right wing.

[Act_of_Reparation]

87. Yeah, no.

I'm not going to tell you what I would have done to end the Second World War because ending the Second World War isn't my fucking business. What I can do is look back, with benefit of hindsight and 75 years of historical analysis, and determine whether or not it was the moral/ethical thing to do.

I certainly have reservations. Here is why:

First: framing the decision as dilemma of military manpower is kind of ridiculous. The White House and military brass would have been more concerned with time tables than human lives. The clock was ticking. Invasion would cost thousands of lives, certainly, but it would very likely have resulted in the partitioning of Japan between the US and the Soviet Union as well. Ceding more territory to the communists was not an option the United States was willing to entertain.

Secondly: you don't get to have it both ways. The Japanese could not have simultaneously been so unafraid of death that they would have defended their nation to the last man, and yet be so terrified of atomic bombs that they would surrender unconditionally. The atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hardly more destructive than conventional bombings. What kind of terror could they engender that the firebombing of Tokyo, which killed more people, did not?

So, now the important questions:

1) If the Japanese were willing to surrender with conditions, would it be moral/ethical to drop the bomb to coerce them into an unconditional surrender?

2) If you believe a Soviet Union invasion of Japan is imminent, is it moral/ethical to drop the bomb if you think doing so might force the Japanese to surrender and thereby keep Soviet influence from expanding into East Asia?

[hunter]

89. Interesting analysis.

Imagine Japan split up as Germany was split up.