Over the course of many days, yes. But you are correct. The US had the ability to destroy a city over a period of days, and it had the ability to deploy one bomb that could do it in seconds. Why showcase that bomb on a city? Why not at least try to avoid that? I truly never have understood it. Probably war fatigue and extreme hatred for the enemy.
Because that’s the most accurate way of making sure your enemy knows (and you can prove to yourself) that you can actually destroy a city with one.
Because it’s WWII, today ends in a y, and your air force has been regularly bombing cities into oblivion for a couple of years at that point.
The problem is the Japanese still weren’t sure about surrender after the first atomic bomb. Using it for a “demonstration” really wouldn’t have done anything since they could still argue about themselves that maybe the Americans only had a few (which was true) and maybe they could still resist.
Yes, because FDR was a Anglophile, and GB was allied to Russia. If GB had not been in the war, no aid to Russia, except maybe some food or something. BTW, Khrushchev also said that Spam (etc) save the Soviet Union as all their best farming areas were under German control, they had nothing to feed their armies without aid.
One guy with 1700 followers does not equal “general acceptance”.
Try doing a general search and reading up on the subject, instead of relying on a couple of cherry-picked quotes.
Why wouldn’t they? Historically they did for the UK, after all.
Both Bandwagon and Appeal to authority fallacies. However, you are incorrect. Yes, the Russians have pushed hard on the idea that they almost won WW2 all by themselves, and they could have done so. That is propaganda from the kremlin, not mainstream historical thought.
What’s fallacious is dogmatically attaching oneself to a dubious, ill-supported claim, like your previous insistence that France was responsible for starting WWI. Or attacking a source instead of dealing with the facts it presents.
Claims that the Nazis would have defeated the Soviets without Lend-Lease and counter-claims that such aid was insignificant are both deeply flawed.
I regret that historical consensus once again eludes you.
I never said that. I have stated- that WW1 had no single nation at fault, that all the European nations involved are culpable in starting it, they were all militaristic, ultra-nationalistic, warmongering , imperialist colonial nations. Yes, of those perhaps France- like The Sleepwalkers agrees- perhaps slightly more culpable. But they were all responsible for starting WW1.
if Stalin himself claimed it. then I accept that.
There is no “historical consensus” on this subject. Your opinion is not the consensus.
No, that is not true. Strategic bombing did not obliterate cities in one minute the way these weapons did.There is no reason a “demonstration” of the first nuclear weapon in war had to occur over a city.
You are wrong:
You are wrong about this, too. The Tokyo bombing happened overnight.
You have me there. My main thrust in this thread has been that the US should have tried harder to avoid mass casualties from the atomic bombs before dropping them. I don’t think the firebombing of Tokyo is really for or against my original point, but you did correct me so you have that going for you. Better that the US had done better
The point is that the atomic bomb was not some uniquely destructive force that created mass casualties that were entirely new to the war. The bomb was just a faster way to deliver the same sort of damage that was already being delivered. The US didn’t try harder to avoid blowing up Japanese cities because by that point they’d been blowing up Japanese cities for years.
Ehh, Dresden, Rotterdam, Cologne, Wesel, and Tokyo would most likely disagree.
It was the type of weapon that could scare someone into submission. They chose to kill a lot more people than were necessary to showcase it. Twice.
One bomb did not do that to those cities. There is a difference here.
It cost less than the development of the plane that dropped it. The USA had no problem at all affording it.
No, actually we used it twice in actual combat and a portion of the Japanese government still wanted to fight on, engaging in an attempted coup to do so:
I’m sure that is of immense comfort to the dead killed over a period of days.
But they were destroyed by strategic bombing, a thing you said did not happen.
So, you’ve answered your own question, and refuted your original point.