I’m just sort of idly curious, SPARC, how you think there could be any reliable citation for the number of lives that would have been lost had an event taken place that did not in fact take place. Isn’t that definitionally guesswork and therefore unreliable? If X, then Y, but Y is totally attackable because of variables 1 through 1000, none of which we can know really would have come to pass . . . .
There is IMO no question that the lives “potentially saved” that concerned the U.S. were the lives of American soldiers. Surely no one imagines the U.S. was weighing the life of a Japanese soldier (or even, probably, a Japanese civilian) on the same level as an American soldier. That’s not the way it works. In war, you are attempting to be a hurtin’ on your enemy and save your men. Therefore it seems to me to be a tangential inquiry to ask which course would have saved the most lives, total. The Americans were not interested in saving the most lives, total. They were interested in saving the most American lives, which they reasonably believed could best by done by ending the war.
Oh, and some info. on Japan’s use of poison gas during WWII (can’t vouch for it’s accuracy but it was published in a fairly reputable–as far as I know–Japanese newspaper: the Japan Times).
Sorry Wabbit, you kind of ended up on my list as collateral damage.
Never doubted the gas attack plans from the US side, nor the Japanese for that matter. Plans albeit so lets not affix too much value to them. I mean hell, had Monty and Geoffrey Nathaniel Pyke had their way the D-Day invasion would partly have been carried out using ships and platforms made out of Pykrete (ice mixed with sawdust). That was a plan too, and a serious one at that.
Anyway, it was the invasion as such that wouldn’t have happened bombs or no bombs if we are to believe Truman’s own committee that produced the Strategic Bombing Survey as an analysis of the facts after the peace.
So the gas plans wouldn’t have been that necessary either, but you are right they existed.
Sorry for wasting shells on you like that.
Jodi,
In 1946 the Truman administration presented its own analysis of the end of war in what is called ‘The US Strategic Bombing Survey’. It was put under a 50 year secrecy seal, hence available to us in the public only in 1996. It concludes affirmatively that an invasion would never have taken place and that the Japanese were on the verge of giving up bombs or no bombs.
It also concludes that the bombs had nothing to do with the unconditional surrender, but that the obliteration of Japanese air force in combination with the Soviet declaration of war was the straw that broke the camels back. The bombs only had the effect of giving PM General Suzuki and Emperor Hiroito a little extra persuasive power to convince the militarists, who had in any case just admitted that they could not even come up with the remotest plan to fight the Soviets.
The survey gives the Japanese at the most another four months and then only due to expected quibbling in the Japanese leadership. The report is as I said affirmative in these conclusions. Here is the link again where I have expounded in much detail on it, just this week. You will also find links to Truman’s own original of the survey and electronic versions in there.
Hence I am not asking for wild estimates I am saying that any estimate is senseless since it would never have come to pass, and if I and Truman’s own administration are mistaken I would very much like to see the source material.
So…we dropped two atomic bombs on Japan 57 years ago. Regardless of the reasons for doing so, honestly, how is this relevant to the protests of the OP? Also, where is the proliferation that is being protested? According to recently-declassified DOE statistics regarding total megatonnage of the US arsenal, the volume has been decreasing since about 1986 (and even then, 1986 represented only a slight peak in the decreases since 1965), and is currently lower than it has been since about 1955, when the nuclear arms race began in earnest.
It would appear to me that there is no proliferation to protest.
Darwin’s Finch: Nuclear proliferation continue apace in India, Pakistan, and any number of “terrorist” states. All of which, of course, base their domestic defence policies on the opinions of whiny college undergrads*. So it’s not like this protest would have been, you know, a meaningless self-congratulatory wank-a-thon, or anything.
From a review of Truman and the Hiroshima Cult by Robert P. Newman. Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, Michigan 48823-5202, 1995:
You all know www.google.com"]google; there are many sites out there that will render info regarding casualty estimates. MILNET: Hiroshima and Nagasaki is one of them. It’s not hard to find the one million GIs casualty figure.
The basic story that seems to emerge is that the sometimes seen figure of 50,000 estimated Allied casualties was a first pass estimate early in the planning stages when it was thought they’d be facing 100,000-175,000 Japanese troops on Kyushu. As planning progressed it became obvious there were many more to be dealt with, and casualty projections grew to the 200,000-500,000 range, with a million popping up here and there. And that was just Kyushu.
Frankly, if I were an Allied commander, saving “just” 50,000 of my troops would be a powerful incentive. And that number fails to take in the anticipated executions, upon invasion of the Japanese home islands, of the POWs and internees, that might well be prevented by forcing a quick surrender. The only number I’ve found for that population today was 400,000, and that seems kind of high. And, Allied planners did take into account how many Japanese civilians would likely perish in an invasion, even should they remain non-combatants.
One way or another, there were a lot of lives to be saved by pursuing the A-bomb alternative. And, of course, if the (Western) Allied command really thought they had the war won, why reveal the existence of the weapon unnecessarily? To intimidate Stalin? That just doesn’t seem like a feasible reason.
One other reason often cited for the U.S.’ “malevolent” use of The Bomb is a desire to end the war before Russia could get in and exert an influence over S.E. Asia. I truly doubt that, as we’d been trying to get “Uncle Joe” to open a second front. The Soviet Union did not come into the war against Japan until August 8th, two days after the first A-Bomb at Hiroshima.
OTOH, if we’d truly had folks in State, or wherever, prescient enough to foresee the coming Cold War, a pre-emptive bar on the Evil Empire would’ve been a good thing.
I am just not at all convinced it happened that way.
All the Western Allied command knew on the eve of the Hiroshima bombing was that Japan had launched a new diplomatic initiative with Russia, proposing an alliance as their mutual non-aggression treaty wound down, and Russia had remained non-committal towards opening a second front on the Japanese. My father spent WWII as a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, with his sole job being the monitoring of the traffic between Tokyo and the Japanese embassy in Moscow. Ivory tower pinko that he was, he never expressed any thought to me that the bombings were unwarranted.
Allied command also knew that their casualty figures as yet in the Pacific Campaign had been high and they could expect at least as much on the home islands.
No, I am at this point of the thought that they decision was made to use The Bomb as the most expedient way to bring the war to its conclusion, with relative loss of life something that was definitely a consideration.
Many more thoughts occur to me, but my legs are getting short tonight.
And someone stated above that nuclear weapons are evil. Weapons are not evil, but their handlers can be. It is well established that both Japan and Nazi Germany were making attempts to develop their own A-Bomb. I have little doubt about whether or not either one would have used it if they’d managed to put one together before we did.
On one end of the loony fringe spectrum, Gar Aplerovitz says; “Fight japan? Nah! We only did it to scare the Russkies. It was the first act of McCarthyism. [sub]War with Japan? Jesus! When will you guys ever get it, it’s all part of the anti communist conspiracy![/sub]”
Says the middle majority of historians; “Huh??? It’s a bit unclear why Truman did drop the bomb, but to scare the Soviets? Nah!”
Answers Robert P. Newman on the opposite side of the loons spectrum; “Unclear why? Hell no it ain’t! We saved 1.244.580.000 American lives by stopping inevitable invasion. And by the way that damned US Strategic Bombing Survey: Lies, goddamned lies and statistics. [sub]Sad and sorry LSD induced hippy conspiracies…[/sub]”
Says the middle majority of historians; “Wait a minute there Bob, aren’t you getting ahead of yourself there, just a little bit? Whatever….” followed by a deep sigh in unison.
Sparc
[sub]This missive brought to you by Warriors For Reason contained a certain amount of lame parody on public figures.[/sub]
Not “frighten” the Russians- that was impossible after what they had been through with the Nazi’s and with Stalin at the helm (heck he killed an untold number of his own people in a decade of bloody and brutal purges of entire classes of people and areas of “his” country~~ so Uncle Joe did not scare easily), rather to forstall their co-occupation of Japan and the East- much like the Allies were facing in Europe. Russia was a major problem at the time, as the last diplomatic meetings being somewhat of a disaster.
Also agruably the Japanese people as a whole were much better off with the way things went. Even with the aburpt end of the War and the U.S. occupation- the Japanese people came very very close to starving to death. A prolonged invasion with its increased civilian deaths and destruction of infrastructure, crop fields and livestock would have likely lead to widespread starvation, disease and death.
Also, those Japanese unlucky enough to be captured by the Russians (still smarting over their earlier defeat at the hands of the Japanese Navy) would have been much much much worse off, see i.e. treatment of captured Germans troops and the treatment of German populace right after occupation (the “open” days for the soldiers~ who were free to rape and pillage as a payback for all of the suffering of the Russian people). Think it would have been any different in Japan or China, where a large portion of the Japanese Army was in position to be rolled over by the Russians (the History Channel had a wonderful special on all of this- catch it if you can).
Also, the deaths would have still came from the air, even if the bombs were not used, as the U.S. and English air forces had developed the firestorm technique of city destruction into an art form. More people died in the Tokyo fire storms then in the Atomic bomb drops. Not to mention what happened to poor Dresden in Germany. This would have continued, as would the large scape fighter sweeps and tactical bombing raids. Add in mine fields and tons and tons of extra unexploded bombs and shells. . . .
While “atomic weapons are bad” is true in one aspect, as my old ethics teacher once pounded into us “in comparison to what?” The alternatives seem even more unpleasant. Welcome to war.
I think you have me pegged in the corner that says that Truman acted based on something else than the belief that he was ending the war, such as racism, fury, revenge for Pearl harbor or other such nonsense. I do not belong to the looney fringe and I don’t usually think that random helicopters are out spying on me (for that matter I don’t usually wear tinfoil hats either, except on Wednesdays at full moon).
How many times must I repeat it: I believe that although it was a debatable call, Truman had to make that call and he did so with the intentions stated in the US Strategic Bombing Survey; to end the war and avoid an invasion that would have been costly. That the intelligence at hand underestimated how well Japan had been clobbered is regrettable in one way, but on the other hand it was war and had the bombs not gone off then they might very well have gone off over Berlin, or Washington or Moscow some years later.
Sparc: I did read all you had to say in the GD thread and I read some of your sources as well. In the end I think we are actually in agreement on the main issue here of whether dropping the Bomb was an appropriate decision. Given what Truman knew at the time it was a fair call for him to make. Given hindsight the value of the dropping the Bomb on Japan in avoiding future nuclear attacks made their dropping worthwhile as well. We can’t know that a nuclear attack would have occurred had the Bombs not been dropped on Japan but we did come close once or twice and I think it is safe to say that their use in WWII had a chilling effect on their use in the future.
I guess the only point we disagree on is whether the Bombs pushed Japan to surrender or whether the Allies could have reasonably found a suitable way to end the war without dropping the Bomb. Mind you, that suitable way is only apparent today with hindsight and not necessarily apparent to the people 50+ years ago who had to make these decisions. Fortunately Jodi and Ringo have done an admirable job in my absence and probably better than I would have anyway. For my part I guess I’m still stuck on why anyone would think Japan was ready to surrender without the Bombs being used.
I don’t think you contest these points (although correct me if I’m wrong):
[ul]
[li] Japan was preparing its populace to repel an invasion and that included using most anyone who could reasonably be expected to fight.[/li][li] Some in the Japanese cabinet wanted peace and even voted for surrender but Japanese law insisted that a surrender decree be done only by unanimous vote which they did not have and likely never would as the hawks in the cabinet weren’t the surrendering type for any reason.[/li][li] It took the Emperor in a completely unheard of move (and shocking to the Japanese) to force surrender on the country.[/li][li] Even after the Emperor forced a surrender some elements in the military attempted a coup with the main aim to be to prevent Japan’s surrender.[/li][/ul]
Just given those points I still don’t understand why the USSBS determined that surrender was imminent without the atomic bombs.
Finally, and you never answered this ethical point, is whether the US (or anyone) should be reasonably expected to put its own citizens in harms way just to avoid a theoretical higher total casualty count inclusing both the enemy and you own soldiers? Say ‘only’ 50,000 Allied troops need to die along with 100,000 Japanese troops and civilians rather than (say) 200,000 Japanese (only) dead by using a big bomb. We save 50,000 lives overall with invasion but the cost is to my own people and country. Should I still opt for that option?
Finally, the one thing you took me to task for in the GD thread was the assumption that the Japanese would kill the POWs if the Allies invaded. I asked my father about this (he was in Naval Intelligence in the Pacific working for Admiral Nimitz) and he said that US military planners considered that as a possibility but he was unaware of any stated plan by the Japanese to do this. Basically, everyone believed the Japanese were capable fo such an act but no one really knew for certain how the POWs would be treated if there was an invasion.
I’m not so sure we disagree here. When I read both treatments of source material and actual source material I detect an absolute confusion in regards what the Allies knew, thought, hoped and guessed. It seems they were pretty split, and war wary, and exhausted. I’d say that had I been Ike I would have said the same i.e. "nah, fuck the bomb.” Mind you that he didn’t have the political responsibility for more Americans dying in the Pacific. Had I been Truman I think I might very well have done what he did, as I said political accountability and responsibility for his citizens lives must have weighed heavy on his shoulders. I bet he wished that FDR was still around those days in August. All that I disagree with is giving them a blanket approval based on facts that are highly contestable, simply for the sake of accurately understanding history. Therefore I would say that one has to separate the issue of analyzing Truman’s decision from the view they had and analyzing the nuances of that from the different view that only hindsight can provide.
I agree more or less. As for 1 it might need to be nuanced to say that parts of the militarists were trying to prepare the populace for the bushido defense and there was popular support for it, while there was also a growing opposition to it, with amongst others the Emperor himself opposing it, albeit still silently. 2 Mostly yes, with the caveat that their failure to come up with a plan to fight the Soviets was quickly pushing them into a corner where they might eventually have had no choice but surrender, even if you are right that this was quite against their acclaimed ideals and apparent characters. I’ll get back to that further on. 3 No doubt, but note that the attempted coup was not supported by the hawks.
My understanding (mind you this is just my interpretation so take it as such) is that the USSBS implies that the combined efforts by Hiroito, Suzuki and Togo had eroded much of the power of the hawks already and that the utter destruction of the air force, capacity to rebuild the same, and the incapacity by the militarists to come up with a plan against the Soviets was making their position so untenable from a military perspective that it was just a question of time before the whole military command would collapse.
Meanwhile Suzuki and Togo had managed to remove one opposition to the peace offers after the other. The biggest remaining quibble seems to have been over the Emperor’s role. However, Suzuki had trump in that respect since he was actively working with the Emperor (that much we know). I would say that it is not farfetched that Hiroito and Suzuki were quite cold about sacrificing the Tenno system way before the Emperor actually did intervene and offer up his position. As I said, that is all just conjecture from my side so take it for what you will. FWIW I too find it sort of hard to follow the USSBS with complete and unquestioning clarity on this one.
To be honest I didn’t answer that point because I find it a grueling question to answer. It’s a moral dilemma of the sort that gives me headaches just thinking about the fact that it exists. I think I sort of answered above, by expanding on Truman’s seat as re responsibility for his citizens. I’ll add to that the fact that the moral standard in 1945 had become that attacks on civilians was an acceptable tactic and strategy. From that vantage point I think the answer must be that it was preferable to lose a higher gross number of lives through a higher net number of lives on the enemy side, be those civilian or soldiers alike. Today I would have to say that the moral and ethical situation is somewhat different (much thanks to the hindsight we have on these events no less), which makes it even harder to answer such a question.
Funny how it all ended in here, and with fireworks and all, as you put it. In the end it seems we agree on the greater picture while there are points where we differ in interpretation at the core, points that are in all cases contentious (I guess that’s why they call it a debate).
You made good points Whack-a-Mole, (as did Ringo, Jodi, Tristan (other thread) and everyone else who took part from ‘the opposition’) and even if it got heated for a little bit there (which you missed, but still) it was a pleasure to debate the question with you, it made me think it all over again and that is always healthy on issues like these.
I’ll go post a link to this place in the other thread now, for the sake of order.
They ripped up you posters because they could not belive anyone could be that stupid. The world has nukes. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. All of the dope smoking and wishing isn’t going to help. It’s been invented and there is no way to univent it. Nukes are power and nobody wants to give up their power because if they do they will be swallowed by a bigger fish that still has nukes.
