WWII is an exception to the rule, most wars in modern times were not unconditional, or close to unconditional. Those longing for the “goog old days” need to go back to ancients times when cities were burnt, all the men killed or enslaved, the women raped and enslaved, and children thrown to the dogs
I really can’t see even engaging in a debate with someone who holds that viewpoint, as the atomic bomb was built to be used against Germany. We might as well negate if we hated Japan because their flag was red and white.
I’m sorry I don’t understand. I’ve heard people say that we didn’t have to use the bombs on Japan and we did because of racism. But I don’t see the evidence for that, or the sense in it.
I think our decisions at the end of the war were made based on rational strategic and political concerns, not racism. Racism, hatred, vengence, and other things may have been on some or many people’s minds, but if it was a motivating factor we would have done much worse things to both Germany and Japan.
Please note that I’m not calling you out on this. I’m saying that people who are so completely ignorant of the situation yet still argue something something completely baseless are not worth the time. I’m not saying that you have those views.
Obviously we don’t want rape and genocide, but I think people forget why war became more limited in the 20th century after WWII. It wasn’t because we became more moral. It was because we had to keep one eye on the Soviet Union and they had to keep one eye on us.
NOw of course we THINK we are more moral because we haven’t been through a big war in 70 years, but people forget about the changing views on war between WW1 and WW2. The British and French didn’t start bombing civilians until the Germans did. Prior to that, during the “Phony War” stage, they were dropping leaflets. Bombing strategic targets was unthinkable because get this, “It’s private property.” I’m sure that if WW3 is conventional it will start in much the same way, with NATO trying to keep it civilized and “modern”, but if the Russians or Chinese or whoever take the gloves off and there’s blood in the streets of NATO countries, we’ll go right back to total warfare in a heartbeat. And once that line is crossed, it’ll be unconditional surrender all over again unless nukes make such a stance impossible.
But anyway, I’m digressing from the point I wanted to make. The problem with limited war today, just as it would have been in WW2, is that it can actually cause more and prolonged suffering, plus it tells every tinpot dictator in the world that the worst that can happen to them if they make trouble in the world is a small humiliation that probably doesn’t threaten their hold on power in the slightest and might even increase their prestige if they are in an irrational enough part of the world. Containment and limited warfare are policies tailored to a certain geopolitical reality that existed for a short period, the COld War. The Cold war is over and we’ve returned to a world that looks a lot more like the world that existed in the 1920s and 1930s, complete with an angry, defeated former power that doesn’t really believe it lost and is trying to get back some territory. The next war will be a lot more like the war against Japan.
The allies were every bit as determined that Germany’s surrender would be unconditional, and in fact they prioritized it over Japan, (including the US, despite PH) and they were every bit as willing to do massively destructive bombing raids (see Dresden).
And then, of course, they were so determined to “eradicate” the Japanese, the US gave billions towards its reconstruction.
I have no idea what you are talking about. If you have some problem with my argument you could try making an argument for whatever your point of view is.
This exactly. If someone were to strongly argue that it was racism which was the reason for bombing Japan, they are talking out of their ass. TriPolar has not made that argument, but reports that there are people who do.
No one is claiming that there was no anti-Japanese racism in WWII. That’s an absurd straw-man.
There certainly was. Look at war-era propaganda.
What’s actually being denied is that racism was involved in the decision to end the war conclusively, or in dropping nuclear weapons. Since the bombs were set to be dropped on Germany, if they hadn’t been defeated already, the racism charge is vacuous.
This was not because of the Niihau Incident, it was pure racism. Don’t whitewash it.
My argument is that the racism did not play a part in the planning for the end of the war, nor had anything to do with the decision to firebomb the cities or drop the two atomic bombs.
It looks like the OP is long gone, but one answer to why it was necessary to force Japan to surrender sooner than later was the number of Allied civilian deaths. If you include deaths from famine and disease which could have been prevented had the Japanese not been occupying their counties, something like 100,000 Allied civilians (the majority of which were Chinese) were dying weekly.
Had the bombs not been available, the Soviets not entered the war and the worst case of martial law in Japan, another 5 to 10 million people would likely have died.
It was not a pretty war, and the Allies had to do many ugly things in order to prevent even uglier atrocities.
I had relatives who died fighting in the Pacific. I was also married to a Japanese, and both of my ex-parents-in-law survived the firebombings of Tokyo. My ex-MIL’ family went one way in their escape and their neighbors went another. The neighbors didn’t survive. As the oldest son, my ex-FIL threw the yet unexploded napalm bomb out of their makeshift shelter in their backyard. It blew up minutes later in the street.
I had a great friend who survived the bomb at Nagasaki. (I lived less than a mile from the epicenter.) The father of one girlfriend was a Zero pilot who did make it through the war.
After first spending time there in 1981, I lived in Japan for a total of more than 25 years, and watched TV programs giving the Japanese side to the events as well as studying from the American side.
Given the situation on August 6th, 1945, and especially looking at how things played out after, as horrible as it was, it was a necessary evil, a few shared by many Japanese leaders and scholars.
I’m still here. Thanks for your long, detailed feedback.
My view that may seem bizarre, but I think the A-bombings were 100% justified while the Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo was a sadistic atrocity and unjustified. Even though both killed tens of thousands.
Actually there were plenty of German and Italian nationals locked up and sent to concentration camps on very flimsy grounds, though obviously not to the extent that Japanese Americans were.
Indeed? We had German POW camps and Japanese Internment camps in Arkansas, but I never heard of camps for Germans or Italians. Were German or Italian nationals imprisoned in existing Federal prisons?
