> There was a great quote from the Scott Meyers video the other day at DConf, "If we don't do our job right, people could LIVE!"
He left out the next part though: "And if those people LIVE, others will DIE!"
I mean, you want to talk about ironic: Consider the atomic bombing of Japan. To the extent that it contributed in any meaningful way whatsoever to avoiding a land invasion of Japanese (American, Soviet, or both) it saved more Japanese lives than died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, to say nothing of the Allied servicemembers staring down the barrel of the Japanese gun.
>I mean, you want to talk about ironic: Consider the atomic bombing of Japan. To the extent that it contributed in any meaningful way whatsoever to avoiding a land invasion of Japanese (American, Soviet, or both) it saved more Japanese lives than died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, to say nothing of the Allied servicemembers staring down the barrel of the Japanese gun.
Yeah. Shame that no bomb and no invasion was necessary either, the Japanese were already literally begging to surrender, and they only asked for a few trivial conditions in exchange. It was just a way to live test the bomb on people, send the world a message, and kickstart the cold war to not let the Soviets get any ideas.
> the Japanese were already literally begging to surrender, and they only asked for a few trivial conditions in exchange
Who specifically was begging to surrender?
There were elements within the government willing to surrender, and the "few trivial conditions" they wanted were more or less the terms eventually agreed by the Allies. But they weren't in power.
The elements within the government who were in power had far more than a "few trivial conditions" as their requirements for surrender. E.g.: "Kido [a confidant of the Emperor] proposed [in June 1945] that Japan withdraw from the formerly European colonies it had occupied provided they were granted independence, that Japan disarm provided this not occur under Allied supervision, and that Japan for a time be "content with minimum defense." Kido's proposal did not contemplate Allied occupation of Japan, prosecution of war criminals or substantial change in Japan's system of government."
This was decided before the Potsdam Declaration and before serious overtures to the Soviet Union, and those conditions would have been completely unacceptable to the Allies and to the populations of those Allies (especially given Japanese treatment of Allied POWs).
Even in May 1945 as meetings were taking place among the actual Japanese leadership to discuss the possibility of surrender, the leaders of Japan had to be very careful: "Because anyone openly supporting Japanese surrender risked assassination by zealous army officers, the meetings were closed to anyone except the Big Six, the Emperor, and the Privy Seal."
There is still a moral question of killing civillians versus killing volunteer soldiers versus killing conscripted soldiers.
Then you need to remember there were two bombings of Japan. Was the second one necessary to prevent a land invasion of Japan? Furthermore it seems likely that a combined soviet/american land invasion would have prompted nearly as quick of a surrender as the atomic bombings.
Of course we can play these "what-if" games all day; the people at the time needed to make a decision, and I don't think it was all that bad of a decision with the information they had.
When the use of deadly force is appropriate is the biggest open question in ethics IMO.
Before the atomic bombs were dropped, thousands of conventional bombs were dropped on Tokyo. For example in one night 1700 bombs were dropped on Tokyo killing 100,000 in what some call the "the single deadliest air raid of World War II"
From your link: "Curtis LeMay ordered the bombers to drop incendiary bombs to burn Japan's vulnerable wood-and-paper buildings."
Not just conventional bombs, they deliberately burned a hundred thousand innocent people to death. Not nearly enough people know about this atrocity, especially in relation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
> Furthermore it seems likely that a combined soviet/american land invasion would have prompted nearly as quick of a surrender as the atomic bombings.
Perhaps (there always remains the question of where the Soviets would have found the needed amphibious shipping to make it happen, of course).
But even if we assume it happens, now we have another Korea split into a Communist and non-Communist bloc. Great improvement, no?
You're right about what-if games though... I'm just glad the decision wasn't mine to have to make, especially with those ethical questions still not fully settled even to this day.
Well, I've heard[from whom?] speculation that the Japanese were on the verge of surrender anyway, and that dropping an atomic bomb was more about the US showing off their new toy and flexing their muscles than anything else. Basically kicking someone when they were down to show how hard they could kick.
Thus, instead of potentially losing the lives of soldiers on either side, or possibly losing not that many lives thanks to surrender, they caused massive civilian casualties (a total of up to 240,000 deaths according to Wikipedia), plus plans for seven more after they saw how great the first two were.
Thus, even if you argue that the atomic bombs did save soldiers' lives, they killed far more civilians, and could be argued to be war crimes which did less to encourage a Japanese surrender than Moscow's entrance into the war against Japan.
Well that's a good question you ask yourself, since speculation is just that.
There were certainly elements within the Japanese government that had wished to surrender for a long time, but the government was not in power: The military was. And the military leadership was not going to surrender.
Even after the news came of the Nagasaki bombing (when the Japanese leadership had finally got around to meeting to discuss Hiroshima), the question of whether to surrender (after 2 bombings) came to a 3-3 tie. Emperor Hirohito himself broke the tie in favor for peace.
After recording his surrender announcement for broadcast the next day, elements of the Imperial Japanese Army rebelled, killed the Prime Minister, and invaded the Imperial Palace looking for the recording (which was kept safe by one of Hirohito's advisers at great personal risk). You simply can't try to evaluate 1945 Japan in 2014 Western terms, you have no clue what the thinking was like.
> Thus, even if you argue that the atomic bombs did save soldiers' lives
I'm arguing that they saved Japanese civilian lives. Again, you have no baseline for what WWII was like if you think soldiers were the only ones to die in land combat. Look at the Battle of Okinawa for an example of what the Japanese Army did to the civilians of Okinawa.
And if you want to remove "speculation" from your vocabulary, I recommend Michael Kort's "The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb".
I honestly don't know much about this topic but i was curious and found an article (http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html) that seems to indicate that japan was willing to surrender for months prior to the bombs, but not unconditionally, but the united states and the UK refused anything but an unconditional surrender.
It also discusses how conventional bombs were doing a fine job of systematically destroying the country (and population), waiting would have likely produced the same effect as japan was blockaded and staving, as a show of force a military base would have been just as effective and how "Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population."
It finishes with "General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of US Army forces in the Pacific, stated on numerous occasions before his death that the atomic bomb was completely unnecessary from a military point of view: "My staff was unanimous in believing that Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender.""
It doesn't seem like there is much to speculate on. However this is a random internet article and could be rather biased.
>elements of the Imperial Japanese Army rebelled, killed the Prime Minister
> It also discusses how conventional bombs were doing a fine job of systematically destroying the country (and population), waiting would have likely produced the same effect as japan was blockaded and staving
So now ask yourself:
Is it ethically better to use conventional weaponry to kill more people over a longer time? Conventional weaponry was used to firebomb Tokyo in March 1945; more people died in that one series of day/night raids than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
And they're saying this was better.
They're also claiming that having a Japan "blockaded and starving" while we waited them out is ethically better.
However difficult it is to precisely target an atom bomb, starvation is even more difficult to use as a weapon (as they're proposing): it doesn't obey rules of engagement, you can't direct at military objectives... hell, it would actually preferentially kill civilians, starting with the weakest, since the military would ensure they received higher rations.
And this is always how this argument devolves: People suggesting things which are actually even more cruel since they find it axiomatic that there is no worse thing you can do to someone than to use a single very big bomb to kill them instead of a million tiny little cumulative cuts.
(Edited to correct the subject proposing the bomb-'em-all argument).
As far as MacArthur, he and his staff were certainly not alone in their estimate of the political situation in Japan. FDR's military aide, Adm. Leahy, also thought that the bomb was unnecessary, as did Adm. Nimitz in Honolulu.
On the other hand, Leahy also thought the bomb would never work (he even used his "expertise in explosives" to support that argument).
And both FDR and Truman had been briefed regarding the two proposed upcoming invasions (of Kyushu and then Honshu) that the American and Japanese casualties would be monumental.
MacArthur was always thought he was the politician as much as he was the general; it's the reason he was fired from his service in the Korean War despite his absolutely brilliant orchestration of the Incheon landings to save the war effort for the U.N.
He's not even wrong in this regard though: Using the atom bomb was not absolutely militarily essential. As your article mentions, we could simply haved starved them all to death instead, like the ethical and noble creatures that we are.
He left out the next part though: "And if those people LIVE, others will DIE!"
I mean, you want to talk about ironic: Consider the atomic bombing of Japan. To the extent that it contributed in any meaningful way whatsoever to avoiding a land invasion of Japanese (American, Soviet, or both) it saved more Japanese lives than died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, to say nothing of the Allied servicemembers staring down the barrel of the Japanese gun.