[quote]theuofh wrote:
but it presented the best opportunity to test the weapons and display their power as a strategic deterrent against further Soviet aggression. [/quote]
Nuking a bunch of civilians…
That seems like a pretty tall order for Truman to go through with for international chest thumping.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
By the way, who has the US attacked preemptively other than a Bosnia or Libya (which I didn’t necessarily support FTR)?
[/quote]
Every war started by the US government has been preemptive war.
[/quote]
Which wars would those be?[/quote]
All of them. I’m also including those where they did not specifically start it but entered it without being attacked first.
WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam,…[/quote]
WWII? Ever hear of Pearl Harbor?
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]theuofh wrote:
but it presented the best opportunity to test the weapons and display their power as a strategic deterrent against further Soviet aggression. [/quote]
Nuking a bunch of civilians…
That seems like a pretty tall order for Truman to go through with for international chest thumping. [/quote]
We fire bombed nearly every major city in Japan before we dropped the nuke, civilian targets and not military. Plus it was said before, Japan went looking for a fight, started a war, and got what they were looking for.
It wasn’t international chest thumping, Russia was a direct and credible threat and WWII morphed directly into the Cold War.
Truman gets more credit than he deserves. Stalin knew about the atomic bomb project before he did, FDR kept him in the dark, and he was a puppet of the Democratic political machine which was less of joke then than it is now.
[quote]theuofh wrote:
I’ve also come across some narratives in the historiography that say Japan was close to surrendering regardless, but it presented the best opportunity to test the weapons and display their power as a strategic deterrent against further Soviet aggression. Note, in this interpretation American lives were also spared.
[/quote]
Ah, what Soviet aggression? In 1945? Against the Germans? The Tatars? The Kalmyks?
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
[quote]theuofh wrote:
I’ve also come across some narratives in the historiography that say Japan was close to surrendering regardless, but it presented the best opportunity to test the weapons and display their power as a strategic deterrent against further Soviet aggression. Note, in this interpretation American lives were also spared.
[/quote]
Ah, what Soviet aggression? In 1945? Against the Germans? The Tatars? The Kalmyks?
[/quote]
Start w/ Poland. There’s a reason Brzezinski hates the Soviets.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
So, in 1945 we already knew about the Cold War beginning? [/quote]
Yeah, we did.
Leslie Groves: “There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge of [the Manhattan] Project, any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy, and the Project was conducted on that basis.”
Szilard on Byrnes (who was the one who clued Truman in on the MP): “[He believed that] our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable in Europe.”
Truman on the longevity and prospects of Japanese resistance: “[Stalin is planning to] be in the Jap War on August 15th. Fini Japs when that comes about.”
Also, however, important to remember that the bombing of civilians was, at the time, simply the business of war. Meetinghouse killed more, immediately, than did the nukes.
Some mention of accidental strikes in this analysis by the Economist, which believes that nukes are making a comeback.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
So, in 1945 we already knew about the Cold War beginning? [/quote]
Yeah, we did.
Leslie Groves: “There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge of [the Manhattan] Project, any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy, and the Project was conducted on that basis.”
Szilard on Byrnes (who was the one who clued Truman in on the MP): “[He believed that] our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable in Europe.”
Truman on the longevity and prospects of Japanese resistance: “[Stalin is planning to] be in the Jap War on August 15th. Fini Japs when that comes about.”
Also, however, important to remember that the bombing of civilians was, at the time, simply the business of war. Meetinghouse killed more, immediately, than did the nukes.[/quote]
Nobody but nobody liked Stalin. They needed him for the war in Europe but nobody had friendly goals.
It’s worth repeating that aerial bombardment at the time was rudimentary and the sheer scope of the war and targets necessitated a different approach. No precision munitions, no radar guidance, no cruise missiles (well, ok, basic prototypes in the V2 rockets but nothing remotely recognizeable or with targeting capabilities), no ANYTHING.
The physics technology and logistics of planes and munitions were simply just not in the favor of precision anything as we know it now. And it’s also very worth repeating that there was a philosophical difference in how war was waged at this time as well that plays into carpet bombing and all the rest.
The nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a tragedy. I don’t think anybody can say anything else, but so was the firebombing of Dresden and a hundred other aerial missions. It was not however, as some in other circles are fond of saying, a war crime or outside of the framework of war at the time. Fortunately I have not seen anyone say it was a “crime” here on this forum for many years lol.
[quote]UtahLama wrote:
Most planners had the U.S. losses in the MILLIONS, for an invasion.
Never mind the fact that Japan started the fucking war.
You cannot really be serious with this.[/quote]
That’s actually apparently a misquotation or some such.
The actual number is “~100,000” possible casualties in the initial invasion, and going into “hundreds of thousands” over the course of the entire fight. A far cry from millions, but certainly not a pretty number.
In any case, Japan was prepared to fight to the death, and probably would have done so if it weren’t for the nukes + Russia joining the fight.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
It was not however, as some in other circles are fond of saying, a war crime or outside of the framework of war at the time. Fortunately I have not seen anyone say it was a “crime” here on this forum for many years lol.[/quote]
I don’t think even the most leftist among us would make that conclusion.
However, Lemay said:
“Killing Japanese didn’t bother me very much at that time… I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal… Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you’re not a good soldier.”
Which illustrates the moral relativism required on the nation-state level to effectively protect true national security interests. It’s a philosophical topic that extends far back into antiquity and I believe formally now referred to as “Just War Theory”.
I do think this discussion has illustrated that there tends to be a more white-washed consensus of US history, that a deeper looks tends to demolish.
This is one of my main criticisms of the moral/christian right as they tend to cling very strongly to the moral high ground and can’t tolerate any moral ambiguity, and even pointing it out can instigate accusations of “treason” and “unpatriotic” behavior.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
So, in 1945 we already knew about the Cold War beginning? [/quote]
Yeah, we did.
Leslie Groves: “There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge of [the Manhattan] Project, any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy, and the Project was conducted on that basis.”
Szilard on Byrnes (who was the one who clued Truman in on the MP): “[He believed that] our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable in Europe.”
Truman on the longevity and prospects of Japanese resistance: “[Stalin is planning to] be in the Jap War on August 15th. Fini Japs when that comes about.”
Also, however, important to remember that the bombing of civilians was, at the time, simply the business of war. Meetinghouse killed more, immediately, than did the nukes.[/quote]
Nobody but nobody liked Stalin. They needed him for the war in Europe but nobody had friendly goals.
It’s worth repeating that aerial bombardment at the time was rudimentary and the sheer scope of the war and targets necessitated a different approach. No precision munitions, no radar guidance, no cruise missiles (well, ok, basic prototypes in the V2 rockets but nothing remotely recognizeable or with targeting capabilities), no ANYTHING.
The physics technology and logistics of planes and munitions were simply just not in the favor of precision anything as we know it now. And it’s also very worth repeating that there was a philosophical difference in how war was waged at this time as well that plays into carpet bombing and all the rest.
The nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a tragedy. I don’t think anybody can say anything else, but so was the firebombing of Dresden and a hundred other aerial missions. It was not however, as some in other circles are fond of saying, a war crime or outside of the framework of war at the time. Fortunately I have not seen anyone say it was a “crime” here on this forum for many years lol.[/quote]
I agree with more or less everything you’ve written here.
I do think that it’s a mistake to downplay the extent to which Hiroshima and Nagasaki were meant to communicate a particular message to Stalin. Some of the most important people involved explicitly said as much. And this should figure into our moral evaluation of the events.
I also think it’s worth keeping in mind that it was well understood by the people who made and decided to drop the bomb that they were doing something categorically new, different, more serious – that they were doing more than simply blowing some shit up. Oppenheimer’s destroyer of worlds rhetoric comes to mind, but so too does his remark that the notion at Alamogordo was that the birth of a new age had been witnessed. This was not simply considered a bigger version of conventional bombs – and rightfully so.
In sum, I think it important to be able to have a “complicated” opinion of something – to be able to understand that, for technological and other reasons, war was conducted differently in the middle of the twentieth century (and we were very legitimately at war with the Japanese), while also being able to understand that there is really no worldview worth subscribing to that does not regard with solemn regret an event in which kids’ eyeballs ran down their faces like meltwater. The simple fact is that the bomb was complicated, the situation was complicated, and neither those for nor those against have a monopoly on the evidence. The evidence, as it so often is, is a matter of shades of gray.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
So, in 1945 we already knew about the Cold War beginning? [/quote]
Yeah, we did.
Leslie Groves: “There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge of [the Manhattan] Project, any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy, and the Project was conducted on that basis.”
Szilard on Byrnes (who was the one who clued Truman in on the MP): “[He believed that] our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable in Europe.”
Truman on the longevity and prospects of Japanese resistance: “[Stalin is planning to] be in the Jap War on August 15th. Fini Japs when that comes about.”
Also, however, important to remember that the bombing of civilians was, at the time, simply the business of war. Meetinghouse killed more, immediately, than did the nukes.[/quote]
Nobody but nobody liked Stalin. They needed him for the war in Europe but nobody had friendly goals.
It’s worth repeating that aerial bombardment at the time was rudimentary and the sheer scope of the war and targets necessitated a different approach. No precision munitions, no radar guidance, no cruise missiles (well, ok, basic prototypes in the V2 rockets but nothing remotely recognizeable or with targeting capabilities), no ANYTHING.
The physics technology and logistics of planes and munitions were simply just not in the favor of precision anything as we know it now. And it’s also very worth repeating that there was a philosophical difference in how war was waged at this time as well that plays into carpet bombing and all the rest.
The nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a tragedy. I don’t think anybody can say anything else, but so was the firebombing of Dresden and a hundred other aerial missions. It was not however, as some in other circles are fond of saying, a war crime or outside of the framework of war at the time. Fortunately I have not seen anyone say it was a “crime” here on this forum for many years lol.[/quote]
I agree with more or less everything you’ve written here.
I do think that it’s a mistake to downplay the extent to which Hiroshima and Nagasaki were meant to communicate a particular message to Stalin. Some of the most important people involved explicitly said as much. And this should figure into our moral evaluation of the events.
I also think it’s worth keeping in mind that it was well understood by the people who made and decided to drop the bomb that they were doing something categorically new, different, more serious – that they were doing more than simply blowing some shit up. Oppenheimer’s destroyer of worlds rhetoric comes to mind, but so too does his remark that the notion at Alamogordo was that the birth of a new age had been witnessed. This was not simply considered a bigger version of conventional bombs – and rightfully so.
In sum, I think it important to be able to have a “complicated” opinion of something – to be able to understand that, for technological and other reasons, war was conducted differently in the middle of the twentieth century (and we were very legitimately at war with the Japanese), while also being able to understand that there is really no worldview worth subscribing to that does not regard with solemn regret an event in which kids’ eyeballs ran down their faces like meltwater. The simple fact is that the bomb was complicated, the situation was complicated, and neither those for nor those against have a monopoly on the evidence. The evidence, as it so often is, is a matter of shades of gray.[/quote]
Firmly agree with everything you just wrote. I in no way intended to downplay the message we wanted to send to Stalin at all btw, if that’s something you took from my post. In any case, I very firmly agree with the idea that both those in the Project and those who eventually decided to use the bomb were VERY troubled by the thought of this new world. It was frankly unbelievable at the time.
I prefer complicated opinions to black and white in many cases, though not all. The only problem is that they are…well, complicated…to articulate to people with a less thorough grasp any of the subjects at hand in the conversation lol. It makes discussion an absolute nightmare until you find someone who can dig it.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Firmly agree with everything you just wrote. I in no way intended to downplay the message we wanted to send to Stalin at all btw, if that’s something you took from my post. In any case, I very firmly agree with the idea that both those in the Project and those who eventually decided to use the bomb were VERY troubled by the thought of this new world. It was frankly unbelievable at the time.[/quote]
Nope, not at all – I just wanted to clarify my position, which is that there isn’t a simple answer as to the “why.”
[quote]
I prefer complicated opinions to black and white in many cases, though not all. The only problem is that they are…well, complicated…to articulate to people with a less thorough grasp any of the subjects at hand in the conversation lol. It makes discussion an absolute nightmare until you find someone who can dig it.[/quote]
Very well said. The way I tend to put it is that generally – not always, but generally – if I can’t argue both sides to myself with at least some success, I probably don’t understand the debate well enough to have an opinion.
[quote]theuofh wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
It was not however, as some in other circles are fond of saying, a war crime or outside of the framework of war at the time. Fortunately I have not seen anyone say it was a “crime” here on this forum for many years lol.[/quote]
I don’t think even the most leftist among us would make that conclusion.
However, Lemay said:
“Killing Japanese didn’t bother me very much at that time… I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal… Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you’re not a good soldier.”
Which illustrates the moral relativism required on the nation-state level to effectively protect true national security interests. It’s a philosophical topic that extends far back into antiquity and I believe formally now referred to as “Just War Theory”.
I do think this discussion has illustrated that there tends to be a more white-washed consensus of US history, that a deeper looks tends to demolish.
This is one of my main criticisms of the moral/christian right as they tend to cling very strongly to the moral high ground and can’t tolerate any moral ambiguity, and even pointing it out can instigate accusations of “treason” and “unpatriotic” behavior.
[/quote]
Apologies for being unclear with my original post. I don’t believe anybody here has said that or believes that the Bomb was a crime. I was making a general aside at some of the more troubling fringe beliefs that completely lack historical understanding.
Agree on what you term “moral relativism on the nation-state level”, but I prefer the term “anarchy”. I believe morals are still applicable and relevant–and must be so to be termed “morals”-- but the enforcement of them is up to “those who can”. In other words, the state of nature determined by force logistics and politics.
I could make the same accusation in reverse to many of the left as well. I actually do not think this is a christian/moral right thing as much as a human thing. Humans want black and white, us/them, belonging to a group. Boundaries mean clear limits and clear understanding of what is “acceptable” and what is not. It just so happens that many people on the left pick different areas than those on the right. Humans also don’t want to be bossed around, and that also takes place, though with different manifestations, on both the left and right.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
I prefer complicated opinions to black and white in many cases, though not all. The only problem is that they are…well, complicated…to articulate to people with a less thorough grasp any of the subjects at hand in the conversation lol. It makes discussion an absolute nightmare until you find someone who can dig it.[/quote]
Very well said. The way I tend to put it is that generally – not always, but generally – if I can’t argue both sides to myself with at least some success, I probably don’t understand the debate well enough to have an opinion.[/quote]
Quite true. I have personal problems with that though, frankly. I actually thought about this subject in depth many nights and evenings when I was in grade school, and my problem is that I actually believe one side to be better than the other and can’t argue a position that I think is faulty or bullshit on technicalities. In other words, I knew then I would make a horrible lawyer hahaha. It is one reason I avoided debate team in high school–if my analysis persuades me that one side is correct, then how can I argue what I believe is a thoroughly losing side in the pro/con reversal?
I know that’s not what you were saying of course, but it was just an aside.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
I could make the same accusation in reverse to many of the left as well. I actually do not think this is a christian/moral right thing as much as a human thing. [/quote]
Thank you for pointing this out.
I’m in agreement and I think the next step in the development of the human race will be when the idealogues on both sides can start exploring and integrating some of the darker sides of the human experience.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
In other words, I knew then I would make a horrible lawyer hahaha.[/quote]
I came pretty close to going to law school, and I’ve always wondered how I would’ve done with this if I’d gone into criminal defense. Could I look at somebody and care not about whether he did it but only about whether I can convince people that the government hasn’t offered sufficient evidence in support of the conclusion beyond reasonable doubt that he did it? My first reaction is that I couldn’t. But, then, everything that is good about the law requires that a large number of people be willing to do exactly that.
You could have worked as a prosecutor.