> For Japanese casualties, the predictions were essentially limitless, since the plans included bombing every city in the invasion’s path with the tactics used on Tokyo. Viewed through this pitiless lens, Hiroshima and Nagasaki not only saved 100,000 American lives but also forced Emperor Hirohito to surrender, saving millions of Japanese lives and turning the country into a bastion of democracy and one of America’s most valued allies.
This keeps being repeated. The US's own survey corps concluded that the nuclear bombing was unnecessary for ensuring a Japanese surrender, and in all likelihood was instead to ensure Japan surrendered to the US and not to Russia.
Beside that, I like the idea that the nuclear bombing saved numerous lives of the Japanese, who did not have to experience and die in fire bombings or being recruited to fight on the streets, in the fields, and in the mountains. The battle of Iwo Jima [1] can serve as an example how bloody such fights might be.
In 1945, the Japanese Empire was training schoolchildren to fight with bayonets and sharpened bamboo logs, to make them part of land defense operations. The nukes made the emperor surrender and prevented all that.
My ancestors also fought in WWII. So did most people's — it was a world war, after all.
Does this author think that having ancestors who fought in WWII makes him special, or his opinion more valid?
nine_k · 8m ago
It makes his ancestors opinion, which he mentioned, more valid.
mhh__ · 4m ago
No but it's very high status amongst affluent dinner party types in the west to communicate in these entropyless parochialisms.
PaulHoule · 15m ago
... it drives me crazy that there is a drumbeat over this every year in the US, which feels some real guilt over this and has had some reconciliation of it with Japan whereas people in China, Korea and elsewhere in Asia are 1000x angrier about what Japan did to them than how Japan is angry with the US and where there has been much less reconciliation.
Sometimes I wonder if it's just an attempt to keep a cloud spread over atomic energy.
nine_k · 2m ago
Believe it or not, there are people who think that a world without nuclear warheads and the MAD equilibrium [1] would be safer. This is despite the millennia of such world existing, and being plagued with constant wars fought with conventional weapons.
This keeps being repeated. The US's own survey corps concluded that the nuclear bombing was unnecessary for ensuring a Japanese surrender, and in all likelihood was instead to ensure Japan surrendered to the US and not to Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Strategic_Bombin...
In 1945, the Japanese Empire was training schoolchildren to fight with bayonets and sharpened bamboo logs, to make them part of land defense operations. The nukes made the emperor surrender and prevented all that.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima
Does this author think that having ancestors who fought in WWII makes him special, or his opinion more valid?
Sometimes I wonder if it's just an attempt to keep a cloud spread over atomic energy.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction