Actually, it wasn't lucky at all.

Truman did issue an ultimatum at the Potsdam conference. This ultimatum was for an unconditional surrender or else. This was ineffective for at least two reasons:

1) The Japanese had, much like the rest of the world, not seen the atomic bomb in action. It was a closely guarded secret, even after the Trinity test. William Laurance, the government paid journalist who published some of the most famous reportings of the Manhattan Project, wrote his stories as the development went on, but none were published until after the bombs were dropped. In other words, no demonstration was attempted.

2) The Potsdam ultimatum did not include the clause that allowed the Japanese to keep their Emperor as a figurehead. Recall that the final surrender after the bombs were dropped included this clause.

It wasn't luck that they surrendered. Stalin, as mentioned in Truman's journal, told Truman of Japanese peace feelers that were contacting the USSR. The Japanese were getting owned in the war. General MacArthur recognized this. General Eisenhower recognized it. Others did as well. The Japanese were always interested in a deal involving the Emperor remaining in control. Truman was interested in not appeasing, being a hardliner, and controlling the Soviets.

You may argue that the Nagasaki bomb proves that Japan was reluctant to surrender. But that bomb was dropped only three days, hardly adequate time to allow them to surrender. Furthermore, it was not directly ordered by Truman, who was also a bit shocked by how quickly it dropped. Truman's initial order was to drop bombs as they became available; General Groves, a hardliner in charge, decided to accelerate the production of the plutonium bomb that was used on Nagasaki. You can't say that it was necessary because of the timeframe. If the Japanese refused to surrender (under the altered conditions) then you might have a case, but they didn't have a chance.


As to the China nuclear war scenario... I skipped the entire second page of discussion, but did anyone else notice that this threat was only IF the US attacks first?

...enough to destroy every major city in the United States. Yeah, so the US maybe has 400. Good, not only can we kill everyone in China, but we can kill them SIXTY TIMES!

It scares me to think what will happen if a method for producing antimatter in large quantities is ever accomplished. Something like a few pounds (if that) is enough to kill all life on our planet.

You know what would be funny? If the air was flammable, and someone lit a match.

I completely agree with Jedi Legend's post. Well said.

I heard somewhere that most of the scientists working on the manhattan project completely thought that detonating the atomic bomb would create a chain reaction that would destroy our planet.

But... hey. They dropped it anyway. Lucky for us.

That's actually not true. The highest pre-dropping estimate was 60,000. Truman, to justifiy his decision, started with 100,000... then it escalated to 500,000 when he wrote his memoirs.

The inflation of numbers was still a relevant concern when a Enola Gay exhibition was to be opened at the Smithsonian. The veterans were enraged, got a compromise... then one thing in the compromise was changed and the predicted casualty count was put at the pre-dropping number. This caused the veterans to go crazy. The exhibition was scrapped, a testament to the fact that we can't get rid of the post-war justification story told by very persuasive people.


FYI: most of my knowledge of the events comes from the book Hiroshima in America: 50 Years of Denial by Robert Jay Lifton (psychologist) and Greg Mitchell (historian). It has many footnotes and is written by qualified scholars. Obviously the arguments I wrote were extracted from that material, but I want to make sure that people know where I'm getting my facts from since a lot of what is known about the bombings are passed down, often myths. I'm also using general knowledge from history class. Since this debate has been one-sided in American discourse, I think all stating things such as "1 million people were expected to die" should be prepared to defend the source of that information.

I'd recommend reading the book, by the way. It's very interesting.

We didn't defeat Germany, the soviets did.

Somewhere I read that we manufactured so many purple hearts in preparation for the Japanese invasion that to this day we still use ones made for it.

*Sigh*, if only I could remember this topic from AP US History... I wrote a whole paper on the justification of the nuke, and if I recall, with the numbers Truman had at that time, the nuke was a much better option. But yeah, those numbers were no where near accurate to reality, and kept changing due to advisors trying to pull for their propositions.

And I agree with your well-written posts. I didn't see that you had already touched on the Russia peace feelers and Emperor clause arguments before because I was in a hurry to write my monster post. (I was eating fun dip, typing and flipping through the book to confirm that I had something to back my arguments up.)

No...that was an early thought that it would burn all the hydrogen in the air once set off, and it was debunked later on. Manhattan Project Report for Modern US History. \m/

But Brad--we still took France and North Africa, which were two very big parts of the campaign.

I'll admit that 60,000 is a lot. To be honest, the argument I hinge on is the possibility of surrender before dropping the bombs. I wouldn't advocate a full invasion of Japan.

Because this is not a thread on Dresden?

Believe me dude, I'm not as anti-nukes on Japan as you might think. I just believe the Japanese stance on them being launched was completely nonsensical.

It's not a thread on Japan either, nor on World War 2.

Yoshi, that was an insanely fast reply.

Yeah, I don't feel like playing CS:S or WC3, so all I'm doing is surfing atm. :p

I seriously doubt war with China, because of how the US' economy is tied with China's. I've read reports that if we were to stop trade with China, the dollar would collapse.

double you tee eff?

He's right, the Soviets were the first into Berlin. We actually let the Soviets take Berlin. That whole friendship thing and what not. The 101st Airborne was ready (and eager) to drop into Berlin.

JediGandalf that's absolute **** right there.

No 1) America did not let the Soviets take Berlin first.

The Soviets were there then, they had fought to get there. Do not make this look like its all Americans letting people do things and pulling the strings.

No 2) Had you any actually knowledge of WWII (I assume you believe that only America and Russia fought the Nazi's along with heroes such as Batman - mainly cos you've pissed me off)

You'd realise that the USA was very quick to drop Britain as a long term ally. Roosevelt had seen the their empire start to fall into disarray, this led him to start colluding with Stalin. Both sides distrusted each other fiercely though.

No 3) The 101st were ready to drop in Berlin? First time i've ever heard of that, if you could pass along a source it'd be most interesting.

I think that, had it happened, the 101st would now be an extra minutes silence ever year due to their massacre upon landing.

Oh and Emon--all their ICBMs are dismantled and under heavy surveillance. So we'd be able to strike at them before they even got theirs together, if we so choose.

Is there any chance here of America and China fighting a conventional war?

I mean, is it not possible that China may try to invade America or vice-versa. Or is that just to far fetched in the days of Nuclear technology?

I said that on the second page

China must first attack Taiwan. Then we must intervene, WHICH DOES NOT MEAN INVADING CHINA.

Uh, China COULD try an invasion, but it'd be thwarted by our superior water and air vehicles before they could make it here...and we would try an invasion, but it'd be even longer and more drawn out than Iraq...so doubtful.

Shame.

Errr...yes. Isn't it though. I so wanted to invade China too.

I will see about tracing back my source for the million casualty figure. I wrote a paper for my college history class last semester and I definetly remember seeing the number in at least two of them. I don't have the books anymore as they were from the library, but I will look for the paper and its bibliography. I think, however, that part of the confusion may be from the definition of casualty. 60,000 casualties seems like an increadibly low number for the invasion of the Japanese mainland, since there were over 70,000 casualties just in the battle of Okinawa. But those casualties include both deaths and people injured in combat who didn't die. 60,000 seems like a more reasonable number if it is meaning actual deaths, while a million is more conceivable if it means both deaths and soilders injured (though I do admit I've always found the one million number to seem rather high even when viewing it in that light).

They have almost no force-projection capability. The comments this thread is based on are really fairly meaningless. The U.S. wouldn't need to hit targets on Chinese soil to stop an invasion of Taiwan, first because China probably doesn't have the transports to move the troops, and second because the U.S. 7th Fleet can sink anything the Chinese can put in the Taiwan Straight with minimal effort.



Not happening. China won't invade the U.S. because, as stated above, they can't move the troops. I imagine it'll be years before China can invade any country they don't share a land border with. The U.S. won't invade China because, as conventional wisdom tells us, you don't get involved in a land war in Asia.



I'm no economist, but that would surprise me. There are a lot of other countries that would be willing to pick up the slack. But, as you say, there's definitely enough economic interdependence to make war a very unattractive option for both countries.



I don't think this is true either. If I remember correctly what my astronomy prof told us, about 150 lbs of antimatter and an equal amount of matter would create a large enough explosion to level a large city when they annihilate each other.

Science people can feel free to correct me on this.

There wouldn't be an explosion...at least not the fireball kind. Matter and antimatter just annihilate purely into gamma radiation as far as I know.

I stand (partially?) corrected, then.

I know this is a crappy source, but Band of Brothers definitely made it seem that the 101st was eager and ready to drop into Berlin.

This isn't just the policy of the Bush Administration or of the U.S. government. It's a principle of international arms control law that those nations which already have nuclear weapons can keep them, and those that don't have them yet should not develop them.

1.) That's not bull**** at all. Eisenhower let the Russians take Berlin for two reasons. One, because the Russians kept the bulk of the German army completely tied up on the Eastern front and two, because there would be no American/British casualties.

2.) What the hell are you talking about.

3.) Yes, the 101st Airborne would have dropped into Berlin had US forces been used. They were at the Eagle's nest at the time doing nothing.

[QUOTE=Michael MacFarlane]I stand (partially?) corrected, then.[/QUOTE]
Well to continue on this tangent, I just remembered...antimatter reactions release 300 times more energy than fusion reactions (I think). And it only takes a very little plutonium for a fusion nuclear warhead that would level an entire city. Now multiply that by 300. Yeah, I'd say we're all screwed. 150 pounds would probably release enough radiation to decimate our entire solar system. If anything lived it in that is. Brings new meaning to warning labels doesn't it?

Wait wait wait. Britain and the U.S. distrusted each other fiercely? Roosevelt and Churchill were like best of friends.

Edit: The Russians were a lot closer to Berlin than we were. ****, they could have probably throw stones and hit Rommel in the head when it was end of April in 1945.

Not since North Korea got nukes... otherwise we could have had Korea II, the Rematch!

I love being Australian - our glorious PM's 2 favourite past-times are sucking up to Bush, and sucking up to the Chinese. We'll win either way