Why did President Truman decide to drop the atomic bomb?

The generally accepted reason is that there were estimates that the US would lose several hundred thousand men storming the home islands and that the Japanese would not accept defeat otherwise.

I suspect the fact that we'd already beaten the Germans and ended the war in Europe and everyone just wanted things to be over had a lot to do with it too.

I remember learning about this in school and being horrified. But really it’s nothing compared to what the axis was up to. The whole affair is horrid.

We k ow that Hitler was on drugs but what about the Japanese leadership? Also tweaked out?

I think that drug use was behind the whole war if you think about it.

He was POTUS when I was born.

The defense, often pointed with aggressive defensiveness, is that the bombings "saved multitudes of American lives if we had had to invade this nation of crazy kami-kaze types!"

But Japan was in talks to surrender, just not as "unconditionally" as the U.S. demanded (and ultimately got).

Be the military arguments as they may, there is no question that the atomic bombings of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (as opposed to military installations and the Imperial Palace) constituted, indeed were the definitions of, war crimes.

Victory does not lessen that.

Was it ever suggested that Truman did this for his own political advancement? It would be extremely risky. I don’t get that feeling. I think he made the decision as a commander in chief but maybe I give him too much credit.

OK, toots. You start the thread and then crap out two more posts on a subject well-covered here and available in depth in thousands of sites. At R4 you introduce the idiotic notion that it may have been a political winner and maybe your give Truman "too much credit."

STFU and do some personal research. You're giving yourself too much credit. And your credit ain't good here, it seems.

The Toots Troll!!

I always imagine you look and sound like Harvey Fierstein.

These fake threads come around every year at this time to remind us that Red Army won WW2 single handed at Stalingrad while allied bombing in Germany and Eastern Europe was not effective at all. US bombed civilians, not the industrial & military targets. Was joke! US committed war crimes bombing German and Japanese cities from sky while Red Army shed blood on ground for motherland. If Russia did not keep Germany tied up on eastern front Hitler would have continued bombing UK to smithereens.

There was no reason to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Russia had bravely defeated German war machine and could now attack Japan from Eurasia. US drop atom bombs to prevent Russia from invading japan because US wanted all spoils from war with Japan. It was racist imperialism!

yikes I was going down a Google rabbit hole not trying to start world war 3.

He dropped the bomb because he had the balls and the leadership to do it to end the fucking threat from the Pacific.

He consulted a Magic 8 Ball and got the answer: most definetely

Bess wanted to see if it actually worked.

He did because his administration was very concerned that the Soviet Union was going to join the war in the Pacific theater, & become primed to enjoy the spoils of the inevitable victory there. Truman & his advisors wanted to expedite the end of the war on their terms, free of any Soviet contributions.

No one ever mentions the crimes the Russian army committed against the German people after they had all surrendered. They brutality raped and beat the women for one.

Just remember people: One A-bomb did not end WWII; it took TWO before Japan got the message that they needed to surrender.

This is the mentality of the enemy we were dealing with. While your at it, check out the Rape of Nanjing. Stop sugarcoating history; the Japanese were barbaric.

Can you blame them R13?

The Germans had pretty much raped and shot millions of Russians and Ukrainians. Zero pity.

FWIW, the Soviets would also round up German POWs, stick them in camps behind barbed wire fences... and leave them there. No food, no water. Eventually most of them died.

to save lives

The Soviets also tried, when possible, to have their non-white troops from Central Asia and Siberia be the ones to enter German cities once they'd surrendered and get the raping started. (They were, after, all, descendants of the Mongol Hordes)

They knew it would fuck with the German's heads because they weren't white.

Please tell me you’re aware what the Germans did to the Russians R13.

WWII was a terrible period in world history with many sides committing atrocious and horrendous crimes against humanity and nature. The faster it was ended the better.

What the Soviets endured well informs the importance it placed on having a sphere of influence over its bordering countries.

Before the war, the USSR had already emphasized the importance it placed on having a sphere of influence in/ownership of neighboring countries.

Because he wanted to have some fun.

I'm not going to write your 8th grade social studies report for you, OP.

Well, when you starve, beat, and kill allied POWs to the point that they’re walking skeletons, it makes your victorious enemy extremely angry. They also liked to douse starving prisoners in kerosene, tie them to a tree and then burn them alive. Then there’s the captured Doolittle raiders who were flown to Tokyo and then eviscerated alive in front of a bunch of medical students while they were still conscious.

There’s a host of other horrific things that they did such as unit 731, or the millions of Chinese that they killed (never mind what they did elsewhere). In short, the Japanese were every bit as bad as the Germans during WW2, and nuking the bastards gave them an ever so slight idea of the suffering that they had inflicted on others throughout the war.

Elder-farts with Dementia thread. It’s 2021, dears.

Partly the fact that Japan is a group of Pacific Islands and so they figured the damage would be limited, whereas if they dropped it on Hamburg or Dresden it would potentially mess up the whole European continent. Also partly that they preferred killing Asians to Europeans.

[quote] No one ever mentions the crimes the Russian army committed against the German people after they had all surrendered.

They mention it in Germany. Actually, whenever you send an armed group into a civilian population they're pretty much guaranteed to commit atrocities.

[quote] whereas if they dropped it on Hamburg or Dresden it would potentially mess up the whole European continent.

Nuking a German city wasn’t an option as they had surrendered before the bombs were ready.

[quote] dears.

And with that single word, you've exposed yourself as equally as antiquated as the people you mock.

We should’ve dropped some on Afghanistan

R7 starts out partially right, and then goes off the rails.

The USSR does get the lion’s share of credit for defeating Nazi Germany.

But the US gets the same credit for defeating Japan.

Anyone who wonders why Truman authorized the atomic bombs should learn about the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa - abosolute suicidal resistance by the Japanese.

Dropping the atomic bombs not only saved American lives, it saved Japanese lives.

[quote] Nuking a German city wasn’t an option as they had surrendered before the bombs were ready.

And if you recall your history (or current events, given DL), as we were mopping up in Europe, we quickly hustled dozens of German physicists out of Germany before the Soviets could get to them and flew them out to Los Alamos so they could help us finish The Bomb.

[quote] Then there’s the captured Doolittle raiders who were flown to Tokyo and then eviscerated alive in front of a bunch of medical students while they were still conscious.

That didn't happen--that's a myth. Several were executed y firing squad, and a very few died through being imprisoned under starvation conditions, but there were no living eviscerations.

[quote]The crews of two aircraft (10 men in total) were unaccounted for: those of 1st Lt. Dean E. Hallmark (sixth off) and 1st Lt. William G. Farrow (last off). On 15 August 1942, the United States learned from the Swiss Consulate General in Shanghai that eight of the missing crew members were prisoners of the Japanese at the city's police headquarters. Two crewmen drowned after crash-landing in the ocean. On 19 October 1942, the Japanese announced that they had tried the eight prisoners and sentenced them all to death, but said several had received commutation of their sentences to life imprisonment. No names or details were given.

[quote] The story of the missing crews was revealed in February 1946 during a war crimes trial held in Shanghai to try four Japanese officers charged with mistreating the eight captured crewmen. Two of the missing crewmen, bombardier S/Sgt. William J. Dieter and flight engineer Sgt. Donald E. Fitzmaurice of Hallmark's crew, were found to have drowned when their B-25 crashed into the sea. Both of their remains were recovered after the war and were buried with military honors at Golden Gate National Cemetery.

[quote] The other eight were captured: 1st Lt. Dean E. Hallmark, 1st Lt. William G. Farrow, 1st Lt. Robert J. Meder, 1st Lt. Chase Nielsen, 1st Lt. Robert L. Hite, 2nd Lt. George Barr, Cpl. Harold A. Spatz, and Cpl. Jacob DeShazer. On 28 August 1942, Hallmark, Farrow, and gunner Spatz faced a war crimes trial by a Japanese court alleging they strafed and murdered Japanese civilians. At 16:30 on 15 October 1942, they were taken by truck to Public Cemetery Number 1 and executed by firing squad.

[quote] The other captured airmen remained in military confinement on a starvation diet, their health rapidly deteriorating. In April 1943, they were moved to Nanking, where Meder died on 1 December 1943. The remaining men—Nielsen, Hite, Barr and DeShazer—eventually began receiving slightly better treatment and were given a copy of the Bible and a few other books. They were freed by American troops in August 1945. Four Japanese officers were tried for war crimes against the captured Doolittle Raiders, found guilty, and sentenced to hard labor, three for five years and one for nine years. Barr had been near death when liberated and remained behind in China recuperating until October, by which time he had begun to experience severe emotional problems. Untreated after transfer to Letterman Army Hospital and a military hospital in Clinton, Iowa, Barr became suicidal and was held virtually incommunicado until November, when Doolittle's personal intervention resulted in treatment that led to his recovery.[44] DeShazer graduated from Seattle Pacific University in 1948 and returned to Japan as a missionary, where he served for over 30 years

On the internet we traditionally provide links R31, as footnotes don't really work.

“I’d like to say I didn’t intend to kill her, but when you have a gun, you always intend if you have to.”

[quote]But Japan was in talks to surrender, just not as "unconditionally" as the U.S. demanded (and ultimately got).

So what? Why should they have been allowed to have any say in how the war was going to end, other than just giving up?

[quote]there is no question that the atomic bombings of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (as opposed to military installations and the Imperial Palace) constituted, indeed were the definitions of, war crimes.

What was the moral or ethical difference between this and what had already been done to dozens of other Japanese cities? The end result was the same, massive tolls of death and devastation. Nothing else was going to bring Japan to the peace table. And FYI much of Japanese military production was done in individual homes. People would work in their homes manufacturing components for the Japanese military which were then gathered and assembled into ships and aircraft and vehicles.

[quote]we quickly hustled dozens of German physicists out of Germany before the Soviets could get to them and flew them out to Los Alamos so they could help us finish The Bomb.

No, we didn't. We did round up numerous German scientists and engineers and techs (Operation Paperclip), but they didn't arrive and get into American military tech programs until after the war was over. We weren't so much interested in their atomic program (which hadn't gotten very far, we were well ahead of them) as we were in their rocket and jet programs.

As usual, there are people on this site who justify two atomic bombs dropped on one nation, with pathetic justifications. To claim that Pearl Harbor was a reason enough to drop two atomic bombs is typical of brutal imperialist America. Bombing was more than enough as a response. We are talking about decimating thousands of civilians. And you are surprised that you all are hated all around the world. Unbelievable to read such proud monsters

R36

I, for one, am not claiming that Pearl Harbor justified dropping two atomic bombs.

But I AM claiming that the Japanese fanatical resistance on Iwo Jima and Okinawa does.

The bombs saved lives.

[quote]We are talking about decimating thousands of civilians.

As had already happened in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and numerous other Japanese cities. How were the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki any worse than what had already been done? How exactly should the Allies have compelled Japan to surrender other than causing death and destruction on a massive national scale?

R37 No, the two atomic bombs killed 210.000 civilians! It saved your Yankees asses so you are trying to find a way to live with that. Stop being so hypocrite. Jesus, I must be talking with Satan himself. I'm out of this thread. Threw up.

If Atomic Bombs hadn't had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki then they and other cities in Japan would have been fire bombed into oblivion they way Dresden was in Germany. It was quicker and more efficient, in the words of Trump, whom I hate, what is the point in having nuclear bombs if you aren't going to use them. It was all out war at the time, holding back a weapon that no one else had might have been impeachable.

It is doubtful that more lives were lost using atomic bombs instead of traditional bombs.

[quote]No, the two atomic bombs killed 210.000 civilians!

And nearly half that number were killed in Tokyo in a single night. Hundreds of thousands more in other cities. Again, what is the difference between bombing with nukes and with conventional weapons other than the quantity of munitions involved?

[quote] He dropped the bomb because he had the balls and the leadership to do it

Wouldn’t refusing to meet your enemy in a fair fight and engage with them honourably, and instead choosing to murder 200,000 or so civilians and not dip your toes into any combat yourself be the ultimate pussy move?

War isn't about "fair fights" or fighting "honourably", it isn't a boxing match. The goal is to bring one's enemy to defeat as quickly and effectively as possible, inflicting maximum casualties and destruction while limiting one's own losses.

Japanese culture is a cult and was in APEX cult form leading up to and through the war. Also, yes all the armies were hopped up on meth.

R43 mmmmm no it’s not maybe go read up about it. Start with ‘war crimes’.

The Soviets kept POWs into the 1950s. Fuck these Boris trolls and their disinformation. No one has said the Nazis weren’t war criminals, but don’t try to hide your own war crimes or what Stalin did to his own people. Not to mention several Eastern European countries. Sweet Jaysus, STFU.

[quote]Be the military arguments as they may, there is no question that the atomic bombings of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (as opposed to military installations and the Imperial Palace) constituted, indeed were the definitions of, war crimes.

A point Robert McNamara made himself in The Fog of War. Although he was speaking more specifically about the firebombing of Tokyo.

r32, here you go:

[quote] Stop being so hypocrite. Jesus, I must be talking with Satan himself. I'm out of this thread. Threw up.

Oh, the [italic]drama![/italic]

Power is a heady elixir and nobody buys a new toy and doesn’t play with it.

To get to the other side.

[quote]no it’s not maybe go read up about it.

How does one go about fighting a "civilized" war? There are things combatants generally try to avoid, but the more desperate the fight the lower people will go to win.

I asked my grandfather about thiis. He fought in WW2, in the Royal Navy.

His response - 'The Japs wouldn't surrender. Surrender wasn't in their culture. The kamikaze pilots kept crashing into ships and they were prepared to do that for years on end. It was the only way.'

The Germans starved over 1m civilians to death during the siege of St Petersburg. After that, the Russians weren't going to play by the rules.

[quote] Partly the fact that Japan is a group of Pacific Islands and so they figured the damage would be limited, whereas if they dropped it on Hamburg or Dresden it would potentially mess up the whole European continent.

Wrong. They didn’t have the atom bomb until Germany surrendered or they’d have used it. Nobody knew the result of radiation dropped by the bomb. It wasn’t a factor. Besides, we needed the Nazi scientists to help.

Btw, speaking of Russian propaganda, that’s another bit of it. The latest Great Patriotic War YouTubeFB/Twitter shit is to claim US didn’t need the German scientists. They why did USSR & allies rush to Berlin to get the scientists? The people who go along with this fake revision are European (especially British) leftists and American rightwingers. Not much difference between either group, so not a surprise,

[quote] The Germans starved over 1m civilians to death during the siege of St Petersburg. After that, the Russians weren't going to play by the rules

Your leaders made decisions in war that killed people, so I’m going to rape your grandmother to death.

The poster who mentioned that Japan was a cult at the time makes an interesting point. While Hitler was worshiped with a religious fervor, the Emperor was actually a living god in the Shinto religion. One of the terms of the surrender was that the Shinto religion be separated from the state.

As far as Russia defeating the Germans, it bears mentioning that the Lend Lease system by the US enabled the Russians to fight. Russia was much closer to the fighting and could much more easily provide fighters than the US could from a world away but those troops would have never had made it to the front has the US not supplied Russia with trucks. The soldiers might not have even been alive to fight as the Russians would have all starved if not for the food sent by America since their agricultural heartland was occupied by the Germans for much of the war.

[quote] How does one go about fighting a "civilized" war?

Well R52 a good place to start is not committing war crimes.

R34 Ultimately, Japan insisted on one condition: that the person of the Emperor be protected. The U.S. rejected that as not an unconditional surrender. And proceeded to drop the atomic bombs. Then during the Occupation it nonetheless protected the person of the Emperor.

As to Truman, I don't think he gave the bomb a whole lot of thought. He wasn't much brought in if at all on the bombs' development.

He'd been in office only a short time when he had to get up to speed and make a decision. Given the vast resources that had been plowed into the bomb, it would have been beyond extraordinary if he had told the military they could not use their new weapon.

That is, under the wartime climate, it's incomprehensible that a new President, especially one stepping into FDR's shoes, would have said, "No."

[quote]Your leaders made decisions in war that killed people, so I’m going to rape your grandmother to death.

What the Russians did the the German people was wrong, but it's hard to fault them for wanting a full, satisfying measure of revenge. Operation Barbarossa was quite possibly the most deliberately, calculatedly brutal cruel and destructive military campaign in history with aims going far beyond the usual goals of seizing territory and resources. Hitler saw it as a war for survival between the "Aryan" and Slavic peoples, with the victor taking everything.

[quote]a good place to start is not committing war crimes.

Where exactly do you draw the line? And please enlighten us as to how Japan was going to be defeated without doing the things which were done?

Start a thread, r13.

[quote]Ultimately, Japan insisted on one condition: that the person of the Emperor be protected.

They wanted more than that:

"On July 26, 1945, Allied forces signed the Potsdam Declaration giving Japan an ultimatum of unconditional surrender. If refused, the declaration would result in “the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.” Japan did refuse and prepared for an invasion of the home islands. The Japanese felt that the expected high Allied casualties might work in their favor to negotiate better surrender terms. Four conditions were sought: preservation of the Imperial institution, responsibility for their own disarmament, no occupation, and responsibility to conduct any war crime trials."

This was after the bombing of Nagasaki.

R61 you draw the line at war crimes. They’re described in very simple terms - look it up?

R61, There are libraries' worth of tomes debating this very issue. I'm willing to bet they don't all conclude that the answer was what was done.

And in light of current events, never mind Korea, Cuba '62, Vietnam/Pentagon Papers, and Iraq, it's not like we can depend on the truth or wisdom of the arguments, the analyses, the predictions, or the promises of the MIC.

It's a very scary thought that we are now trying to draw moral lines over WWII. It was such total and horrific worldwide destruction that it led to a lot of reform and new consideration for civilians, for ethics and morals, and a better world order. No hands were clean. We are meant to take the lessons from WWII and try to create a better, safer world for everyone.

R63 The key word is "ultimately" and you need to check your history more carefully before posting here.

"August 10, 1945, Japan offered to surrender to the Allies, the only condition being that the emperor be allowed to remain the nominal head of state."

Though yes that offer was made after the bombs had been dropped.

[quote] Hitler saw it as a war for survival between the "Aryan" and Slavic peoples, with the victor taking everything.

More than that.

He saw the Slavs as an inferior race, a half step above Jews and wanted to evict them from the fertile farmland to provide "Lebensraum" for the Aryans to spread out.

Remember too that the Germans had not yet figured out the gas chamber solution yet and were killing the Jews i n the Soviet Union by marching them out of town, having them dig ditches and machine gunning them down.

While Ukrainians and Russians may not have been huge fans of the Jews, they were smart enough to figure out that they were next in line for that treatment. Not to mention that the Germans were killing everyone they suspected of being a Communist or aiding a Communist and treated the Russians like slaves.

A mix of trolls and naivite on this thread.

Lots of kumbayah from people who have never lived through a real war with actual evil enemies.

Given how quickly WWI led into WWII, a big goal was to ensure this never happened again, which at the time meant total and unconditional surrender.

The Germans too, tried to negotiate their way out--they were scared shitless of the Russians and wanted to only surrender to the US

When Truman was vice president FDR despised him and would not let Truman know anything about the bomb, policy etc. Toward the end of FDR's life Truman visited FDR and came home and told Bess "Oh my God he's a dead man". FDR died and Truman had a ton of crap on his plate. He said he never hesitated to authorize the bomb and he never regretted doing it.

Truman's men in the army loved him, their welfare was his highest priority.

[quote]The Germans too, tried to negotiate their way out--they were scared shitless of the Russians and wanted to only surrender to the US

There's a reason why the Nuremberg Trials happened the way they did. The Soviets just wanted to line up the Nazis and shoot them, not allow for trials. The other Allies said fine, we'll just hold separate trials, knowing the Soviets didn't have any high value prisoners, because anyone with any sense surrendered on the Western Front for that very reason.

[quote]you draw the line at war crimes.

That's talk, and rather cheap at that. Especially when you're not among the people trying to bring a final conclusion to the most massive, devastating war in human history. And you never answered the remainder of my question: How was Japan going to be compelled to stop fighting without inflicting death and devastation upon their nation the likes of which they'd never seen before, ore even imagined to be possible?

That poster is just trolling you R73

They figure if they say "war crimes" enough they'll get a reaction.

These are the same people who will tell you that every single US president and secretary of state is guilty of "war crimes"

[quote]Though yes that offer was made after the bombs had been dropped.

So it would seem that the bombs helped motivate the Japanese military leadership to drop the bullshit and accept peace, as opposed to continuing to try to negotiate a truce which would allow them to avoid accountability for their actions and retain the militaristic culture which put them in their dilemma in the first place.

Trump wanted to use nuclear weapons. It was on his bucket list.

Because he couldn't get a decent tamaki role, Rose!

Link, please, R71. From my reading of history, the terminally ill FDR barely knew Truman when he was added to the ticket in ‘44 & the two had very little contact before FDR’s death less than three months after Truman became Vice President.

Truman was given predictions of military deaths involved in the first wave of the Allies upcoming land assault on the Japanese mainland planned for September 1945. They were horrific and likely accurate. He made the right decision.

R73 rationalizing like you’re doing is how war crimes happen. They are inexcusable - and there is not a situation in which a war crime can be an acceptable conclusion. That’s why they’re deemed war crimes. The Japanese were on their way to a surrender, the US were trigger happy and killed 200,000 civilians. Think about that number, 40,000 or so kids, that’s what you’re arguing in favour of. You’re all totally brainwashed by war movies it’s crazy.

R3 is not only an Eldergay but ANCIENT. You were born in the early 40s? HOLY MOLY!!!

[quote] Toward the end of FDR's life Truman visited FDR and came home and told Bess "Oh my God he's a dead man". FDR died and Truman had a ton of crap on his plate.

If only he had married a woman not so into scat!

[quote] The Japanese were on their way to a surrender,

They were trying to negotiate a peace which would allow them to avoid accountability for their actions and would leave the militaristic regime and culture in place. That was not an option. Postwar Japan would have been much like Germany after WW I, denying that they had been defeated or that they had done anything wrong and leaving the door open to resuming their aggressive behavior again in the future. They wanted to stop an occupation of their country, demilitarize on their own terms AND deal with their war crimes on their own in whatever way they saw fit. Defeated nations don’t get to do that. Japan needed to be brought down and rebuilt as a peaceful nation. The aggressive, militaristic culture on which their nation was based had to go.

So what R83 you massacre a bunch of kids as your other option? Also your imperialist side is showing.

Again, how do you defeat Japan without inflicting massive death and devastation until they decide to quit? Stop the evasive bullshit and answer the question or STFU.

Please name the nations not guilty of war crimes during World War fucking Two.

Ooh I have it! It's a small list.

Oz Atlantis The enormous floating unicorn cunt made entirely of jellybeans that R84, etc. hails from.

Two things in the summer of 1945:

1) After the Potsdam Declaration, Japan didn't surrender. This alarmed the US

2) The mass loss of life during the Battle of Okinawa scared the shit out of the US.

Even without the bomb, Japan would have surrendered on or around August 15 because on that day the Soviet Union declared war and entered Manchuria. The Japanese were far more terrified of a Soviet invasion and occupation than an American one. Surrendering to the US made sense to the Japanese elite because like the Americans they hated communists more than anything.

There was chaos and a lack of communication after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese didn't really know what had happened and communications with those areas are spotty. The consensus is that the Soviets really were the wake up call, not the bomb. You won't see that on the History Channel, and the Battle of Okinawa isn't beloved by Americans like the truly insignificant Iwo Jima, but that's the actual history.

The interesting question for me is not about how the war was one, but why the “nation building” in (West) Germany and Japan was so successful?

Nation building is obviously much harder than simply winning a war - the last 20 years shows that.

But both Germany and Japan are stable democracies with strong civil societies now. It’s amazing that we were successful then.

“War was WON” (not “one”)

God damn it - why can’t we have an edit function?

I'd add that the Soviet declaration of war really scared the Japanese for another reason. All throughout the summer of 1945, the Japanese had been making overtures to the Soviets in the hopes that they would help the Japanese negotiate a surrender. The Japanese wanted to surrender on their own terms and preserve the imperial throne. The Potsdam Declaration precluded that. The Japanese finally realized that they couldn't rely on the Soviets as a go-between. They should have realized that long before.

The Americans decided to keep the Emperor for their own reasons, but that's another story.

[quote]It’s amazing that we were successful then.

The Allies brought down the ruling regimes in those countries and rebuilt their nations and cultures from scratch. They were compelled to accept the total failures of the leaders who led them to their destruction.

[quote] The interesting question for me is not about how the war was one, but why the “nation building” in (West) Germany and Japan was so successful?

I answered a similar question in another thread about why the Occupation of Japan was successful whereas Iraq, Vietnam, and others were not.

The answer to yours is related. The Americans had a plan that they had been working on for four years. They had experts who knew Japan and relied on their expertise to rebuild and modify Japanese institutions. The Japanese were sick of war and acknowledged their role in starting it-- it was a war started by Japan, after all, and it was seen as a legitimate defeat.

Japan already had democracy, albeit limited, before WWII, so introducing democratic reforms wasn't a major shock.

Most importantly, the Japanese elite and the Americans agreed on the goals-- preserve the emperor, preserve capitalism and keep out communism at virtually any cost. The reforms suited everyone.

A lot of the same things were true in Germany. Hitler had used the so-called "path of legality" and came to power as an elected leader.

[quote] The Allies brought down the ruling regimes in those countries and rebuilt their nations and cultures from scratch.

Wrong-- they built on institutions already in place. Japan was most certainly not rebuilt from scratch.

R88, both Germany and Japan were wealthy (relatively speaking); had high levels of technological development; were relatively unified prior to war; were not religious in a way that precluded modern life; and several other reasons.

There's also the pretty remarkable fact that Japan and America established a mutually cordial cultural relationship after the war. Sinophobia raised its ugly head in the 1980s, but based on financial paranoia. A generation of American kids grew up loving Japanese comics and monster movies.

Japan was not and never was Afghanistan, for example.

R86 at least you’ll acknowledge it was a terribly violent war crime. I wonder will the US ever apologize. I won’t hold my breath. As recent events in Afghanistan have shown, the US are not equipped to deal with international affairs effectively, maybe they’ll take stock of things.

[quote]The Japanese were far more terrified of a Soviet invasion and occupation than an American one.

How were they going to do that? Those soldiers and tanks weren't just going to get to Japan on their own. The Russians had very little, if anything at all in the way of amphibious invasion capacity. If they were to mount an invasion of any significant force, the U.S. would have had to provide that support.

R95, World War II was, from beginning to end, a terribly violent war crime, you complete and utter fuckstick.

Hope that clarifies things.

[quote]I wonder will the US ever apologize.

Japan can go first. At least the Germans fully owned their shit, Japan has yet to do so.

R75 They made the offer public at that time. Before the bombs were dropped Wahington -- though perhaps not Truman -- was aware that the position of the Emperor was THE one condition the Japanese leadership insisted on.

In the end, only Hirohito himself could waive that condition, and permit Japan to unconditionally surrender.

My great uncle fought in Okinawa but would never discuss it. He had mixed feelings about the bombs. I can’t help thinking any use of nuclear weapons is a crime against humanity. But I realize the luxury I have of not making the decision. Harry S Truman was a practical guy at heart.

I read the Truman biography by McCullough. He was such a simple man, and that’s what I love about him. I agree with everyone that it is wonderful that we don’t carry the burden of having to make life/death decisions that affect hundreds of thousands of people, including women and children, in our occupation. In my career I am a leader (though at the lower end of our leadership structure), so I have learned first hand what it is like to receive criticism for decisions I’ve made where people formulate opinions on my choices without the full information — they often don’t have even 25 % of the facts! But they are oh so quick to share their opinion on what I did.

So I’ve learned a great deal of humility from that, I no longer judge other leaders so quickly. And I’ve also learned that I get it wrong, quite a bit actually. Instead, I try to ask a lot of questions and learn as much as I can about the situation, and I also hold onto the reality that even if I ask ALL the right questions, there are so often still blind spots and biases we have that affect our objectivity. We may identify these later on (or not!). Even after I’ve dissected all the facets of a complex situation, I’m much slower to judge others because I now know that I don’t have all the information. I used to think I had the ability to understand the full context of a challenge; now, I’m much less confident that I have a full grasp on another leader’s decision (unless I was there first-hand).

The truth is that Truman had to make a terrible decision, it was send in tens of thousands of American men to be slaughtered, or suffer no US causalities and get the Japanese to fully submit. Unconditional surrender. Why? Because of their brutality, the pattern of their behavior was so extreme, so sadistic, so cruel, that we had to escalate our response or we wouldn’t get their attention.

I can’t defend dropping two bombs, I just can’t. But I most certainly can say that at the end of the day, Truman understood that he was *more* accountable for loss of American life than Japanese because it was a war. Kill/be killed? He chose kill, because he had a moral obligation to protect American lives. We can all state that we are anti-war, but if you were leading the US, how would you handle another country attacking us? How would you handle a country trying to dominate the world, a country on a suicide mission? If you’ve ever been in street brawls, you understand that sometimes violence must (sadly) be met with violence. That’s kind of how I view these bombings. I’m not sure there was any other way to end this war, and we mostly certainly had to consider the loss of life for our own military first. We can say we are anti-war, but that doesn’t provide any context. Truman had to answer to Americans first.

R98 isn’t that a bit childish? We won’t apologize until you do first? What are you 12?

What amazes me is how well Hiroshima and Nagasaki have recovered. I’ve been to both cities and they are rebuilt and flourishing. I always thought nuclear bombs would render cities unlivable for at least decades or even longer. Of course, Truman could not have known what the longterm results would or wouldn’t be.

[quote] There was no reason to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Russia had bravely defeated German war machine and could now attack Japan from Eurasia. US drop atom bombs to prevent Russia from invading japan because US wanted all spoils from war with Japan. It was racist imperialism!

This.

But it's not what Truman said (though it may have been in the back of his mind):

What Did Harry S Truman Have to Say About His Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb? At the time, the president seemed conflicted over his decision. The day after the Hiroshima bomb was dropped, Truman received a telegram from Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia, encouraging the president to use as many atomic bombs as possible on Japan, claiming the American people believed “that we should continue to strike the Japanese until they are brought groveling to their knees.” Truman responded, “I know that Japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare but I can't bring myself to believe that because they are beasts, we should ourselves act in that same manner. For myself I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the ‘pigheadedness’ of the leaders of a nation, and, for your information, I am not going to do it unless absolutely necessary.”

On August 9, the day the Nagasaki bomb was dropped, Truman received a telegram from Samuel McCrea Cavert, a Protestant clergyman, who pleaded with the president to stop the bombing “before any further devastation by atomic bomb is visited upon her [Japan’s] people.” Two days later, Truman replied, “The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast.”

Looking back, President Truman never shirked personal responsibility for his decision, but neither did he apologize. He asserted that he would not use the bomb in later conflicts, such as Korea. Nevertheless, given the same circumstances and choices that confronted him in Japan in 1945, he said he would do exactly the same thing.

[quote]Toward the end of FDR's life Truman visited FDR and came home and told Bess "Oh my God he's a dead man". FDR died and Truman had a ton of crap on his plate.

Actually Truman made the observation in August of 1944, eight months before FDR died after having been invited by the President for a photo op luncheon with him on the White House lawn. Truman had been approached to be FDR's 1944 running mate and it was decided they should meet. Truman hadn't seen the President close up in awhile, nor were they good friends, so Truman was alarmed at his condition and that FDR could barely hold a coffee cup.

R81, Hello? 1949.

R74, Your point?

The Illegal Invasion of Iraq certainly was a war crime, one of the definitions of which is the unprovoked attack on a non-combatant sovereign nation. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, etc.

Henry Kissinger? Read the linked (very brief) article. Cambodia was illegally bombed. Then there was Agent Orange. Nixon prolonged the Peace Talks, and war, to win in 1972.

McNamara's and LBJ's "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" was a fiction, leading to an escalation of war.

The attempt by some here to say, well, there were war crimes committed all over the place in WWII by other nations, TOO, miss the point tragically. Nanking was a war crime. Auschwitz was a war crime. Malmedy was a war crime. Sadly, ad nauseam. But so were Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

Now, one can argue, as many do, that, EVEN SO, the dropping of Little Boy and Fat Man were necessary, militarily and morally, to prevent any more death and destruction by thoroughly demoralizing Japan and ending the war.

We can never know about any alternative path.

One should try to be clear-eyed and honest with the past.

Well good for you for figuring out how to use the internet and post on message boards at your age R106?

Do you also have a smart phone?