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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Decisive act that stopped the deaths of millions, or biggest act of terror ever.....?

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Tens of thousands of people will gather in Hiroshima to mark 70 years to the day since the city was destroyed by an atomic bomb.

Representatives of more than 100 countries, including the US ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, will be among those marking the anniversary in the city’s peace memorial park on Thursday morning.

Standing in the shadow of the shell of what was then the prefectural industrial promotion hall – now known simply as the atomic bomb dome – they will hear messages from survivors, local children and the city’s mayor. Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, will also attend.
Hiroshima and the nuclear age - a visual guide
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Seven decades ago, the countdown to the first nuclear attack in history began in the early hours of 6 August 1945, when a US B-29 Superfortress bomber, escorted by two surveillance planes, took off from an airfield on the Pacific island of Tinian.

The Enola Gay, named after the mother of the plane’s pilot, Brig Gen Paul Tibbets, was carrying a 16 kiloton atomic bomb, nicknamed Little Boy; its target was Hiroshima, a port and major army base in western Japan, six hours’ flying time away.

As dawn broke in Hiroshima, its 340,000 residents were recovering from another sleepless night of false alarms after radar picked up a succession of US bombers flying overhead on missions further south.

Soon after 7am local time, a US weather surveillance aircraft escorting the Enola Gay triggered yet another air raid alert. The plane left the area and the all clear was sounded at 7.31am. Its message to the Enola Gay’s crew: “Weather good, possible to drop bomb.”
The explosion as the bomb hits Hiroshima
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A photograph taken by the US military shows the explosion as the bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, hits Hiroshima. Photograph: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum/EPA

Forty-four minutes later, the Enola Gay released its payload. Below, people were preparing for an ordinary day at work, while young children set out for school, and older ones to factories to help Japan’s faltering war effort.

The city, the site of a large military headquarters, had so far been spared the heavy conventional bombing that had destroyed much of Tokyo and Osaka. Hiroshima residents were beginning to suspect that their city was next.
Brazilian Hiroshima survivors campaign against new push for nuclear power
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The bomb exploded 580 metres (2,000ft) above a T-shaped bridge at the junction of the Honkawa and Motoyasu rivers, unleashing a blinding flash followed by a deafening boom.

About 70,000 people died instantly in the blast or from the firestorms that raged moments later. The death toll would rise to about 140,000 by the end of 1945. The explosion, equal to 12,000 to 15,000 tonnes of TNT, destroyed more than two-thirds of Hiroshima’s buildings across five sq miles.
Hiroshima three months after the atomic bomb was dropped
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Hiroshima, including the prefectural industrial promotion hall, seen three months after the atomic bomb was dropped. Photograph: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum/AFP/Getty Images

Within 45 minutes of the attack, nuclear fallout mixed with ash and smoke from the firestorms to create a radioactive black rain that soaked survivors and did not abate until the fires began to burn themselves out in the evening.

As people staggered among the dead and dying in search of water and medical treatment, news began to spread to the capital, Tokyo, that something unspeakable had occurred in Hiroshima.

But wartime leaders did not receive confirmation that the city had been destroyed by a nuclear weapon until the following day, when the US president, Harry S Truman, said: “Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima. It is an atomic bomb.”
Hiroshima’s fate, 70 years ago this week, must not be forgotten
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At 8.15am on Thursday, Hiroshima will fall silent as it remembers its dead. A temple bell will toll and doves will be released into the same skies from which tragedy had been visited on the city seven decades earlier.

And this year, as on every other anniversary, the names of survivors – the hibakusha – who died in the previous 12 months will be added to the peace park’s cenotaph. On the eve of the 70th anniversary, the total stood at 292,325.


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/05/hiroshima-prepares-to-rem
ember-the-day-the-bomb-dropped

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Decisive act that stopped the deaths of millions, or biggest act of terror ever.....?

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Originally posted by kpo:

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Decisive act that stopped the deaths of millions, or biggest act of terror ever.....?

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Hmm, maybe both.

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Originally posted by Brenda:

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
The Allies waged acts of terror against civilians in world war 2, the bombing of Nagasaki,Hiroshima, Dresden...the unpaletable side of war is that at times the aim is to kill as many civilians as possible in order to demoralise.

I suppose it depends upon whether you think the means justifies the ends in these matters.

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I have to agree with you magon. The Allies did as much damage to Germany as the 2 A-bombs did in Japan. Both with the same goals. Break the enemy and get them to surrender.

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Operation Gomorrah killed 42,600 people, left 37,000 wounded and caused some one million German civilians to flee the city.[3] The city's labour force was reduced permanently by ten percent.[3] Approximately 3,000 aircraft were deployed, 9,000 tons of bombs were dropped and over 250,000 homes and houses were destroyed. No subsequent city raid shook Germany as did that on Hamburg; documents show that German officials were thoroughly alarmed and there is some indication from later Allied interrogations of Nazi officials that Hitler stated that further raids of similar weight would force Germany out of the war.

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Originally posted by kpo:

Other things that need to be considered when looking back at this controversial aspect of history:

1. WWII was total war - countries throwing everything they had at each other in a life or death struggle (particularly in the case of Britain which faced down Nazi Germany almost alone at one point). You don't sweat too much about enemy civilian casualties when your entire nation, and way of life, is on the edge of the precipice.

2. For several years after the fall of France and before the Allied invasion of Italy there was no 'Western front' - only limited campaigns in North Africa, Greece, the Balkans etc. Consequently for a long time there was no direct way for Britain and later America, to wage land war against the Nazis. Thus, the only way to fight the Nazis and degrade their ability to wage war, besides supplying the Soviets with massive amounts of war material, was to bomb German industrial cities.

3. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had shown no regard for civilian life in their actions - think of the Japanese' sadistic slaughter of hundreds of thousands in Nanking, or the Nazis' starvation of a million people in the siege of Leningrad.

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Originally posted by kpo:

The point of the allied bombing campaigns was generally to degrade the enemy's ability to wage war. Destroy its factories, munitions stores, transport hubs, military facilities etc. Bombing targets were always chosen with these things in mind.

The allied bombing campaigns might seem cold-blooded and vindictive, and to an extent they probably were. But that doesn't mean they were pointless slaughter. They undoubtedly shortened the war and thereby saved lives, possibly even more than they killed.

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Dresden was a controversial exercise in use of military force

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but I think we need to be careful, more careful, to avoid seeing it in a black and white manner, ie that all Allied actions were justified, even the purposeful mass slaughter of innocents, because in the end that what tyrannies everywhere always do....justify the abhorrent.

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Originally posted by kpo:

Other things that need to be considered when looking back at this controversial aspect of history:

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Originally posted by kpo:
$5.5 trillion seems to be the figure for the cost of the entire US nuclear weapons program from 1940 to 1996. When you consider that one of the major powers was going to develop these weapons at some point, it's just as well that the USA did it first (before the Soviet Union).

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Seriously scary who could get into the White House.

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The neutron bomb would be designed for tactical use to offset the Warsaw Pact's three-to-one advantage in tank forces. The army requested neutron warheads for its Lance short-to-medium-range tactical missile and its 8-inch and 155 mm artillery pieces.

But, it was President Jimmy Carter who would inherit the program and make the final decision about deployment. There was just one small problem: nobody had bothered to tell Carter that the weapon was being built. The president found out about it the same way as the rest of the world ….he read about it in the Washington Post.

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The point of the allied bombing campaigns was generally to degrade the enemy's ability to wage war. Destroy its factories, munitions stores, transport hubs, military facilities etc. Bombing targets were always chosen with these things in mind.

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Originally posted by kpo:
'Act of terror' can be interpreted two ways - as a 'terrorist' act, or more simply and literally, an act that inspires terror.

The Hiroshima bombing was not a terrorist act, but it's hard to argue that it doesn't fit the second definition. The whole point of it was to terrorise the Japanese government and nation into surrender.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
The Allies waged acts of terror against civilians in world war 2, the bombing of Dresden...the unpaletable side of war is that at times the aim is to kill as many civilians as possible in order to demoralise.

I suppose it depends upon whether you think the means justifies the ends in these matters.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The concept was that an American demonstration of sheer brutality and willingness to kill would stop the Russians in their tracks. The second bomb was to induce a question in Russian minds as to HOW MANY atomic bombs the USA had.

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Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
The Allies waged acts of terror against civilians in world war 2, the bombing of Dresden...the unpaletable side of war is that at times the aim is to kill as many civilians as possible in order to demoralise.

I suppose it depends upon whether you think the means justifies the ends in these matters.

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Your logic fails completely. Trying to imagine strategy and causes to fit your pre-ordained effects and conclusions does not serve your argument well.
Dresden was filled with factories producing weapons and military equipment to wage war upon the world. It had a rail distribution which served to disperse combat troops to wage war upon the world - a logistical sweet target. Trying to hide these military targets amidst "civilians" who are waging war against the world is a poor argument from you, but might be why you would support Hamas firing missiles from schoolyards amid children so you can blame the defenders for children dying when the combat launchers were eliminated.
Targeting valid and critical sweet juicy military targets in wartime is not the same as targeting "civilians" at war with the world, and for you to not understand that simple concept speaks poorly of you and your mental ability.

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The concept was that an American demonstration of sheer brutality and willingness to kill would stop the Russians in their tracks. The second bomb was to induce a question in Russian minds as to HOW MANY atomic bombs the USA had.

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This mind trick only works until the Russians also have the Bomb.

But after WWII, America spent 8 trillion dollars building nukes and rockets, hoping to intimidate Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev. I claim spending to put a permanent American colony on Mars would have been more intimidating to the Russians, cheaper for the Americans, and less hazardous to life on Earth.

Russia built the Bomb to show they were not intimidated. For every bomb America built, Russia built one, which was a waste for both sides. When America landed on the Moon, the Russians had their own Moon program to show they would not be intimidated. If America landed on Mars, the Russians would have been intimidated.

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It was not an act of terror. It was an act of negotiation. Japan had refused to make any negotiations, other than to make clear that they would fight and kill to the end, no matter their own casualties. They insisted upon suicidal strategy. The first bomb helped them see the error of their ways and plans, yet they still insisted upon their suicidal strategy. They still refused to make any negotiations. The second bomb on the 9th (70 years ago now in Japan) helped them see the futility of their plans, that they really would just continue to decimate themselves with little or no casualties to us.

That is not an act of terror. That is an act of education. A demonstration of a promise that perhaps they had not believed or understood clearly until we made good on our promise to defeat them.- JSF

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The U.S. use of nuclear weapons against Japan during World War II has long been a subject of emotional debate. Initially, few questioned President Truman’s decision to drop two atomic bombs, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But, in 1965, historian Gar Alperovitz argued that, although the bombs did force an immediate end to the war, Japan’s leaders had wanted to surrender anyway and likely would have done so before the American invasion planned for November 1. Their use was, therefore, unnecessary. Obviously, if the bombings weren’t necessary to win the war, then bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was wrong. In the 48 years since, many others have joined the fray: some echoing Alperovitz and denouncing the bombings, others rejoining hotly that the bombings were moral, necessary, and life-saving.

Both schools of thought, however, assume that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with new, more powerful weapons did coerce Japan into surrendering on August 9. They fail to question the utility of the bombing in the first place — to ask, in essence, did it work? The orthodox view is that, yes, of course, it worked. The United States bombed Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, when the Japanese finally succumbed to the threat of further nuclear bombardment and surrendered. The support for this narrative runs deep. But there are three major problems with it, and, taken together, they significantly undermine the traditional interpretation of the Japanese surrender.

Timing

The first problem with the traditional interpretation is timing. And it is a serious problem...

The traditional interpretation has a simple timeline: The U.S. Army Air Force bombs Hiroshima with a nuclear weapon on August 6, three days later they bomb Nagasaki with another, and on the next day the Japanese signal their intention to surrender.* One can hardly blame American newspapers for running headlines like: "Peace in the Pacific: Our Bomb Did It!"

When the story of Hiroshima is told in most American histories, the day of the bombing — August 6 — serves as the narrative climax. All the elements of the story point forward to that moment: the decision to build a bomb, the secret research at Los Alamos, the first impressive test, and the final culmination at Hiroshima. It is told, in other words, as a story about the Bomb. But you can’t analyze Japan’s decision to surrender objectively in the context of the story of the Bomb. Casting it as "the story of the Bomb" already presumes that the Bomb’s role is central.

Viewed from the Japanese perspective, the most important day in that second week of August wasn’t August 6 but August 9. That was the day that the Supreme Council met — for the first time in the war — to discuss unconditional surrender. The Supreme Council was a group of six top members of the government — a sort of inner cabinet — that effectively ruled Japan in 1945. Japan’s leaders had not seriously considered surrendering prior to that day. Unconditional surrender (what the Allies were demanding) was a bitter pill to swallow. The United States and Great Britain were already convening war crimes trials in Europe. What if they decided to put the emperor — who was believed to be divine — on trial? What if they got rid of the emperor and changed the form of government entirely? Even though the situation was bad in the summer of 1945, the leaders of Japan were not willing to consider giving up their traditions, their beliefs, or their way of life. Until August 9. What could have happened that caused them to so suddenly and decisively change their minds? What made them sit down to seriously discuss surrender for the first time after 14 years of war?

It could not have been Nagasaki. The bombing of Nagasaki occurred in the late morning of August 9, after the Supreme Council had already begun meeting to discuss surrender, and word of the bombing only reached Japan’s leaders in the early afternoon — after the meeting of the Supreme Council had been adjourned in deadlock and the full cabinet had been called to take up the discussion. Based on timing alone, Nagasaki can’t have been what motivated them.

Hiroshima isn’t a very good candidate either. It came 74 hours — more than three days — earlier. What kind of crisis takes three days to unfold? ...

[...examples of reaction times to crises in times of war, which are within hours of the event...]

These leaders responded — as leaders in any country would — to the imperative call that a crisis creates. They each took decisive steps in a short period of time. How can we square this sort of behavior with the actions of Japan’s leaders? If Hiroshima really touched off a crisis that eventually forced the Japanese to surrender after fighting for 14 years, why did it take them three days to sit down to discuss it?

One might argue that the delay is perfectly logical. Perhaps they only came to realize the importance of the bombing slowly. Perhaps they didn’t know it was a nuclear weapon and when they did realize it and understood the terrible effects such a weapon could have, they naturally concluded they had to surrender. Unfortunately, this explanation doesn’t square with the evidence.

First, Hiroshima’s governor reported to Tokyo on the very day Hiroshima was bombed that about a third of the population had been killed in the attack and that two thirds of the city had been destroyed. This information didn’t change over the next several days. So the outcome — the end result of the bombing — was clear from the beginning. Japan’s leaders knew roughly the outcome of the attack on the first day, yet they still did not act.

Second, the preliminary report prepared by the Army team that investigated the Hiroshima bombing, the one that gave details about what had happened there, was not delivered until August 10. It didn’t reach Tokyo, in other words, until after the decision to surrender had already been taken. Although their verbal report was delivered (to the military) on August 8, the details of the bombing were not available until two days later. The decision to surrender was therefore not based on a deep appreciation of the horror at Hiroshima.

Third, the Japanese military understood, at least in a rough way, what nuclear weapons were. Japan had a nuclear weapons program. Several of the military men mention the fact that it was a nuclear weapon that destroyed Hiroshima in their diaries. General Anami Korechika, minster of war, even went to consult with the head of the Japanese nuclear weapons program on the night of August 7. The idea that Japan’s leaders didn’t know about nuclear weapons doesn’t hold up.

Finally, one other fact about timing creates a striking problem. On August 8, Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori went to Premier Suzuki Kantaro and asked that the Supreme Council be convened to discuss the bombing of Hiroshima, but its members declined. So the crisis didn’t grow day by day until it finally burst into full bloom on August 9. Any explanation of the actions of Japan’s leaders that relies on the "shock" of the bombing of Hiroshima has to account for the fact that they considered a meeting to discuss the bombing on August 8, made a judgment that it was too unimportant, and then suddenly decided to meet to discuss surrender the very next day. Either they succumbed to some sort of group schizophrenia, or some other event was the real motivation to discuss surrender.

Scale

Historically, the use of the Bomb may seem like the most important discrete event of the war. From the contemporary Japanese perspective, however, it might not have been so easy to distinguish the Bomb from other events. It is, after all, difficult to distinguish a single drop of rain in the midst of a hurricane.

In the summer of 1945, the U.S. Army Air Force carried out one of the most intense campaigns of city destruction in the history of the world. [SEVERAL OF THESE BOMBING CAMPAIGNS WERE INCENDIARY, OF THE SAME KIND OF BOMBING THAT LEVELED DRESDEN- SIGNY http://www.wired.com/2011/03/0309incendiary-bombs-kill-100000-tokyo/]

Sixty-eight cities in Japan were attacked and all of them were either partially or completely destroyed. An estimated 1.7 million people were made homeless, 300,000 were killed, and 750,000 were wounded. Sixty-six of these raids were carried out with conventional [and incendiary] bombs, two with atomic bombs. The destruction caused by conventional attacks was huge. Night after night, all summer long, cities would go up in smoke. In the midst of this cascade of destruction, it would not be surprising if this or that individual attack failed to make much of an impression — even if it was carried out with a remarkable new type of weapon.

A B-29 bomber flying from the Mariana Islands could carry — depending on the location of the target and the altitude of attack — somewhere between 16,000 and 20,000 pounds of bombs. A typical raid consisted of 500 bombers. This means that the typical conventional raid was dropping 4 to 5 kilotons of bombs on each city. (A kiloton is a thousand tons and is the standard measure of the explosive power of a nuclear weapon. The Hiroshima bomb measured 16.5 kilotons, the Nagasaki bomb 20 kilotons.) Given that many bombs spread the destruction evenly (and therefore more effectively), while a single, more powerful bomb wastes much of its power at the center of the explosion — re-bouncing the rubble, as it were — it could be argued that some of the conventional raids approached the destruction of the two atomic bombings.

The first of the conventional raids, a night attack on Tokyo on March 9-10, 1945, remains the single most destructive attack on a city in the history of war. Something like 16 square miles of the city were burned out. An estimated 120,000 Japanese lost their lives — the single highest death toll of any bombing attack on a city.

We often imagine, because of the way the story is told, that the bombing of Hiroshima was far worse. We imagine that the number of people killed was off the charts. But if you graph the number of people killed in all 68 cities bombed in the summer of 1945, you find that Hiroshima was second in terms of civilian deaths. If you chart the number of square miles destroyed, you find that Hiroshima was fourth. If you chart the percentage of the city destroyed, Hiroshima was 17th. Hiroshima was clearly within the parameters of the conventional attacks carried out that summer.

From our perspective, Hiroshima seems singular, extraordinary. But if you put yourself in the shoes of Japan’s leaders in the three weeks leading up to the attack on Hiroshima, the picture is considerably different. If you were one of the key members of Japan’s government in late July and early August, your experience of city bombing would have been something like this: On the morning of July 17, you would have been greeted by reports that during the night four cities had been attacked: Oita, Hiratsuka, Numazu, and Kuwana. Of these, Oita and Hiratsuka were more than 50 percent destroyed. Kuwana was more than 75 percent destroyed and Numazu was hit even more severely, with something like 90 percent of the city burned to the ground.

Three days later you have woken to find that three more cities had been attacked. Fukui was more than 80 percent destroyed. A week later and three more cities have been attacked during the night. Two days later and six more cities were attacked in one night, including Ichinomiya, which was 75 percent destroyed. On August 2, you would have arrived at the office to reports that four more cities have been attacked. And the reports would have included the information that Toyama (roughly the size of Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1945), had been 99.5 percent destroyed. Virtually the entire city had been leveled. Four days later and four more cities have been attacked. On August 6, only one city, Hiroshima, was attacked but reports say that the damage was great and a new type bomb was used. How much would this one new attack have stood out against the background of city destruction that had been going on for weeks?

In the three weeks prior to Hiroshima, 26 cities were attacked by the U.S. Army Air Force. Of these, eight — or almost a third — were as completely or more completely destroyed than Hiroshima (in terms of the percentage of the city destroyed). The fact that Japan had 68 cities destroyed in the summer of 1945 poses a serious challenge for people who want to make the bombing of Hiroshima the cause of Japan’s surrender. The question is: If they surrendered because a city was destroyed, why didn’t they surrender when those other 66 cities were destroyed?

If Japan’s leaders were going to surrender because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you would expect to find that they cared about the bombing of cities in general, that the city attacks put pressure on them to surrender. But this doesn’t appear to be so. Two days after the bombing of Tokyo, retired Foreign Minister Shidehara Kijuro expressed a sentiment that was apparently widely held among Japanese high-ranking officials at the time. Shidehara opined that "the people would gradually get used to being bombed daily. In time their unity and resolve would grow stronger." In a letter to a friend he said it was important for citizens to endure the suffering because "even if hundreds of thousands of noncombatants are killed, injured, or starved, even if millions of buildings are destroyed or burned," additional time was needed for diplomacy. It is worth remembering that Shidehara was a moderate.

At the highest levels of government — in the Supreme Council — attitudes were apparently the same. Although the Supreme Council discussed the importance of the Soviet Union remaining neutral, they didn’t have a full-dress discussion about the impact of city bombing. In the records that have been preserved, city bombing doesn’t even get mentioned during Supreme Council discussions except on two occasions: once in passing in May 1945 and once during the wide-ranging discussion on the night of August 9. Based on the evidence, it is difficult to make a case that Japan’s leaders thought that city bombing — compared to the other pressing matters involved in running a war — had much significance at all.

General Anami on August 13 remarked that the atomic bombings were no more menacing than the fire-bombing that Japan had endured for months. If Hiroshima and Nagasaki were no worse than the fire bombings, and if Japan’s leaders did not consider them important enough to discuss in depth, how can Hiroshima and Nagasaki have coerced them to surrender?

Strategic Significance

If the Japanese were not concerned with city bombing in general or the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in particular, what were they concerned with?

The answer is simple: the Soviet Union.

The Japanese were in a relatively difficult strategic situation. They were nearing the end of a war they were losing. Conditions were bad. The Army, however, was still strong and well-supplied. Nearly 4 million men were under arms and 1.2 million of those were guarding Japan’s home islands.

Even the most hardline leaders in Japan’s government knew that the war could not go on. The question was not whether to continue, but how to bring the war to a close under the best terms possible. The Allies (the United States, Great Britain, and others — the Soviet Union, remember, was still neutral) were demanding "unconditional surrender." Japan’s leaders hoped that they might be able to figure out a way to avoid war crimes trials, keep their form of government, and keep some of the territories they’d conquered: Korea, Vietnam, Burma, parts of Malaysia and Indonesia, a large portion of eastern China, and numerous islands in the Pacific.

They had two plans for getting better surrender terms; they had, in other words, two strategic options. The first was diplomatic. Japan had signed a five-year neutrality pact with the Soviets in April of 1941, which would expire in 1946.

A group consisting mostly of civilian leaders and led by Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori hoped that Stalin might be convinced to mediate a settlement between the United States and its allies on the one hand, and Japan on the other. Even though this plan was a long shot, it reflected sound strategic thinking. After all, it would be in the Soviet Union’s interest to make sure that the terms of the settlement were not too favorable to the United States: any increase in U.S. influence and power in Asia would mean a decrease in Russian power and influence.

The second plan was military, and most of its proponents, led by the Army Minister Anami Korechika, were military men. They hoped to use Imperial Army ground troops to inflict high casualties on U.S. forces when they invaded. If they succeeded, they felt, they might be able to get the United States to offer better terms. This strategy was also a long shot. The United States seemed deeply committed to unconditional surrender. But since there was, in fact, concern in U.S. military circles that the casualties in an invasion would be prohibitive, the Japanese high command’s strategy was not entirely off the mark.

One way to gauge whether it was the bombing of Hiroshima or the invasion and declaration of war by the Soviet Union that caused Japan’s surrender is to compare the way in which these two events affected the strategic situation. After Hiroshima was bombed on August 8, both options were still alive. It would still have been possible to ask Stalin to mediate (and Takagi’s diary entries from August 8 show that at least some of Japan’s leaders were still thinking about the effort to get Stalin involved). It would also still have been possible to try to fight one last decisive battle and inflict heavy casualties. The destruction of Hiroshima had done nothing to reduce the preparedness of the troops dug in on the beaches of Japan’s home islands. There was now one fewer city behind them, but they were still dug in, they still had ammunition, and their military strength had not been diminished in any important way. Bombing Hiroshima did not foreclose either of Japan’s strategic options.

The impact of the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria and Sakhalin Island was quite different, however. Once the Soviet Union had declared war, Stalin could no longer act as a mediator — he was now a belligerent. So the diplomatic option was wiped out by the Soviet move. The effect on the military situation was equally dramatic. Most of Japan’s best troops had been shifted to the southern part of the home islands. Japan’s military had correctly guessed that the likely first target of an American invasion would be the southernmost island of Kyushu. The once proud Kwangtung army in Manchuria, for example, was a shell of its former self because its best units had been shifted away to defend Japan itself. When the Russians invaded Manchuria, they sliced through what had once been an elite army and many Russian units only stopped when they ran out of gas. The Soviet 16th Army — 100,000 strong — launched an invasion of the southern half of Sakhalin Island. Their orders were to mop up Japanese resistance there, and then — within 10 to 14 days — be prepared to invade Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s home islands. The Japanese force tasked with defending Hokkaido, the 5th Area Army, was under strength at two divisions and two brigades, and was in fortified positions on the east side of the island. The Soviet plan of attack called for an invasion of Hokkaido from the west.

It didn’t take a military genius to see that, while it might be possible to fight a decisive battle against one great power invading from one direction, it would not be possible to fight off two great powers attacking from two different directions. The Soviet invasion invalidated the military’s decisive battle strategy, just as it invalidated the diplomatic strategy. At a single stroke, all of Japan’s options evaporated. The Soviet invasion was strategically decisive — it foreclosed both of Japan’s options — while the bombing of Hiroshima (which foreclosed neither) was not.

The Soviet declaration of war also changed the calculation of how much time was left for maneuver. Japanese intelligence was predicting that U.S. forces might not invade for months. Soviet forces, on the other hand, could be in Japan proper in as little as 10 days. The Soviet invasion made a decision on ending the war extremely time sensitive. ...

It is troubling to consider, given the questions raised here, that the evidence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is at the heart of everything we think about nuclear weapons. This event is the bedrock of the case for the importance of nuclear weapons. It is crucial to their unique status, the notion that the normal rules do not apply to nuclear weapons. It is an important measure of nuclear threats: Truman’s threat to visit a "rain of ruin" on Japan was the first explicit nuclear threat. It is key to the aura of enormous power that surrounds the weapons and makes them so important in international relations.

But what are we to make of all those conclusions if the traditional story of Hiroshima is called into doubt? Hiroshima is the center, the point from which all other claims and assertions radiate out. Yet the story we have been telling ourselves seems pretty far removed from the facts. What are we to think about nuclear weapons if this enormous first accomplishment — the miracle of Japan’s sudden surrender — turns out to be a myth?

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Targeting valid and critical sweet juicy military targets in wartime is not the same as targeting "civilians" at war with the world, and for you to not understand that simple concept speaks poorly of you and your mental ability.

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conjectures - not facts

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That 'deterrence' against an attack on Europe lasted all of 4 years.

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After all, the Russian economy grew from a primitive agrarian medieval economy into a world-class industrial

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Germany is also a prosperous, mature democracy. And yet, it didn't have atomic bombs dropped on it. Golly gee, how did that happen?

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The Japanese economy has been stagnating for 20 years.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

And then, when the CIVILIANS sought refuge from the fires and destruction in open spaces, the planes came through and bombed and strafed the CIVILIANS again.

Please watch the documentary. It's quite an eye-opener. I've provided a convenient link, and it will explain all of this in far better detail than I can.

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Originally posted by kpo:

If America didn't have the Bomb the USSR would have steamrollered Western Europe at some point post 1945. And without the cost of a nuclear arms race with America, perhaps that regime would still be standing. I think 8 trillion is a small price to pay when you're talking about the freedom and prosperity of an entire continent, for 100 years or more.

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So, let's see... you concede that Dresden wasn't a military site.

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You concede that the British bombed civilians, created a firestorm, and then bombed open areas like the parks, the zoos, and the banks of the Elbe. You concede that this was purely an act of terror- a terrorist act- designed specifically to annihilate a civilian population and terrorize the survivors.

You concede that the USAF bombed and firebombed much of Japan. You concede that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not serve to "shorten the war", but was instead a warning shot across the Russian bow.

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He also makes no mention of how many cities the US was prepared to lose to a nuclear attack, and how many cities Europe was prepared to lose to a nuclear attack. If the number is zero, than any nuclear bomb by Russia is a complete stalemate. And again, it's a theoretical supposition. How many cities were western countries prepared to lose? How many were Russia prepared to lose?

By 1950 Russia had 5 nuclear bombs. Would the loss of 5 western cities be acceptable?

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The Soviet economy was world class, that's a good one.
It's an accurate one.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Historic_world_GDP
_per_capita.svg

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Err, it got massively invaded with conventional military forces. Is that your answer?
So did Italy, for all the good it did them.

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You're saying Japan is not prosperous??

I suppose it depends on your definition of prosperity,

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I've already shown how these arguments are speculation at best

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I note that - as usual - rather than addressing the CONTENT of a discussion, you argue about "where it came from".

And I figured you'd say something like that in response.

But since you're such a stickler for historic accuracy (HAHAHAHA!) I'd assumed that you'd want to do a point-by-point, starting with the most salient points first, and continuing to the least.

Since you didn't object to those points, and apparently still don't care to dispute them, I guess you have nothing to say on the following points.

Dresden - not a military site
Bombing of Dresden - aimed at annihilating civilians (look at targets and timing)
Russia - won WWII in Europe
Russia - close to invading Japan post European theater
USA Carpet bombing/ incendiary bombing of Japan - aimed at total destruction
USA Atomic bombing Japan- did not force the Japanese to surrender
USA Atomic bombing Japan- aimed a stopping the Russians, not the Japanese

Act of terror = terrorist act = terrorism = inducing terror in a population to achieve political or military goals, whether done by individuals with suicide vests or nations with bombs

Most of these are historic facts. You can try arguing about them, but we both know you won't get anywhere. The goal of atomic-bombing Japan is closely-reasoned (see the article in Foreign Policy). You can try arguing that too and might get farther, but somehow I don't think you will.

The last point is simply definitional. We have been so brainwashed into thinking that terrorism is done by small groups of individuals, mostly on the ground with suicide vests or small arms, that it never occurs to us to include larger or more formal groups. The US State Dept has been forced to gradually expand its definition to include larger groups with some political legitimacy (eg Hezbollah, IRA) and groups which gained considerable territory with tanks, howitzers, and other conventional large weapons (ISIS) and even groups which are supplied by nations ( ie "state-sponsored terrorism" ... altho why Saudi Arabia and Turkey never make it onto that list with their sponsorship of al Qaida, al Nusrah, etc is beyond me) but we would NEVER think to include nations with advanced fighter-bombers, such as the USA. But really, what's the difference between killing civilians from 10 feet or from 10,000 feet, except effectiveness?

I would appreciate your response to that question, but I doubt you'll address that either.




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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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The Soviets, who had long been pushing the Allies to open a second front, agreed to launch another major offensive on the Eastern Front that would divert German troops away from the Allied campaign in northern France. Stalin also agreed in principle that the Soviet Union would declare war against Japan following an Allied victory over Germany. In exchange for a Soviet declaration of war against Japan, Roosevelt conceded to Stalin’s demands for the Kurile Islands and the southern half of Sakhalin, and access to the ice-free ports of Dairen (Dalian) and Port Arthur (Lüshun Port) located on the Liaodong Peninsula in northern China. The exact details concerning this deal were not finalized, however, until the Yalta Conference of 1945.

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Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris, the bomber of Dresden and commonly known as "Bomber" Harris by the press, and often within the RAF as "Butcher" Harris, wrote when he was mildly criticized by Churchill: “I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.” That is not as catchy as “The only good German baby is a dead German baby” but the Air Chief Marshal's moral calculus is the same.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Decisive act that stopped the deaths of millions, or biggest act of terror ever.....?

____________________________________________________________________
Tens of thousands of people will gather in Hiroshima to mark 70 years to the day since the city was destroyed by an atomic bomb.

Representatives of more than 100 countries, including the US ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, will be among those marking the anniversary in the city’s peace memorial park on Thursday morning.

Standing in the shadow of the shell of what was then the prefectural industrial promotion hall – now known simply as the atomic bomb dome – they will hear messages from survivors, local children and the city’s mayor. Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, will also attend.
Hiroshima and the nuclear age - a visual guide
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Seven decades ago, the countdown to the first nuclear attack in history began in the early hours of 6 August 1945, when a US B-29 Superfortress bomber, escorted by two surveillance planes, took off from an airfield on the Pacific island of Tinian.

The Enola Gay, named after the mother of the plane’s pilot, Brig Gen Paul Tibbets, was carrying a 16 kiloton atomic bomb, nicknamed Little Boy; its target was Hiroshima, a port and major army base in western Japan, six hours’ flying time away.

As dawn broke in Hiroshima, its 340,000 residents were recovering from another sleepless night of false alarms after radar picked up a succession of US bombers flying overhead on missions further south.

Soon after 7am local time, a US weather surveillance aircraft escorting the Enola Gay triggered yet another air raid alert. The plane left the area and the all clear was sounded at 7.31am. Its message to the Enola Gay’s crew: “Weather good, possible to drop bomb.”
The explosion as the bomb hits Hiroshima
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A photograph taken by the US military shows the explosion as the bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, hits Hiroshima. Photograph: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum/EPA

Forty-four minutes later, the Enola Gay released its payload. Below, people were preparing for an ordinary day at work, while young children set out for school, and older ones to factories to help Japan’s faltering war effort.

The city, the site of a large military headquarters, had so far been spared the heavy conventional bombing that had destroyed much of Tokyo and Osaka. Hiroshima residents were beginning to suspect that their city was next.
Brazilian Hiroshima survivors campaign against new push for nuclear power
Read more

The bomb exploded 580 metres (2,000ft) above a T-shaped bridge at the junction of the Honkawa and Motoyasu rivers, unleashing a blinding flash followed by a deafening boom.

About 70,000 people died instantly in the blast or from the firestorms that raged moments later. The death toll would rise to about 140,000 by the end of 1945. The explosion, equal to 12,000 to 15,000 tonnes of TNT, destroyed more than two-thirds of Hiroshima’s buildings across five sq miles.
Hiroshima three months after the atomic bomb was dropped
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Hiroshima, including the prefectural industrial promotion hall, seen three months after the atomic bomb was dropped. Photograph: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum/AFP/Getty Images

Within 45 minutes of the attack, nuclear fallout mixed with ash and smoke from the firestorms to create a radioactive black rain that soaked survivors and did not abate until the fires began to burn themselves out in the evening.

As people staggered among the dead and dying in search of water and medical treatment, news began to spread to the capital, Tokyo, that something unspeakable had occurred in Hiroshima.

But wartime leaders did not receive confirmation that the city had been destroyed by a nuclear weapon until the following day, when the US president, Harry S Truman, said: “Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima. It is an atomic bomb.”
Hiroshima’s fate, 70 years ago this week, must not be forgotten
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At 8.15am on Thursday, Hiroshima will fall silent as it remembers its dead. A temple bell will toll and doves will be released into the same skies from which tragedy had been visited on the city seven decades earlier.

And this year, as on every other anniversary, the names of survivors – the hibakusha – who died in the previous 12 months will be added to the peace park’s cenotaph. On the eve of the 70th anniversary, the total stood at 292,325.


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/05/hiroshima-prepares-to-rem
ember-the-day-the-bomb-dropped

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Originally posted by kpo:

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Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris, the bomber of Dresden and commonly known as "Bomber" Harris by the press, and often within the RAF as "Butcher" Harris, wrote when he was mildly criticized by Churchill: “I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.” That is not as catchy as “The only good German baby is a dead German baby” but the Air Chief Marshal's moral calculus is the same.

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No - and this is important. Harris's argument and the context for that quote was that by laying waste to German cities with the RAF it would cripple the German war effort, shorten the war, and thereby save the lives of Allied servicemen. This backs up my assertion that the Allies were principally concerned with military objectives. The morality of Harris's quote is, of course, very questionable, but it is very different to the sadistic extermination of German babies.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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So Russia had a slim lead in early (imprecise) ICBM development and deployment.

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The ability to destroy all of an adversary's nuclear forces, eliminating the possibility of a retaliatory strike, is known as a first-strike capability, or nuclear primacy.

The United States derived immense strategic benefits from its nuclear primacy during the early years of the Cold War, in terms of both crisis-bargaining advantages vis-í -vis the Soviet Union (for example, in the case of Berlin in the late 1950s and early 1960s) and planning for war against the Red Army in Europe. If the Soviets had invaded Western Europe in the 1950s, the United States intended to win World War III by immediately launching a massive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, its Eastern European clients, and its Chinese ally. These plans were not the concoctions of midlevel Pentagon bureaucrats; they were approved by the highest level of the U.S. government.

U.S. nuclear primacy waned in the early 1960s, as the Soviets developed the capability to carry out a retaliatory second strike. With this development came the onset of MAD...

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Are you claiming the Russians wouldn't see that coming on their radar and deploy their own bombs?

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but if it's something you disagree with you call it "propaganda" (in this case, NAZI propaganda!)

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And you still haven't addressed the definition of "terrorism"

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The only explanation that makes sense to me is that the USA used the atomic bombs to warn off RUSSIA. By agreement with the west, Russian forces were invading Manchuria. However, they were also storming down the Kamchatka, and had made landfall on the Kuril Islands.

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As an aside, did you read the interview with Tatyana Montoyan?

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