The WWII Atomic Bomb Attacks Hiroshima and Nagasaki

yeah...i haven't finished this last episode yet, but I believe this is the final one.

 

There is never moral clarity in war...I agree. Only in the context of other wars did I mean that. It's one of the few where the stakes were more than just a land grab.

 

due to Covid, sir.

 

Covid Bats, sir.

Spoiler

 

One thing is for certain. No 1st world country will start a war with another one when they all have nukes. Politicians can poster all they want but the US, Russia, China, India, and the all of Europe will never again have a full scale war with each other. If another nuke ever goes off, it will be because of a terrorist.

 

Now that's first sensible thing I've heard all day.

 

My son and I were talking about that this weekend at the museum. A long extended conflict like that seems extremely unlikely because the fallout (see what I did there?) would be too much to bear.

 

or an accident, or a human mistake, or a machine mistake (which is a human mistake)

 

War crime is a war crime.

War is war.

There are no rules in love and war.

War results in the loss of humanity.

All around a great human tragedy that resulted from the failures of man.

 

Knowingly killing hundreds of thousands of civilians is morally wrong, probably can be debated as a war crime and state-sponsored terrorism even.

A quick end to the war and saving lives is debatable. It could have been a wash. Hundreds of thousands vs hundreds of thousands. But it would be mostly military personnel instead of civilian death with a land invasion (if that was needed).

Still, justification of two-time use in THAT war is powerful and understandable given the horrific behaviors of the Japanese military across Asia. I cannot start to imagine the weight on Truman to approve of the bombing and I'm sure the America think it has a very good chance of quickly ending the war. Yet, what ended the war might not be the atomic bombs...

Debate over the Japanese Surrender | Atomic Heritage Foundation

 

I've weighed on this question previously, this book still holds up as one of the best discussions of Truman's decision

 

that book is in the traditionalist school (or what's is commonly accepted)... the link I provided has the other schools: revisionist, consensus

 

I'm a lot more cynical of human nature on this regard. I absolutely think that nukes will always be in the equation, even in a MAD scenario. Humans justify all kinds of actions, whether convincing themselves of an existential threat or just demonizing the other side where any atrocity becomes acceptable.

I don't think it would be a first strike option, at least for countries in a stable economy. But one bad conventional military loss and I do think a nuclear option will be on the table.

 

My point that there aren't really any conventional attacks between countries with nukes.

 

War is hell, you have to become the Devil to win.

DD

 

Fair enough, but I don't think it'll stay that way in the future. Throw in climate change and you'll see more resource and border disputes, even with the 1st world nations.
In a nutshell, I don't believe we've solved the concept of war. Certainly not through MAD.

 

Given the way the war had gone in Okinawa, a ground war on the mainland would not have been against just the military. Not at all.

 

The real question is why is the Tokyo or Dresden bombing not talked about it killed more civilians than the dropping of the atomic bombs (Tokyo) and oh yeah Japan and Germany did not surrender after those either.

https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/deadliest-air-raid-history-180954512/

An aerial armada of 334 B-29 bombers took off from newly established bases in the Mariana Islands, bound for Tokyo. In the space of a few hours, they dropped 1,667 tons of napalm-filled incendiary bombs on the Japanese capital, killing more than 100,000 people in a single strike, and injuring several times that number. It was the highest death toll of any air raid during the war, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By comparison, the bombing of Dresden a month earlier had resulted in around 25,000 deaths.

For the March 9 raid on Tokyo, LeMay made some key changes. The B-29s would overfly the city’s most densely populated areas at 7,000 feet instead of 30,000 feet, in single file rather than in formation. To reduce the risk from Japanese fighters, they would raid at night (in fact the American bombers met with little resistance). And the B-29s would be stripped of nonessentials, including guns and gunners, to make room for more bombs. “By changing tactics and doubling the bombload per plane,” wrote historian Thomas Searle, LeMay created “a force capable of starting enormous firestorms.”

 

Yea, it would not just be against the military . Very different time.

 

Malcolm Gladwell has a book out now called "The Bomber Mafia." It's all about LeMay and the guys who thought that the only way to win this war was in the air with mass bombings. They were very aware that the building materials in Japan were much more flammable than they were in Germany. Gladwell appeared on a Dan Carlin "Hardcore History Addendum" podcast episode to talk about it. I haven't read the book, but I definitely recommend the podcast episode.