Recent comments in /f/creepy

tkrr t1_j975j0x wrote

Reply to comment by RemRose in Nuclear shadow, Nagasaki by allez05

You do not understand the assignment. Nor do you seem to understand war or authoritarianism.

The point was not to eradicate the Japanese people. That was the kind of shit the Axis powers were doing. Allied forces had endured a bloodbath in Okinawa and had every reason to believe it would be much, much worse in the Japanese home islands. Make whatever argument you wish in hindsight, but remember that the Allies didn’t have that information (the Cold War, whatever was going on in the Japanese commanders’ or Stalin’s head, any of it) in front of them. Diplomacy wasn’t going to work, as the Japanese kept trying to negotiate conditional surrender even though they had no leverage.

The Allies wanted the war over and the ones responsible punished. That was it. That was their motive. Given that Churchill and Stalin in particular didn’t like or trust each other, Operation Unthinkable had the potential to become a reality the longer the war continued. The bombs were the least bad option on the table.

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tkrr t1_j973bdk wrote

Reply to comment by ExHax in Nuclear shadow, Nagasaki by allez05

In this one case, given the failure of Allied precision bombing, the expected loss of life from the impending Operation Downfall, and the Japanese reluctance to accept unconditional surrender, it made sense. I don’t think there has ever or will ever be any other time in history where this will be the case.

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