Agreement or disagreement on targeting aside. He decided it.
Here's the actual order from your link:
Quote:
1. The 509 Composite Group, 20th Air Force will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945 on one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. To carry military and civilian scientific personnel from the War Department to observe and record the effects of the explosion of the bomb, additional aircraft will accompany the airplane carrying the bomb. The observing planes will stay several miles distant from the point of impact of the bomb.
2. Additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready by the project staff. Further instructions will be issued concerning targets other than those listed above.
3. Discussion of any and all information concerning the use of the weapon against Japan is reserved to the Secretary of War and the President of the United States. No communiques on the subject or releases of information will be issued by Commanders in the field without specific prior authority. Any news stories will be sent to the War Department for specific clearance.
4. The foregoing directive is issued to you by direction and with the approval of the Secretary of War and of the Chief of Staff, USA. It is desired that you personally deliver one copy of this directive to General MacArthur and one copy to Admiral Nimitz for their information.
The decision to drop the bomb and the location to drop the bomb were made mostly by airmen monitoring the weather in Japan.
Truman's next order, to CEASE dropping all munitions without strict authorization from himself speaks to that. In a hand written response to General Groves (informing Truman another bomb is ready), Truman writes, "It is not to be released on Japan without the express authority of the President." If you're in control of dropping the bomb, why the need for another order that spells out specifically "Don't drop anything unless *I* say so."? Unless of course, you are re-asserting control over using those devices.
But where would our world be without WWII and its aftermath? Would WWII still have happened even if you killed baby Hitler? There were plenty just like him, if not worse.
Arguments can be made that, at least technologically, we'd be much further behind. Perhaps socially as well, as we saw the actual outcome of scapegoating a whole culture, mass genocide, the entire world (mostly) brought together in a common goal, etc..
As horrific as the whole scenario was, WWII forced us ahead in many ways.
Yeah, WW2 probably needed to happen. Not the Holocaust though. Does another leader in Germany at that time have the same anti-semitism? This is likely as it was pretty widespread. However does a leader that extreme who is that charismatic arise? Perhaps not. Maybe it's a Communist leader instead.
The decision to drop the bomb and the location to drop the bomb were made mostly by airmen monitoring the weather in Japan.
Truman's next order, to CEASE dropping all munitions without strict authorization from himself speaks to that. In a hand written response to General Groves (informing Truman another bomb is ready), Truman writes, "It is not to be released on Japan without the express authority of the President." If you're in control of dropping the bomb, why the need for another order that spells out specifically "Don't drop anything unless *I* say so."? Unless of course, you are re-asserting control over using those devices.
That cease until express permission order was actually given on the 10th of August. It was previously a "use them when ready on target cities" order.
As an example of this, of the estimated 22,060 Japanese soldiers in Iwo Jima, 21,844 supposedly died. That's an enormous proportion. Soldiers were told to fight to the death or commit ritual suicide. To put that into perspective, during the Normandy landings, the Germans had an estimated 50,000 troops but only 5-10,000 died.
When one side of a conflict's actions are totally outside basic humanitarian and reasonable principles, you can't assume that a peaceful settlement is in any way desired.
"Let them eat grass"
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With respect I don't know where you get those estimates from, they essentially are the estimates for the landing alone.
A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities.
There were really three choices for the Americans and the effects weren't good in either of them.
Drop the Bomb force a surrender and demilitarization and culture change
Invade and see up to a million American's and more Japanese die during building to building fighting
Complete naval blockade and starve and freeze the Japanese into surrender.
The fourth choices is continue with a conventional bombing campaign and send Japan back to the stone age.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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Oh, the irony. If we were only half as smart as you think you are.
That was pretty much out of nowhere... except for the fact that I've disagreed with you a few times in other threads.
I think you should maybe reflect on why someone disagreeing with you, and explaining why they disagree in detail, upsets you to such a degree that you've developed a personal animus towards them. Or don't; up to you, I guess.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
There were really three choices for the Americans and the effects weren't good in either of them.
Drop the Bomb force a surrender and demilitarization and culture change
Invade and see up to a million American's and more Japanese die during building to building fighting
Complete naval blockade and starve and freeze the Japanese into surrender.
The fourth choices is continue with a conventional bombing campaign and send Japan back to the stone age.
From a 'war crime' perspective the defence is pretty simple, it doesn't matter why the bombs were dropped (and I fully agree there were all kinds of reasons that had nothing to do with forcing surrender such as testing the weapon, showing resolve to the Russians, all those arguments are valid) all that really figures into it is was the aim of unconditional surrender reasonable, I don't think any court would argue with that, and did the dropping of the bombs cause more or less deaths than was neccersary to meet the aim. I cannot see any argument that could be made that forcing the end of the war by the deaths of 300,000 was a massively higher casualty figure than the alternatives offered. In fact I truth it was the opposite, it did probably reduce Japanese deaths by the million.
That was pretty much out of nowhere... except for the fact that I've disagreed with you a few times in other threads.
I think you should maybe reflect on why someone disagreeing with you, and explaining why they disagree in detail, upsets you to such a degree that you've developed a personal animus towards them. Or don't; up to you, I guess.
It was a joke. Good lord man, the guy is having an Internet message board moment and you're ragging on him about epistemic humility. I mean, come, can you milk PHIL101 any more? (Again, a joke). I have no animus towards you. I find you entertaining. Frustrating at times, but entertaining all the same! Lighten up, we're having fun here!
From a 'war crime' perspective the defence is pretty simple, it doesn't matter why the bombs were dropped (and I fully agree there were all kinds of reasons that had nothing to do with forcing surrender such as testing the weapon, showing resolve to the Russians, all those arguments are valid) all that really figures into it is was the aim of unconditional surrender reasonable, I don't think any court would argue with that, and did the dropping of the bombs cause more or less deaths than was neccersary to meet the aim. I cannot see any argument that could be made that forcing the end of the war by the deaths of 300,000 was a massively higher casualty figure than the alternatives offered. In fact I truth it was the opposite, it did probably reduce Japanese deaths by the million.
When you're dealing with an army that was, at the time was brutally occupying huge swaths of Asia. You can't just allow Japan to have some kind of conditional surrender that leaves them in control of Korea, Hong Kong, China's coast, etc...Going straight after the Japanese homeland itself made a lot more sense than trying to clear those areas out.
You also have to factor in what was going on in the Northern front. The USSR was on the verge of invading Japanese occupied Korea. That alone would have been a bloodbath.
Edit: It's also likely that Russia would not have given up the Korean peninsula post-WWII. That would have left Russia right in China's backdoor. Not only would it have left Russia in a very powerful position, it would have set up a scenario for future conflict between Russia and all of the East. There are very good reasons the US and its allies fought so hard to stop Russia from taking over in the peninsula in the Korean war.
But where would our world be without WWII and its aftermath? Would WWII still have happened even if you killed baby Hitler? There were plenty just like him, if not worse.
Arguments can be made that, at least technologically, we'd be much further behind. Perhaps socially as well, as we saw the actual outcome of scapegoating a whole culture, mass genocide, the entire world (mostly) brought together in a common goal, etc..
As horrific as the whole scenario was, WWII forced us ahead in many ways.
I have a theory, that if you truly want to prevent WW2 and the Holocaust, you have to kill someone like Joseph Joffre and ensure World War 1 ends in the first month. The First World War is responsible for the breakup of a 600 year old empire that kept the Middle East under control, collapsed the monarchy of the largest country on earth and replaced it with the worst totalitarian regime in human history, AND creates the climate for Adolph Hitler and the Nazis to sweep to power.
Russia only goes communist in the first place because Germany is running out of options to win the war. They smuggle Vladimir Lenin into Russia from Switzerland, who is then able to undermine the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky. Can you imagine what Russia might have brought to the world if sane people had been left in charge after Nicolas II abdicated?
The world would look vastly different. I don't know if it would be better.
__________________ ”All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.”
Serious answer, about 6am or so yesterday. Whenever the sun began to rise. I work at night and sleep in the day. For a few reasons. I find I'm usually better at what I do at night time, I have a bit more creative juices flowing. Perhaps it has to do with the whole melatonin/serotonin thing. I feel like a zombie when the sun is out, I want to work out, eat, do physical things. But when the sun goes down I do my best work. Being self employed I can basically sleep when I want. It's awesome.
I'm currently doing a project with a few people who are over-seas and they mostly being in India and Thailand are hours ahead of me. But it also makes it easier to coordinate in live time with some of them.
Ah, I see why you are a Crumpy Gunt now, it is obvious you are a vampire. I would be that way too if I had witnessed thousands of years of crazy stuff. Carry on.
I'm pretty sure we are. While it might have been some fission type instrument, it certainly wasn't on a large scale like the Soviet or American tests were. If there is one country in the history of humanity that likes to exaggerate, it's Best Korea.
North Korea claims to have conducted hydrogen bomb test
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
I'm not interested in contemporary estimates, I'm interested in the arguments at the time that were used to drop two nuclear bombs on a country within days of each other.
No one at the time believed American casualties would number greater than 50 thousand, especially once the Soviet Union had entered the conflict.
The casualty rate was an argument created after 1945 in an effort legitimize their use after the fact.
In fact, one of the motivations for using the bombs when they did was the fear that contemporary firebombing (that had already destroyed Yokohama) and the pending assault from Russia would leave the US without suitable 'test' sites that would show the devastation from the weapon. What good is blowing up a blown up city when you can blow up an intact city? Further to this point, this is one of the reasons Kyoto was spared, Secretary of Warm Stimson personally removed it from the list because Kyoto was too valuable for it's antiquities and cultural artifacts to risk destroying.
Even more disturbing is the argument that Truman himself may have never actually authorized their use. That is according to General Marshall himself, as well as several others. It speaks to the momentum of the project. It was a runaway train that 'needed' to be used to justify its existence.
Further to this, there is more evidence that the timing of dropping the bomb (and thus, the decision to do so at all) was predicated upon the Soviet invasion of Japan. According to Japanese diplomatic messages to the soviets (who up until the invasion characterized their involvement with Japan as 'neutral'). The Americans wanted an unconditional japanese surrender prior to a Soviet invasion so they could renege on their Yalta agreements with Stalin. Stalin had told Truman that they had planned their invasion for August 15th. The Soviets declared war on the Japanese , and then the next day the Americans dropped the first bomb.
Talk about a coincidence.
If we're going to put ourselves back in 1945, how about this? You're in year four of a war that has cost untold thousands of lives for your side and tens of millions worldwide. You face the prospect of a hugely bloody battle even if the projected casualties are 'only' 50,000 dead on your side. Or you can drop a couple of bombs and end it immediately. Does the decision look so bad from that perspective?
Absolutely. The doubt was immediate from all these countries because it just wasn't strong enough. This thing might have been boosted, but that's it.
They can't even make rockets, there's no way they're doing H-Bombs.
I'm having trouble believing that they've managed to put a 2 stage weapon into production to be honest. Even if they had they would still have to find a way to miniaturize it for delivery on a rocket.
For the North Korean's the delivery of any atomic weapon doesn't have to be all that sophisticated, they basically need something that can fly as far as Seoul
which is in range of most long range howitzers.
Instead of spending all of their time suppossedly building a true city busting strategic weapon. Their smart move would be to focus on building small battlefield tactical nukes deliverable by artillary, MLRS or even off of the top of Scud style missiles.
That's why I think that this is a con, a ICBM delivery program is murderously expensive, as are multistage weapons.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
