echidna

Phaedrus, I have read those links & must admit I was largely unfamiliar with those aspects of 1945. However a few problems, firstly from Leo Szilard’s interview … Firstly I seriously doubt that Szilard is in a position to make a completely informed statement over Truman’s briefings and planning. It would seem he’s saying that because Truman didn’t come to his conclusion then Truman didn’t consider it carefully enough. Political debating doesn’t work that way.

Secondly even Szilard seems to acknowledge that dropping the bombs was necessary to change a conditional surrender to an unconditional one & instead argues that a conditional surrender would have been acceptable. I think it’s extremely debatable that a conditional surrender would have been a desirable outcome. I think that’s just wishful thinking. Given the political tensions during the Cold War, an Arms Race was largely inevitable. In fact one could even unilaterally argue that 1945 demonstrated the political will to keep the USSR at bay through those years.

Either way, it’s extremely speculative.

David McReynolds’ article is interesting and I find his conclusion entirely plausible. What makes it difficult though of course, is lack of clear evidence for Truman’s intentions. In truth, it seems quite likely that Truman’s decision was multi-factored, but I would disagree that McReynolds seems to argue that political grandstanding towards the Soviets as being the sole reason.

Additionally neither Szilard nor McReynolds seem to adequately answer the question of how the US could best ensure its nuclear demonstration with only 2 bombs in its possession. Szilard notes in passing that more bombs could have been quickly made but fails to detail how quickly & what the military consequences might be.

Vorkosigan

anticipate greater loss of life, is there any way we can judge the value of the lives of different groups of people?

Depends what your values are.

I’m thinking more about the Japanese government’s refusal to surrender, even after Nagasaki. Taking that as a fact, I wonder if you could fill me in whether there were any political battles taking place within USG, as to the appropriate response.

Quite a few! The scientists and advisors all squared off against one another. But I am not as up on that as I should be. You'd have to track down Weintraub above for a good start.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Care to discuss how racism in the West overall played its part in convincing the Japanese theirbest chance was militarism ?

Hey, Gurdur, do me a favor. Supply us with two sets of numbers:

The number of foreigners from all nations permitted to gain citizenship in Japan during the interwar period.

The number of Japanese permitted gain US citizenship.

Which number do you think would be higher?

The Japanese, Gurdur, wrote the book on racism. Whatever do you think the Nihonron philosophy is all about? Blaming western racism for Japanese expansionism is the ultimate in bad apologetics. The Japanese may have felt that colonies were the way to get rich, taking the lead from the West, but that's an entirely different matter (it's not like imperial Japan never had any imperial adventures). The Japanese did not decide to slaughter 20 million Chinese because Westerners were racists. The Japanese slaughtered 20 million Chinese because the Japanese were even bigger and nastier racists than the Westerners were.

Vorkosigan

echidna

I hate it when Vork's posts trump mine.

Vorkosigan

• Q Do you feel that President Truman and those immediately below him gave full and conscientious study to all the alternatives to use of the atomic bomb?
  
  A I do not think they did. They thought only in terms of our having to end the war by military means.

Szilard, of course, did not have access to the Magic intercepts and thus was unaware that the Japanese had no surrender plans and had rejected initiatives from several of its officers abroad. Szilard is a brilliant man, but he did not have the kind of access he needed to make this judgement.

Vorkosigan

echidna

Gurder, as a mild post script, you're not seriously blaming the West for Japanese pre-1945 behaviour ? Was the Third Reich our fault as well ?

seanie

I don't think the Britain, France and the UK could be held entirely blameless concerning the rise of Third Reich.

Versaille an' all that.

echidna

OK, fair point. Although I think theirs was a blame only possible with the luxury of political hindsight, as distinct from the direct responsibility for a belief in a Europe militarily dominated by Germany, if that makes any sense (it's late here). I wouldn't be in a hurry to blame Versailles for Auschwitz.

seanie

Except that people at the time of Versaille, notably JM Keynes, warned that it would lead to economic ruin and political turmoil. That it would bring no peace.

OK that doesn't automatically lead to Auschwitz, but its not so easy to compartmentalise history into direct cause and effect.

Versaille was a catastrophe that created the very conditions that enabled a figure like Hitler to come to power.

Regardless of their intentions at Versaille the consequences of their actions places a burden of responsibility, although I couldn't say to what degree.

Gregg

Versailles was definitely a mistake, but it was the kind of mistake that human beings had been making from time immemorial. Victors treating the vanquished badly had always been the rule, not the exception, of warfare. The fact that some people realized in advance that Versailles was a mistake shows that a slow enlightenment process was going on. The mistake was not repeated after WW2.

Nevertheless, it's not exactly true that Versailles led DIRECTLY to WW2. During the "roaring 20's," the Nazis were largely marginalized, and Hitler was considered little more than a has-been, a political curiousity. It was the Depression that brought the Nazis to power. However, national memory of the humiliation of Versailles certainly made it easier for the Nazis to pursue their rearmament policies.

BTW, I would like to thank Vork and echidna for their responses to Gurdur and phaedrus' posts. I consider myself a liberal in a lot of ways, but I refuse to let ideology blind me to facts and reason, as too many liberals do. (And as too many conservatives do also, to be fair.)

Good grief. You would think that the Japanese were all sitting about in the lotus position, writing haikus about the brotherhood of all races, until the forcible opening of their ports and word of Western racism led them all to jump up and slaughter twenty million or more...other Asians. I guess we should take the blame for the rape of Nanking, which sickened and horrified even Germans who were present on the scene.

Gregg