The notion that the bombings constituted an informed political decision intended to forestall an otherwise unavoidable invasion, and that Japan wasn’t ready to surrender is a complete retcon.[0] But a great example of how well Americans control the narrative—even eight decades after the fact. If anyone else did them they would be condemned as Great Crimes of History.
[0]: Truman didn’t order Hiroshima, and didn’t even know about Nagasaki. He did stop them after that.
Japan did not surrender after the Tokyo raid in March 1945 which killed more people than the individual bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki [0] and the emperor urged Japanese people to fight. Japan planned a full out defense of the 4 main islands, starting in Kyushu - operation Ketsugo [1].
The Emperor only changed its mind after the first atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima. The Big Six did not accept the American terns (Big Six wanted no invasion, wanted Japan to try its own war criminals, and wanted the Emperor to lead the country and answer to no-one). The Emperor gad to tell the council of Big Six that he already made up his mind to accept unconditional surrender and that he was going to tell Japan the very next day. Some military officers stormed the place trying to steal the radio recording of the Emperor. Army Minister Anami committed suicide because he could not bear to hear the radio address [2]
Japan military was geared to fight to the end on the main islands and dropping the atomic bombs was necessary to stop them. Dropping the bombs saved American lives, and maybe even some Japanese ones.
> Japan did not surrender after the Tokyo raid in March 1945 which killed more people than the individual bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Wrong. Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed way more people than the Tokyo firebombing 250.000 and 110.000 vs 80.000), and needed only a single bomb on a single plane, compared to the massive efforts to destroy Tokyo.
Oh really? <s> I will believe you after you convince Wikipedia to fix the page i linked in my previous post </s>.
Snark aside, your total may be including victims of radiation that died months and years later. If so, these victims were not incorporated in the decision made by the Emperor 2 days later - because these deaths did not happen yet and were not foretold/expected. (And you should also adjust your posting).
And to address your last phrase. I do not know what you mean by Truman did not order Hiroshima, and did not even know about Nagasaki.
But it should be clear that, while Truman delegated authority for picking up targets and dropping the bomb to military and State department, Truman along with the rest of his administration Sec of State Byrnes, Sec of War Stimson, Chief of Staff Gen. Marshall already decided the atomic bomb will be dropped on Japan. When Sec of State Byrnes explicitly warned the Japanese about "prompt and utter destruction" he meant exactly that. [0]
Dropping the bomb was done with Truman's approval.
> I'm no fan of the party in power in the US, but I can campaign and speak out against them. I can raise money to oppose them. I can band together with like minded individuals to protest.
You can. Just not in any way that matters. And you won’t. Because that takes organization and all existing organizations that matter are captured by the system and novel ones would quickly be.
Perfect example: The US just launched a disastrous and illegal (both in their own and the UN system) war at the behest of a foreign power/influential minority against the will of its people and against its geopolitical interest. And the “opposition” does less than nothing. There is little anti-war protest and none of consquence.
Compare it with 2003 and earlier wars: The American public has been all but neutralized as a political force. Not that it could do much even then.
> You can. Just not in any way that matters. And you won’t.
I’ve gotten language I wrote passed into state and federal law. The bottom line is a lot of people are too busy, lazy or nihilistic to call their electeds and show up to create political pressure. That’s unfortunate. But it also means that the payoff for relatively small amounts of effort are huge.
Did that language imping on the interests of America’s ruling elites, its security apparatus, or the interests of a certain entity in the eastern Mediterranean? No? Then we’re talking about entirely different things.
The “opposition” attempted to assert the congressional authority the branch is supposed over war powers, and were defeated because the American public gave majority power to the current majority whom rejected that authority to the executive branch to do whatever.
So the Palestinians and Arabs thought a hundred years ago. It served them badly.
It’s not that US/UK and others don’t get anything out of the relationship, as you note. But the arrows have been mostly pointing the other way for a long time. Trump and his background, as well as Epstein/Mandelson/McSweeney/Labour are just the latest, blatant examples of how this works.
> Maybe WE can't imagine taking losses like this, but in Russia they seem more than willing.
WE are happily enabling Ukrainians to take such losses.
> seemingly carelessly.
They are doing what works—which evidently it does, however ugly and cynical it looks. And Ukrainians do the same when they try to recapture. This is the face of attritional warfare in the age of drones and under pervasive surveillance. But you’re probably right—WE could not sustain such for long. One hopes.
> now exceed sustainable recruitment and replacement rates,
That’s on even days. On odd days these people will tell you that the Russia army has been all but rebuilt and is about to invade the Baltics.
> Meanwhile, battlefield casualties favor Ukraine by a 2.5- or 2-to-1 ratio.
Russia is 4–5 times bigger. So, even if these numbers were true, they would be bad news. Same with materiel—just check Oryx. For extra credit, look at the trends of losses. Far from good enough and getting worse.
It's not new, it's been the prevalent way of being for thousands of years - we had a brief moment of piece with the creation of the UN.
But apparently there are a lot of countries that think the UN and international law is cumbersome, and are in the way of securing their "sovereignty" (more like securing regimes) - it was obvious this was going to be outcome.
Funny enough, some of those have collapsed or are in the verge of collapsing: Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Russia...
Let's hope Europe doesn't flip to far right and start their own campaign, history shows they can be quite effective and destructive.
The best outcome is that this is just the final breath of those old regimes, and this is temporary.
[0]: Truman didn’t order Hiroshima, and didn’t even know about Nagasaki. He did stop them after that.
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