Broken Toys

To be fair, they proposed a lot of other stuff too. The possible invasion was just one of many contingencies ruled out for being completely batshit insane.

Not that this helps the argument for it in the department of sanity, but Patton was all in favor of an invasion of Russia. The quote in the movie is a real one. To paraphrase it, he said we should make peace with the Nazis before we totally overran them and get them to help us fight the Bolsheviks.

Read the list of scenario assumptions on the first or second page. The invasion/war probably would have happened had those conditions been met.

Or the hot war much uglier.

On the other hand, there is an ineresting strategy game here, now that most of those who would have been involved are gone.

And we should have done it, too. Kicked them back to their border, at least, and saved Eastern Europe. The Cold War would have been much milder.

Aye, it would have. I think people often forget just how battered the Red Army really was at the end of the war. Though triumhpant, they were by no means ready to take on a renewed enemy, much less one with the ability to achieve dominant control of the skies, outpace all Soviet production, ignore the pathetic Soviet navies (both Baltic and Black) and, over all, absorb losses readily.

The real trouble would be getting public opinion behind it–not exactly something easily accomplished after ~4 years of being allied.

Of course had Russia allied with Japan, while we were still at war with them and they still held alot of Asian territory, we would have had to do something. It’s named “Unthinkable” for a reason. I have to think that, while Russia considered us their next enemy just as we did them, it would have been lunacy for them to allie with Japan. That would have brought more war on their people, this time brought by themselves at a time when peace was available. It would have been a backbreaker, even moreso for them than for us, in morale and economically.

That’s why it’s called contingency planning, after all.

I’m sure America has a plan for Britian nuking America. Likely? When hell freezes over. Contingency plan? Yes.

My grandfather narrowly missed taking part in Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Japan by the Allies. He’d just spent two years slogging through the Philippines and watching people die all around him.

Well, the U.S. military went and ordered half a million (seriously, 500,000) Purple Hearts, just for the projections on Downfall. They ended up giving them away to wounded soldiers over the next 60 years. Only in 2005 did the military put in an order for more.

OTH, quite a bit of evidence that nuking Japan was totally unnecessary, and just done for show.

http://www.ncesa.org/html/hiroshima.html

“Careful scholarly treatment of the records and manuscripts opened over the past few years has greatly enhanced our understanding of why the Truman administration used atomic weapons against Japan. Experts continue to disagree on some issues, but critical questions have been answered. The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it.” (Emphasis added.)

The author of that statement is not a revisionist; he is J. Samuel Walker, chief historian of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Nor is he alone in that opinion. Walker is summarizing the findings of modern specialists in his literature review in the Winter 1990 issue of Diplomatic History.

Another expert review, by University of Illinois historian Robert Messer, concludes that recently discovered documents have been “devastating” to the traditional idea that using the bomb was the only way to avoid an invasion of Japan that might have cost many more lives.

http://www.anesi.com/ussbs01.htm
Even in 1946, a Truman created panel said this:

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

That is revistionist history, because they’re relying on what we found out POST-bomb drop. Yes, it seems likely the Japnese wouldn’t have fought as tough as they did on Okinawa, but we didn’t know that AT THE TIME. As for Truman knowing alternatives existed, sure, he knew them, and considered them, and discarded them because they were flawed in other ways (i.e. a test demonstration could fail).

Bruce

Brent is dead on. The people doing the ’scholarly’ research are only analyzing the problem from one point of view. The Japanese were clearly not going to give up, and only did so in the face of unimaginable overwhelming power. It’s good that it only took 2 A-Bombs to knock them into submission because we didn’t have any more to use on them. The Japanese would not surrender without the assurance that the Imperial system would remain intact nor without the command from their emperor to do so. Hell, in Guam a japanese soldier crawled out of hiding in 1971/1972 after he finally gave up. He lived in a hole smaller than Saddam’s hideout for 26 years on faith in his countrymen alone.

Besides, people who make an issue out of hiroshima/nagasaki are usually completely clueless. The firebombings done in Japan and Germany caused infinitely more loss of civilian life and collateral damage, but because the words ‘atomic’ and ‘nuclear’ aren’t associated with that it’s not a problem for most people.

If it comes down to it the decision was this: annihilate a couple hundred thousand Japanese people and hopefully save the lives of 300,000 americans, or kill millions of Japanese through conventional means and lose the lives of 300,000 Americans. If American today was faced with losing almost half a million American lives, or nuking Pyongyang, I believe popular opinion in the US would be to annihilate North Korea. Of course, forty years later, people would be writing ’scholarly’ reports saying why it was completely unnecessary.

Yeah, the whole “we didn’t HAVE to nuke or invade Japan” camp is pretty looney. Remember, this was a government that had told their people that Chinese were subhuman. Propaganda from that time told the populous that they would be tortured in the most cruel ways imaginable. I suggest you read about the Invasion of Saipan and the suicide of all the civilians who threw themselves off a mountain before you spout off any more nonsense about it not being necessary.

As far as military options… people always seem shocked when they hear that we have a plan of attack on X. Isn’t that why we have a military? To be prepared should it come to Y or Z? I’d be more surprised if they DIDN’T have a plan to attack Russia. I’d be truly surprised if, right now, some person isn’t finishing a plan to invade (or nuke) Iran. Because, you know, that’s what military planners do.

Yeah, the whole \’e2\’80\’9cwe didn\’e2\’80\’99t HAVE to nuke or invade Japan\’e2\’80\’9d camp is pretty looney. Remember, this was a government that had told their people that Chinese were subhuman. Propaganda from that time told the populous that they would be tortured in the most cruel ways imaginable. I suggest you read about the Invasion of Saipan and the suicide of all the civilians who threw themselves off a mountain before you spout off any more nonsense about it not being necessary.

I don’t know for certain the answer of whether or not the charges put forth are correct or not correct, but it’s not as cut and dried as taught in grade school history.

And are you going to assert that Americans weren’t subjected to propaganda also, to frame executive decisions in as a justifiable fashion as possible.

Far from a set of “looneys”, here are individuals who thought the bombing was unnecessary and unjustified:

Some have claimed that the Japanese were already essentially defeated, and therefore use of the bombs was unnecessary. General Dwight D. Eisenhower so advised the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, in July of 1945.[33] The highest-ranking officer in the Pacific Theater, General Douglas MacArthur, was not consulted beforehand but said afterward that he felt that there was no military justification for the bombings. The same opinion was expressed by Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), General Carl Spaatz (commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific), and Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials);[33] Major General Curtis LeMay;[34] and Admiral Ernest King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard,[35] and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.[36]

Who cares what they thought? The issue is whether or not the bombings saved more lives by ending the war sooner. Signs point to “yes”, but there’s no way to know without a time machine. It’s not that an invasion of Japan wouldn’t have also succeeded, but at what cost?

“And we should have done it, too. Kicked them back to their border, at least, and saved Eastern Europe.”

It is a good thing that British Joint Planing Staff was not comprised of Patton wannabes and thus was able to accept the reality. One need only reread Page 28 of that document.

Especially this piece:

“Our view is, therefore, that once hostilities began, it would be beyond our power to win a quick but limited success and we should be comitted to a protracted war against heavy odds. These odds, more over, would become fansiful if the Americans grew weary and indifferent and began to be drawn away by the magnet of the Pacific war”

Regardless of the Pacific theatre, the prospect of invading the USSR itself (as opposed to satellites) has been proven to be the dumbest possible way to achieve any military ambition.

The more gung-ho among the commenters would do well to remember what Hitler and Napoleon (not to mention countless other minor historical aberrations who might have been major historical influences if they hadn’t tried it) learned before them.

Frankly, that’s nearly as good a suicide strategy as attacking the British Isles post 1066.

One thing to keep in mind was the way things were after Germany fell.

-We had a war to finish with Japan, still a powerfull enemy.

-Russia was going after territory in Europe, following expansionist ideals that we already knew they had before the war even started. What they got is what we call “satellites”.

-Nazism had spread around the globe, in small pockets of political and violent influence. Did you know that Saddam Husein’s uncle, the one who taught him all he knew, was associated with the Nazi party back in WWII ?
Take a look

Simply put, we could not risk a prolonged war with Japan. We had to finish things off, or face the possibility of other threats from those who would have wanted us weakened.

Walter, I agree with your statement. I knew someone would catch this after I posted it and thought about what I said.

What I really meant to imply was the many groups of totalitarian, dictatorial, and evil (I left out parentheses because there is such a thing as evil after all) groups that were spread around the world and willing to cooperate with the Nazi regime. Even after the fall of Nazi Germany, they were still there and something that almost certainly would have to be dealt with sooner or later, as these kinds aren’t going to just lay down arms and surrender to freedom loving peoples. Rather, they are going to try to build their own group into something by the use of force, intimidation, torture, and murder. They cared nothing for human rights.