The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan, Stalin Did (2013)
foreignpolicy.com
foreignpolicy.com
And apparently the Soviets, who had essentially no capability to launch a amphibious invasion, were a serious threat to the Japanese home islands. You know, compared to the country which had just launched the most ambitious amphibious operation in history.
The Japanese government at the time was prone to ultra-nationalist factions and extreme instability, and the problem with the idea that they would surrender just because the Soviets had closed off one of their options was that, although any individual leader might well know that their situation was untenable, anyone who acknowledged this would be prone to a coup by nationalist junior officers. The incentive structures of Japanese military leaders was such that it would be extremely difficult to justify ending the war. Otherwise, they would have de-escalated with China in the first place, or at the very least following the US embargo.
I'm being far less fair than I should be, but so is the article itself - the story it presents is plausible revisionism and is taken seriously by historians, but it is revisionism nonetheless; there is a reason historical consensus is historical consensus, and saying that "there is a real resistance to looking at the facts" ignores this. The story that the Soviets caused the surrender is perfectly plausible, but so is the story that the bombs did. My own feeling is that the article is written in bad faith.
As an aside, the idea that nuclear weapons were widely considered horrifying at the time is very much an anachronism. Nobody really understood the consequences at the time; to give you an idea, Operation Downfall planned to use nuclear weapons as an opener and then march US troops into the blast zone after 48 hours.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall
Now, Operation Downfall was supposed to be many, many times larger than the Normandy landing, so the wiki page cannot possibly be complete. If you have some details about the planned use of nukes, could you provide a link please? I’m especially interested in whether the planners envisioned using NBC equipment, in which case an invasion after 48 hours does not sound quite absurd.
There is a section of that wikipedia page that talks about the planned use of atomic bombs during the invasion:
>Nuclear weapons
>On Marshall's orders, Major General John E. Hull looked into the tactical use of nuclear weapons for the invasion of the Japanese home islands, even after the dropping of two strategic atomic bombs on Japan (Marshall did not think that the Japanese would capitulate immediately). Colonel Lyle E. Seeman reported that at least seven Fat Man-type plutonium implosion bombs would be available by X-Day, which could be dropped on defending forces. Seeman advised that American troops not enter an area hit by a bomb for "at least 48 hours"; the risk of nuclear fallout was not well understood, and such a short amount of time after detonation would have resulted in substantial radiation exposure for the American troops.[81]
>Ken Nichols, the District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District, wrote that at the beginning of August 1945, "[p]lanning for the invasion of the main Japanese home islands had reached its final stages, and if the landings actually took place, we might supply about fifteen atomic bombs to support the troops."[82] An air burst 1,800–2,000 ft (550–610 m) above the ground had been chosen for the (Hiroshima) bomb to achieve maximum blast effects, and to minimize residual radiation on the ground as it was hoped that American troops would soon occupy the city.[83]
One thing is pretty clear though, they didn't want to publicize the radiation effects on humans. Those they sent to Hiroshima were there to study the victims not to help and many didn't know the health effects they would soon personally suffer.
The bombs did not force Japan to surrender. The threat of a third bomb did. (You can see the actual memo enquiring about the third bomb here - [2] )
Take that all in for a moment.
[1] - https://outrider.org/nuclear-weapons/articles/third-shot/
[1]https://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=100
Also, a fantastic link that you shared!