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Comment by SEJeff | Hacker News Reader

This was pretty much exactly the reasoning behind the US military launching the nukes on Japan at the time. They did their modeling and predicted very heavy casualties on both sides for taking island by island vs the nukes making Japan rethink the entire war.

I think all wars are tragic and am not sure that I agree dropping the nukes was a good idea (I’m a US Army combat vet or OIF II btw), but this comment seems eerily familiar.

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Indeed, and Curtis Lemay - head of the firebombing campaign on Japan and later head of SAC, the nuclear arm of the US Air Force - was the primary proponent of the theory that War should be so bad and brutal for the purpose of ending it swiftly.

"The New York Times reported at the time, "Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, commander of the B-29's of the entire Marianas area, declared that if the war is shortened by a single day, the attack will have served its purpose." This view was later echoed by Japan's former Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, who said, "The determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing.""

War is hell, as you saw first hand, and those of us who are charged to execute it want it to end as quickly as possible.

War parties want to dominate their enemies and win a given conflict as quickly as possible, but historically are quick to pick a new fight. The dust and horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were barely settled before the USA rushed right back into another armed conflict in Asia. For the hawks, there is always another “necessary” conflict around the corner that justifies a new arms race and more flawed rationalizations for war atrocities.

The United States did not initiate the Korean War.

I have a feeling some of the couple hundred thousand people killed in hiroshima and nagasaki would have preferred the war to last one more day if it could mean killing, say, 100K fewer civilians. If there were such tradeoffs to be made.

But I suppose Maj. Gen. LeMay would have prefered killing yet additionals hundreds of thousand civilians if it could mean saving the life of one American soldier.

Just different perspectives I guess.

The requirement for unconditional surrender prolonged the war, many arguments could be made, but unconditional surrender was also necessary to prevent the Japanese government from planning future wars by restructuring their society.

Grand strategy involves decisions for the welfare of societies for a century into the future.

“I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.”

Japan had been suing for peace for over a month. In fact they had pretty much agreed to all American demands except the status of the emperor.

The Japanese surrendered when the Soviets entered the Pacific theater.

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