It's mad how rocket landings are now more exciting than rocket launches.
There were quite a lot of them at the time.
"Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? 'That's not my department,' says Werner Von Braun." -- Tom Lehrer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro
This century has yet to see anything like WW1 and WW2, and those who are alive today are incredibly disconnected from our recent past.
An argument made that WW2 was continuation of WW1 and that WW1 was wanted by British leadership who were locked in an arms race with Germany that they could not sustain much longer and wanted a war with Germany while they were ahead so the assassination that triggered WW1 was the pretext tobstart WW1. If you disagree please try to answer why leaders are regularly assassinated and that does not cause a world war.
Germany, on the other hand, wanted to emerge as a stronger power than Britain while avoiding direct conflict. German leaders pleaded with Britain to remain neutral and not declare war on Germany. However, from the British perspective, war with Germany was deemed necessary to suppress its increasing power and maintain Britain's position on the world stage.
British leaders may not have actively sought to start a war, but they believed that confronting Germany was crucial to protect their national interests. See my reply to sibling comment with more details.
Today there is a similar situation with China being the rising power and America seeking to suppress it.
Britain's system of alliances, particularly the Entente Cordiale with France and Russia, made it likely that any conflict involving these powers would draw Britain into a larger war. When the July Crisis erupted following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, British leaders did little to prevent the escalation of tensions. Despite last-minute efforts by some, such as German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg's plea for British neutrality, Britain remained committed to its alliances and the belief that war with Germany was necessary.
It's worth noting that other European leaders, such as French President Raymond Poincaré and Russian Tsar Nicholas II, also played significant roles in the outbreak of the war. However, Britain's long-standing rivalry with Germany, its naval arms race, and its commitment to alliances that would likely trigger a larger conflict all contributed to its readiness to enter the war when the opportunity arose.
How, exactly, mechanistically, does Britain manipulate this crisis into an Anglo-German war? They didn’t make Austria-Hungary declare war. They didn’t even declare war alongside the French. And they certainly didn’t make Germany invade France by way of Belgium in order to give Britain a pretext. It sounds to me like Germany wanted war with Russia and was confident they could also afford war with France (having kicked their asses in 1870 already) but would have really preferred to keep Britain out of it.
If there is a criticism one can levy against the British, it might be that they simply weren’t forceful enough in making that consequence clear to the Germans ahead of time. The “alliances that would likely trigger a larger conflict” were in fact a consciously designed system of balances of power meant to deter exactly that type of large scale war, in the tradition that was established 99 years previously in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. It’s easy to dismiss that system because it failed catastrophically in 1914, but the fact that it had mostly worked since 1815 was unprecedented in European history. The 99 years between the Napoleonic and First World Wars were the most peaceful 99 years of European history since at least the Roman Empire; check back in 2044 to see if we can break that record.
You make a good point about the "Long Peace" between the Napoleonic Wars and World War I. While there were indeed several conflicts during this period, they were generally shorter and more localized. The Revolutions of 1848, which affected many European countries. The Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) The Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885) The Greco-Turkish War (1897) And there are others that I missed
> Germany wanted war with Russia and was confident they could also afford war with France (having kicked their asses in 1870 already) but would have really preferred to keep Britain out of it.
Yes I also agree however had Britain remained neutral and not created alliances that it knew would put it in conflict with Germany is it possible that the Germany vs. Russia conflict might have remained a regional war (like others I mentioned above) and so continuing the so called “long peace”? Instead there was an escalation to a global conflict. So what motivated Britain to make these alliances that caused the escalation? Is there a better explanation than “Thucydides Trap”? (See my sibling post about this.)
“Thucydides Trap" suggests that when a rising power threatens to displace an existing great power, it often leads to war. Russia, Britain, and Germany found themselves in this predicament before World War 1, with each nation acting rationally to protect its own interests. However, the complex web of alliances and the fear of losing power ultimately led to a global conflict that no one truly desired.
The answer to this is incredibly obvious. It's the same reason people have always made voluntary alliances - for security. See also: NATO.
As for the "Thucydides Trap", there's plenty of criticism on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides_Trap#Criticism
Personally I file it alongside Marxism, Asimov's Psychohistory, and all the other Grand Theories Of History that try to pretend human behavior is simple and predictable.
Notice many of the criticisms that you linked to focus on whether the trap applies to the current dynamics between the USA and China. The mere existence of such debates implicitly accepts the validity of the trap pattern itself.
Other criticisms question the trap's applicability to different historical situations and its underlying mechanisms, such as assigning blame for the resulting conflicts. However, these arguments overlook a crucial aspect of the trap: "incredibly obvious" security moves by one party can provoke equally "obvious" security responses from the other, potentially escalating into a devastating war that neither side truly desires. This can occur even when all parties act rationally, as the challenge to the established "pecking order" drives the trap.
> Personally I file it alongside Marxism, Asimov's Psychohistory, and all the other Grand Theories Of History that try to pretend human behavior is simple and predictable.
It's essential to distinguish the "Thucydides Trap" from grand theories of history like Marxism or Asimov's Psychohistory. Rather than attempting to simplify and predict human behavior on a grand scale, the trap is better understood as a cognitive bias that can lead groups into conflicts with one another. The numerous examples listed on Wikipedia support the existence of such biases:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
While human behavior may indeed be unpredictable at times, it is be unwise to dismiss the influence of cognitive biases on group dynamics and decision-making.
For instance, the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, where the German Empire you seem to idolize was effectively born. Also the same war that gave the German Empire a degree of overconfidence about their chances against France.
> however had Britain remained neutral and not created alliances that it knew would put it in conflict with Germany is it possible that the Germany vs. Russia conflict might have remained a regional war (like others I mentioned above)
Did Britain create the alliance between France and Russia? They certainly weren't a party to it, because that wasn't their casus belli for entering the war. Their casus belli was the German invasion of Belgium. My contention is that if Britain was less neutral and more proactive about creating alliances that could put it in conflict with Germany, they could have successfully deterred the First World War.
Britain did not create the alliance between France and Russia - that alliance was formed independently in 1894 as a counterweight to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Britain's casus belli for entering WWI in 1914 was Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality, not any direct alliance obligations.
However, I would argue that Britain's shift away from "splendid isolation" and toward the Entente with France and Russia in the early 1900s, while stopping short of hard alliance commitments, still had the effect of emboldening France and Russia in their disputes with Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 in particular eased long-standing tensions between Britain and Russia.
So in that sense, while Britain didn't create the Franco-Russian alliance, British diplomatic moves in the pre-war years did strengthen the Entente bloc and alter the balance of power in a way that made France and Russia less likely to back down in a crisis. A more fervently neutral Britain may have left France and Russia feeling less confident.
> My contention is that if Britain was less neutral and more proactive about creating alliances that could put it in conflict with Germany, they could have successfully deterred the First World War.
In the lead-up to WWI, there was a prevailing belief among European powers that any war would be short. Many did not foresee how devastating and prolonged the conflict would become. So even a more hardline British policy may not have been seen as a strong enough deterrent in 1914. Additionally, a more assertive Britain risked further inflaming tensions and sparking a crisis. The European alliance system meant any conflict had the potential to spiral out of control - more British alliances could have simply added fuel to the fire. And if war came, Britain would then be obligated to join from the start, rather than having the option to stay out.
> German Empire you seem to idolize was effectively born
I disagree with your characterization that I "idolize" the German Empire. My argument is that the outbreak of World War I was primarily caused by the "Thucydides Trap" dynamic - the dangerous instability that occurs when a rising power threatens to displace an established power. In this case, Germany's rise in the late 19th/early 20th century threatened the European balance of power that had long been anchored by British dominance.
I don't believe in the simplistic "evil Germans started WWI" narrative that was promoted by the war's victors. This narrative served to justify the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles placed on Germany, which most historians agree was a key factor in the rise of Nazism and the eventual outbreak of World War II 20 years later.
Portraying it simplistically as "evil Germans" against the noble Allies is not productive and does not do justice to the immense tragedy of the war and its aftermath.
My contention is we should strive to analyze this world-shaping event objectively and resist nation-centric narratives shaped by wartime propaganda. I believe examining it through the lens of great power competition and the "Thucydides Trap" is a more constructive approach.
If you have evidence showing that I "idolize" Imperial Germany, I would appreciate if you could quote where I expressed those sentiments. But I suspect this is a misreading of my arguments about the war's root causes.
And the idea of maintaining a balance of power in the first place was part of the legacy of the Congress of Vienna following the Napoleonic Wars. It wasn't a uniquely British policy.
> However, I would argue that Britain's shift away from "splendid isolation" and toward the Entente with France and Russia in the early 1900s, while stopping short of hard alliance commitments, still had the effect of emboldening France and Russia in their disputes with Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 in particular eased long-standing tensions between Britain and Russia.
> So in that sense, while Britain didn't create the Franco-Russian alliance, British diplomatic moves in the pre-war years did strengthen the Entente bloc and alter the balance of power in a way that made France and Russia less likely to back down in a crisis. A more fervently neutral Britain may have left France and Russia feeling less confident.
Germany's goal in 1914 was to attack Russia, so Russia's confidence is of little relevance. Do you have any evidence that France was more confident in allying with Russia because they felt they could trust Britain to help? Because that doesn't seem at all consistent with the history of Franco-British relations. And, as discussed above, it's also perfectly explainable in terms of maintaining the balance of power, which had been the consensus method of maintaining peace for the past century.
> I disagree with your characterization that I "idolize" the German Empire.
You're furthering a theory in which Britain is somehow to blame for the outbreak of the First World War. I assumed that your attempt to rehabilitate the historical legacy of the German Empire was motivated by some sort of fondness for the German Empire. If I'm mistaken, please accept my apologies.
> My argument is that the outbreak of World War I was primarily caused by the "Thucydides Trap" dynamic - the dangerous instability that occurs when a rising power threatens to displace an established power.
Yes, this was exactly the dynamic taking place between Germany and Russia.
> In this case, Germany's rise in the late 19th/early 20th century threatened the European balance of power that had long been anchored by British dominance.
There are multiple problems with this idea, most of which I have already enumerated, but I will re-enumerate them for your convenience:
* Britain and Germany operated in very different spheres. Britain was a global thalassocracy while Germany was a land power with mostly Eurasian concerns. Germany was attempting to develop sea power on their own, but they were never particularly close to eclipsing Britain on that front.
* Even if Britain had the goal of engineering the outbreak of a war with Germany, they did very little that contributed to the outbreak of such a war. Meanwhile, Germany took several such actions.
> I don't believe in the simplistic "evil Germans started WWI" narrative that was promoted by the war's victors. This narrative served to justify the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles placed on Germany, which most historians agree was a key factor in the rise of Nazism and the eventual outbreak of World War II 20 years later.
That's a non-sequitur; even if the Treaty of Versailles was too punitive, it doesn't follow that Germany didn't start the war.
(For what it's worth, the most punitive effects of the Versailles Treaty had been effectively waived or ameliorated long before the Nazis took power. The consequences of the Versailles Treaty did motivate support for the Nazis in the 1920's, but by the end of the 1920's, hyperinflation was over and Germany had successfully renegotiated itself into a much stronger economic position. What really helped the Nazis after that point was the start of the Great Depression. But this is a tangent.)
> Portraying it simplistically as "evil Germans" against the noble Allies is not productive and does not do justice to the immense tragedy of the war and its aftermath.
Some simplistic historical narratives also turn out to be mostly true. For example, would you make the same claim about the Second World War that you're making about the First?
I'm not particularly interested in moralizing about history. But here are the concrete actions Germany took which served to either start or expand the war:
* Germany gave diplomatic encouragement to Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia in the first place.
* When Russia joined the war in defense of Serbia, Germany responded by declaring war on Russia, knowing that Russia and France had a defensive alliance.
* When France joined the war in defense of Russia, Germany attacked the neutral country of Belgium.
Britain could have stayed neutral at this point, and yet a world war would have still broken out purely by virtue of Germany's actions. Let's contrast the actions the British took, which you attribute the outbreak of the war to:
* Britain eased tensions with Russia and improved relations with France. (Very strange to start a war by improving relations with your traditional enemies!)
* After Germany was already in a war with Russia, France, and Belgium, Britain entered the war and refused German demands to remain neutral.
My objection with your theory here is that you haven't provided any credible mechanism by which Britain could have possibly engineered the start of an Anglo-German war, particularly when the causal links in that chain included many actions that were entirely within Germany's control. Can you please address that particular objection? You can say "Thucydides Trap" until you're blue in the face but the facts don't fit the theory in this instance.
If you believe this you misunderstood me.
There was a regional war (the “long peace” had many of these) which only became a global war when the British empire got involved. What I pointed out was that British involvement was optional. The British Empire was concerned about maintaining a balance of power in Europe. German dominance threatened this balance hence the British empire wanting war with Germany and declaring war on Germany. Belgium was a convenient pretext.
> I assumed that your attempt to rehabilitate the historical legacy of the German Empire was motivated by some sort of fondness for the German Empire. If I'm mistaken, please accept my apologies.
My argument is that the outbreak of World War I was caused by the "Thucydides Trap" dynamic and I do not believe the simplistic “evil Germans were responsible”. Nor do I believe the British or Russians were responsible. To cast blame is to misunderstand the "Thucydides Trap".
> Even if Britain had the goal of engineering the outbreak of a war with Germany, they did very little that contributed to the outbreak of such a war. Meanwhile, Germany took several such actions.
When above I said “WW1 was wanted by British leadership who were locked in an arms race with Germany that they could not sustain much longer and wanted a war with Germany while they were ahead” I did not say “Britain had the goal of engineering the outbreak of a war with Germany”. You misunderstood me.
> My objection with your theory here is that you haven't provided any credible mechanism by which Britain could have possibly engineered the start of an Anglo-German war, particularly when the causal links in that chain included many actions that were entirely within Germany's control. Can you please address that particular objection?
I may want a new car, however I am not going to get a new car unless my current car needs big repairs but I am not going to crash it for that purpose to “engineer” the situation. Similarly British leadership who were locked in an arms race with Germany (that they could not sustain much longer) wanted a war with Germany (they were ahead) but it would be foolish to engineer war on purpose.
At the start of WW1 the British Empire played a dominant role in the global economy -- it was perhaps about one-quarter to one-third of the global economy. Adding to this the economic contributions of English-speaking allies like the United of States of America, which was rapidly industrializing and increasing its economic output, the fraction could reasonably be estimated to range from approximately 30% to 40% of the world's GDP being either English-speaking or under British control at the beginning of World War I.
Would we call it a “world” war if 30-40% of world GDP was not involved? Did the British Empire have to be involved? Were they attacked? No, there was a treaty about keeping Belgium neutral that was used by the British to declare war on Germany. Did Britain have to declare war if it did not want war?
To help answer this question let’s look at a more recent example: the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. It was signed in December 1994 by Ukraine, the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The signatories offered assurances against the use of force or coercion against Ukraine and pledged to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine. Could this treaty be used as a reason to declare war on Russia? Yet nobody wants war with Russia so nobody declared war on Russia. So going back to the British Empire, if it did not want war with Germany did it have to declare war due to Belgium?
> That's a non-sequitur; even if the Treaty of Versailles was too punitive, it doesn't follow that Germany didn't start the war.
It may look like two separate issues however if victors need to justify a punitive treaty are there no incentives to write the history about the start of the conflict in a biased way? Did you witness the start of WW1 in person? Understanding biases in how history is recorded is important is it not?
> (For what it's worth, the most punitive effects of the Versailles Treaty had been effectively waived or ameliorated long before the Nazis took power. The consequences of the Versailles Treaty did motivate support for the Nazis in the 1920's, but by the end of the 1920's, hyperinflation was over and Germany had successfully renegotiated itself into a much stronger economic position. What really helped the Nazis after that point was the start of the Great Depression. But this is a tangent.)
> Some simplistic historical narratives also turn out to be mostly true. For example, would you make the same claim about the Second World War that you're making about the First?
Simplistic historical narratives belong in patriotic propaganda. “Why did your family members and friends die? They died for our country! They died for freedom! Democracy!”
You come across as smart so why would you accept simplistic historical narratives?
What you say may be true but how do you explain that World War II is often viewed as a continuation of World War I? Do you doubt that unresolved issues and punitive conditions of the Treaty of Versailles left Germany economically and politically destabilized? Do you doubt that the harsh penalties, including significant territorial losses, disarmament, and crippling reparations, fostered deep resentment among Germans? Do you doubt that this environment allowed extremist parties like the Nazis under Adolf Hitler to rise to power? Do you doubt that Hitler's aggressive policies were aimed at overturning the Treaty of Versailles and restoring Germany's stature? Nothing to do with WW1?
The bombing of Dresden is arguably a war crime by todays standards. It was unnecessary.
Remember that we were allied with the Soviet Union (Joseph Stalin was the "good guy" on our side). After WW2 he was given half of Europe as a reward, forcing that half of Europe to become communist, and the Soviets got to write the history books about Germany and WW2. Not the most transparent and unbiased source of information.
The Soviets and other allied soldiers (the good guys) also had a free-for-all with the German ladies after winning the war.
"The majority of the assaults were committed in the Soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of German women raped by Soviet soldiers have ranged up to 2 million"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_...
And yes. Stalin was a bad guy and it's a pity the war didn't end with the demise of both the Nazi and Soviet regimes. This is also irrelevant to the matter of strategic bombings perpetrated by America and Britain.
"We may have been fighting the wrong enemy (Germany) all along. But while we're here (on the Soviet border), we should go after the bastards now, 'cause we're gonna have to fight 'em eventually."
https://books.google.com/books?redir_esc=y&id=32DxAAAAMAAJ&d...
You realize that this is exactly how the war between Oceania and Eurasia started, right?
Your points about the Communists stand, but keep in mind that the West always considered them the least bad option. They started out on Hitler's side and they only got half of Europe because they already had it occupied with masses of troops. The West couldn't have pushed them back to Moscow unless they were willing to fight a couple more years, killing millions more.
And some would argue that nuking entire cities is completely unacceptable.
1. Invade. Expected Allied casualties of 300k all the way to much more than a million. Expected Japanese casualties: tens of millions, perhaps up to literally all of them. Previous Japanese strongholds fought to the last man, earlier in the war the Allies invaded an island with 11000 Japanese soldiers, and I think 47 of those eventually surrendered. The rest died. The civilian populations on these islands infamously committed suicide in huge numbers rather than be captured by the Allies. How much harder would an invasion of the home islands be!? The Japanese government issued an order that every single person must fight to the death.
2. Starve them out. The allies had submarines all around Japan and completely blocked all food and oil imports. This was working. But given the Japanese fighting spirit, likely tens of millions would have died before any change took place. It's also possible that the population could drop so low that the islands would become self-sufficient and then the war would drag on literally forever.
3. Conventional aerial bombardment. The Allies were already trying this with great gusto, to little diplomatic effect.
4. Demonstration nuke off the coast. The Allies only had two nukes left after the test one, and weren't 100% sure it would work. A failed demo would only strengthen Japanese resolve. There were concerns whether one demo nuke would be scary enough to force a surrender. Given that one actually used nuke wasn't, these concerns turned out to be valid.
5. Actually drop a nuke. This option turns out to have had the lowest bodycount in the end and had the unexpected side-effect of ushering in an unprecedented era of global peace.
First, there is no evidence of any actual casualty estimates made during the war that were anywhere near as high as the ones you give in option 1. Those numbers were made up after the war. The wartime estimates were about an order of magnitude lower.
Second, you left out an option: clarify the status of the Emperor if the Japanese surrendered, which the US government well knew, since they were reading Japanese diplomatic traffic and also had plenty of intelligence from spies, was the only real obstacle in the way of the Japanese surrendering. The final surrender agreement left the Emperor in place as the head of the Japanese state. If the Japanese had known that was going to be the final outcome of surrender earlier, it is highly probable that they would have surrendered earlier. The status of the Emperor was the primary weapon the military war faction in the Japanese cabinet used to quash surrender proposals.
Third, to call the time since WW II "an unprecedented era of global peace" is a bit much. What the bombs ushered in was an era of nuclear stalemate. The US does deserve credit for not using the bombs again, even though the US was the only nuclear power for at least four years after WW II. It is also true that many people after WW II expected a nuclear conflict to happen as soon as the USSR got nuclear weapons, and none did. But that didn't stop plenty of conventional conflicts from continuing to break out all over the world, nor has the US kept out of such conflicts.
I don’t know much about the second point, so you may be right.
Third, you have to look at stats, not emotions. Battle deaths - in absolute terms and per capita - dropped like a stone after 1945.
After rising like a rocket when WW II started. If you leave out WW I and WW II, it's not clear that post-1945 was more peaceful than pre-1914.
Even one battle death is too many but having them go down overall is very good.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc is a well known logical fallacy. That is what you are doing here.
Also, the relevant comparison, as I said before, is not post-1945 vs. pre-1945. It is something like post-1945 vs. pre-1914, so that the comparison involves peacetime conditions on both sides.
The cold war was cold because of M.A.D.
And I will compare any periods I want. The nukes fell in 1945, so I compare all of human history before that and after that. There’s a clear and massive decline even if you only look at pre-1914 rates.
You are inferring direct causality based on one event following another. That is the logical fallacy I referred to.
> There’s a clear and massive decline even if you only look at pre-1914 rates.
That's not what I see, so I guess we'll just have to disagree.
Have you noticed how in history good guys always eventually won every major conflict? What are the odds? 100% if you paint a bullseye after you shot.
Probably the biggest share of the blockade at the end was done by naval mines. At the end, the US airdropped naval mines in Japanese harbors to prevent them from importing food, and this sunk more Japanese shipping than the submarines ever did. It was even called “Operation Starvation”.
Given that you don’t know the body count of the other options, given they didn’t happen, that’s a bold statement to make.
The reason hiroshima and nagasaki (small cities) were chosen as nuke targets was because every other bigger city was already mostly destroyed due to firebombing campaigns.
Only the emotional impact was different. A nuke was an otherworldly weapon that marked a technological superiority that was impossible to overcame during the war, hence the surrender. Carpet bombing would have to go on until enough Japanese cities and industries were reduced to hash. Then maybe an invasion. As somebody pointed out, the surrender of the Japanese troops in China was a goal of the war and they could not carpet bomb or nuke China.
Only because the US froze all trade with Japan and intentionally refused all Japanese attempts at diplomacy to negotiate some kind of arrangement. The US did that knowing that the Japanese government would go to war, since the US had broken the Japanese codes and was reading all Japanese diplomatic traffic. In other words, the US intentionally provoked Japan into going to war.
The Soviets were allies. Look up what they did in Germany at the end of WW II. And that's not even looking at all the other atrocities they had perpetrated before the war started, many of them on their own people.
Also, the empire building I referred to on the part of the US, Britain, and other European countries took place well before WW II. That doesn't mean it can just be ignored.
> Or maybe just stop spreading Soviet propaganda.
It seems to me that you are the one spreading Soviet propaganda since you are not even acknowledging the moral implications of having the Soviets as allies in WW II.
You don’t have to convince me that the Soviets were evil. They were part of the Allies purely because Hitler put them there.
They then immediately started propagandizing the world to undermine the genuine contributions and general legitimacy of the West.
Stopping Axis aggression against the US, Britain, France, and other Western countries was good for everyone.
Stopping Axis aggression against the USSR? I'm not so sure. Particularly not since the price of doing that was condemning Eastern Europe, China, and a good chunk of Southeast Asia to tyranny.
And with it, the enactment of the Final Solution in its territories.
Are you sure you mean to say that you're "not sure" if stopping this project in its tracks was a good idea or not?
We know that this wasn't the primary motivation behind the decision of the Soviet-Western alliance, of course. But it was indisputably one of the key outcomes of the war and that cooperation.
All this is true, but it's also true that the nukes weren't the only factor involved. A good case can be made that it was actually the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, which started at midnight local time on the same morning that Nagasaki was bombed, that gave the peace faction in the Japanese government enough leverage to get the Emperor to intercede. The Japanese still weren't exactly sure what the nuclear bombs were, and they had already been firebombed for months so having two more cities incinerated was not the huge change that later US propaganda made it out to be. But the Japanese had been trying for many months to get Stalin and the USSR to broker a peace agreement, and Stalin and Molotov had been stringing them along without any real intention of helping, to ensure that Stalin would have time to enter the war against Japan. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria shocked the Japanese government into realizing their true position and made surrender an urgent priority since Japan greatly preferred being occupied by the US to being occupied by the USSR. The nuclear bombs were a convenient way for the Emperor to save face and not have to admit that it was really the strong desire of the Japanese to surrender to the US and not to the USSR that drove the decision.
See the excellent book Racing the Enemy by Hasegawa for a detailed and thorough exposition:
https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Enemy-Stalin-Truman-Surrender/...
Even so, a land conquest of Japan would have cost vast numbers of lives - far more than the nukes.
When people die one by one in war, the emotional impact is blunted. But when a million die in one bomb, it seems much worse, even if the overall body count is lower.
That was the strategy that FDR and Churchill agreed to, but the primary person driving it was Stalin, because he didn't want the US and Britain to defeat Japan before he got a chance to attack them, and he knew he would not be able to attack them until Germany was defeated. (He wanted to attack them so he would have a pretext for taking over territory that Russia had lost in the Russo-Japanese war in 1904-1905.) As events proved, the US and Britain did not need any help from the USSR to defeat Japan militarily, and with different diplomatic choices they probably could have gotten Japan to surrender before the USSR attacked.
Once FDR died and Truman took office, btw, it was no longer clear that having the USSR enter the war against Japan was a US objective. Truman, unlike FDR, was not a fan of Stalin and viewed him as a geopolitical threat, not an ally. Which, historically speaking, was a sounder view.
Such as?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y43-p3xLDyo
This is from the final episode of the series. Easy Company have fought their way from Normandy to Germany, losing hundreds of their friends and brothers in battle after brutal battle. Now the Nazis have surrendered and they finally have some respite - but their celebrations are shortlived. Their commanding officer informs them that they're to be redeployed to the Pacific. The war isn't over, and the expression on Malarkey's face at 2:09 says it all.
Whatever anyone says about the atomic bombings, I bet those men were damn happy to hear about Japan's surrender. Imagine if they'd been sent to invade Japan, in another brutal campaign that would have taken months if not years, costing hundreds of thousands more Allied lives.
Then imagine telling them that the government had secretly developed a powerful new weapon that could have ended the war earlier and avoided all this bloodshed - but they hadn't used it because they were worried about the moral implications. I don't think they'd have agreed it was the right choice.
Japanese knew that Soviet rulers did not care if another million of soldiers died and Soviet occupation was considered much worse outcome. That contributed to their surrender to US.
I like how they ultimately accepted the unconditional surrender, but still tacked on a condition that the emperor was not to be blamed.
Even though he should have been:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/hirohito-the-war-crimina...
Contrary to what this article says, I’m absolutely convinced that not prosecuting the emperor was the right call. The country would have more or less literally exploded overnight.
The fact the man himself told everyone to surrender was of more importance than almost anything else done, both at government and civilian levels. Most of the internal efforts to stop the surrender were around stopping him from declaring as such.
The emperor directly mentions the atomic bomb in his address; "Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization."
He only tacitly mentions the battle situation; "But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone – the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of our servants of the state, and the devoted service of our one hundred million people – the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest."
I know that. And I said why: to save face. He didn't want to tell the Japanese people that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria was the reason. The atomic bomb made a much better reason for public consumption. That doesn't mean it was the actual reason that drove the decision, which was made in private.
That's not clear either. Without the atomic bomb they might well have found another way to save face.
Now I will say that I have not read Hasegawa's book but Wikipedia says that it is "challenging the widely accepted orthodox view that the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the most decisive factor in Japan's decision to surrender ending the war against Japan."
It will be interesting to read but it looks like that it is not the accepted theory and that primary sources from the era were destroyed on all sides.
I imagine there were more before that.
"The Allies" included the Soviet Union, which did initiate war--against Finland, against Poland, against Japan (this in the 1930s, before historians say WW II started)--and wanted even more war, hoping that all of the capitalist countries would destroy each other and leave the USSR to take over. And as others have pointed out, the USSR ended up in control of Eastern Europe, which was supposed to be liberated from tyranny--that was the original reason for Britain and France declaring war on Germany when Poland was invaded--so WW II actually failed at its primary objective. Even if you make the argument that Allied firebombing raids were a justified war measure, that argument only works if the war succeeds at its objective. If it fails, that argument falls to the ground.
It is indeed very weird to claim that UK and France have won in WWII, when they had initially declared war in order to fulfil they alliance obligations toward Poland and Czechoslovakia, but the result of WWII was that both Poland and Czechoslovakia have lost large parts of their territories (like also others of the former allies of UK and France that happened to be neighbors of the Soviet Union).
UK did not won anything in WWII. They have just preserved their integrity like someone whose home was under attack by a gang of robbers and murderers, but they got rid of the attackers by paying another gang of robbers and murderers to do most of the work, and the payment was done not with their own money, but with money stolen from other assault victims (i.e. by giving to Stalin the Eastern Europe, which was not the property of Churchill, for him to have any right to give).
Poland was much luckier than all the other neighbors of the Soviet Union, because much of its territorial loss has been compensated with territories taken from Germany. Therefore, when one compares pre-WWII with post-WWII Europe maps, at the first glance Poland does not seem to have changed much in size. However, after a more thorough look, it becomes obvious that Poland has moved on the map from east to west.
If you wanted to make the case that America started it you would have to go back to the 1850s when America rudely introduced them to modern gunboat diplomacy. But for that argument you would need to read a damn book instead of parroting any fool opinion you learned on Reddit.
No. I meant exactly what I said. I didn't say anything about Japan except that the USSR attacked them--more precisely, they attacked the Japanese troops in Manchuria. Not just in 1945--in the late 1930s.
I believe this view indicates you may have drunk a bit too much of the kool aid. Germany had zero ability to hold all of Europe longer term, let alone the entire world. This is a comic book tier view. Any end to the war would have had concessions and land transfers but there is no precedent to suggest that even France would have remained under Germany longer term if the Germans had won. Western Poland and bits of other nations, sure, but that is hardly an entire continent or world. The notion that they were a serious threat to occupy the US is hilarious and goes to show how effective the fear mongering propaganda was and continues to be to this day.
> The Allies did not initiate war and did not want war
England and France declared war on Germany, not the other way around. Arguably the whole thing could have been avoided if England and France hadn’t backed Poland, which would have likely caused Poland to negotiate on the original land bridge problem rather than dig their heels in. It’s eerily parallel to the situation with Ukraine today, in fact.
You say that as if it is meaningless. How about just not invading your neighbors?
It also just sets a bad precedent to let the bullies have their way. Though I’ll admit that it’s questionable whether it was worth it in hindsight, we have only one possible branch of history to compare.
The France and Britain invasions were pretty straightforwardly defensive actions by Germany. They both allied with Poland and when Poland was invaded (an aggressive act by Germany) they declared war on Germany. What evidence is there to suggest that Germany would still have invaded France if France and Britain had simply abandoned Poland? Note that I’m not asserting that they “should have” abandoned Poland, just that the “we’ve got to stop them before they conquer the whole world” is almost always a bogeyman.
If you fail to achieve your stated goal and you still declare victory, you are either lying about your goal, or you are lying about your victory.
Invading the USSR probably wasn’t the most efficient way to ensure a free Poland. Have you heard of negotiation? Did the USSR really not want anything that the Allies could give to ensure a free Poland? Or did the Allies simply not value a free Poland enough to give up something big enough? If it was really their main reason for entering the war, don’t you think the negotiations math would have worked out differently?
I'm sorry, but this is not a realistic view of what transpired. Russia was and continues to be an opportunistic colonialist. They keep moving territory markers overnight in Georgia. Crimea/Donbass didn't happen because of some breakdown in some peace treaty. The last minute deal offered and wasn't accepted right before the 2022 invasion that some blame Ukraine on was awful in every possible way. It would have neutered Ukraine militarily and required a puppet government subservient to Russia be installed.
Had the axis powers won the war I'm certain it would have been classified as a war crime and Bomber Harris would have been the first against the wall.
Both sides were not the same.
Feel free to be outraged no matter who it is.
You will get an nuanced perspective on the whole conflict from a lot of angles and all discussions that lead to firebombing/nukes etc.
Those thing didn't happened out of the blue.
Additionally, reports of damage to the British capital city was very morale-raising for the Germans who saw mostly the destruction of their own cities. That also has military value.
Weirdly, that's how it almost always works out. Didn't work in England, didn't work in Germany, not working in Ukraine. Kinda makes that "though" look silly in retrospect. That's why today we consider bombing civilians to have no military utility.
- NATO in Libya in 2011
- Operation Iraqi Freedom
- Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan)
- US and coalition campaign against ISIS
- Saudi bombing in Yemen have pretty much stalled the Houthis.
- Russia in Syria for the last decade
- France in the Sahel
- The Turks in Iraq and Syria, been going on for almost a decade.
- Israel against Hezbollah in summer of 2006, didn't get the captured soldiers back but did stall the rockets against Northern Israel. And in Gaza in 2014, similar result in stopping the rocket attacks.
- Kosovo in 1999
That's all off the top of my head, though I did have to Google the names a bit. And it's all within recent memory, I remember every one of those conflicts. I'm sure some old timers here will mention quite a few more, spanning further back in time and further geographically.
No one sane is disputing that bombing can have value, but modern military bombing is done with (relatively) precise strikes against militarily useful targets, not indiscriminate attacks on civilians. When Israel bombs a civilian building, it's at least because they think there are Hamas fighters or weapons there.
> Did they specifically work by making the citizens push the government to capitulate?
This seems like a perfectly legitimate military strategy? It’s a strategy which the allies used to great effect in Germany and Japan :/
The Germans used rockets instead of bombers because they couldn’t, not because they didn’t want to.
Of course we bombed the hell out of German noncombatants too, so we don't exactly have an unsullied record.
> even if it's effective at demoralising the enemy.
It wasn't.
> and your goal is to terrify enemy civilians, which is not a legitimate military strategy
That just doesnt work, pretty much never. Yes civilians will be terrified but that is all you will achieve. It holds true during 2nd world war, it holds true now with every single ongoing conflict.
Going after civilians changes nothing, often results in the opposite - even harder resistance.
- Tom Lehrer.
Written in 1961. Wild.
It's nothing special; it's a logical consequence of the question "how would you land a rocket" when you assume the rocket is single-stage and can just travel from world to world, and you're a fiction writer who doesn't understand (or purposely neglects) the rocket equation. I mean, how else would you land a rocket, so it can be blasted off again? (Again, remember this is sci-fi that's very light on the "sci" part, where they're thinking in the future that humans will have self-contained rocket ships that can just travel from world to world without worrying about supporting infrastructure, the rocket equation, having enough fuel, needing to do any maintenance, etc.)
For all born after July 1969, you lived with rocket landings: Apollo lunar lander was a propulsive soft landing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Landing_Research_Vehicle