I think due to very fact of proximity, the horrors of Ww2 Japan tends to be glossed over by western people as opposed to Nazi Germany and Italy. Ask the Chinese though.. not that the Mao regime was utterly horrific as well.
Geopolitics
- Thread starter Mciahel Goodman
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I think due to very fact of proximity, the horrors of Ww2 Japan tends to be glossed over by western people as opposed to Nazi Germany and Italy. Ask the Chinese though.. not that the Mao regime was utterly horrific as well.
This is an absurd take too by people unfamiliar with the topic.
Regarding Japan, post war Documents that the 6 man Japanese War council (who in all but name ran the country at this point) documented their "red lines" that should not be crossed under any surrender agreement. These were made publically available in their war archives.
This included keeping of all annexed territories of China, Korea and Mengkuko as client states amongst a list of other insane things that could never be agreed to.
There is no turn away from the Liberal Democrat West. In fact, China is being isolated, as Western funds flee the CCP's country.
The small adventure in Gaza has resulted in symbolic protests and a slight loss in moral authority. All it will result in is slightly greater leeway for the sadly Non-Liberal Democratic allies of the West to exercise their genetic impulses towards Authoritarianism.
The joint Western front in protecting its homeland from the flood of cheap CCP solar panels and wind turbines, overproduced cynically by the Communist Party to fight an economic downturn, will mean further economic problems in China. Even better, globbal warming will absolutely devastate China as well as the Non-Western Non-Liberal Democracies it would have tried to forge into a Anti-Democratic Front, while the more advanced West, with favourable geography and money, will be better placed to withstand the effects of climate change.
Long live the west, the guiding light for world progress and morality against the Oriental Hordes and the Communist Savages over the last 400 years.
The small adventure in Gaza has resulted in symbolic protests and a slight loss in moral authority. All it will result in is slightly greater leeway for the sadly Non-Liberal Democratic allies of the West to exercise their genetic impulses towards Authoritarianism.
The joint Western front in protecting its homeland from the flood of cheap CCP solar panels and wind turbines, overproduced cynically by the Communist Party to fight an economic downturn, will mean further economic problems in China. Even better, globbal warming will absolutely devastate China as well as the Non-Western Non-Liberal Democracies it would have tried to forge into a Anti-Democratic Front, while the more advanced West, with favourable geography and money, will be better placed to withstand the effects of climate change.
Long live the west, the guiding light for world progress and morality against the Oriental Hordes and the Communist Savages over the last 400 years.
I think you're distorting the point a bit. Most know that the Soviets were doing their own terrible shit as well but the line of thought is that the US shouldn't have played their own foreign intervention games. Instead they should have held the moral high ground vis-a-vis the Soviets and don't overthrow governments in other countries. Whether it's done by a sponsored coup or own boots on the ground is a bit of a moot point.
Because we're going to face an existential crisis in terms of ideology very soon, everyone will be forced to choose whether you want to or not.
It's a very naive point though - you just watch the enemy, with real designated intent to destroy you, ("We will bury them", etc), do more and more things to cripple your national interests?
This is very different from modern day geopolitical paranoia of trying to guess intentions and making huge mistakes or acting with insane hubris, the cold war was quite literally an existential one.
Quite so. And the moral poseurs, sectarians and tankies will have to get on board or face the hostility of the state apparatus. It's clear that social media bots and kremlin gold are already being used by foreign actors to destabilise our politics. When the time comes to clean up the house I predict a swing right towards authoritarianism or else towards chaos. The centre can't hold.
Pretty much. And I would side with democratic countries with capitalist economies, with freedom of speech, freedom of religion VS Totalitarian capitalist countries or failed communist states. It doesn't mean you ever have to stop campaiging for what you believe is right. The difference is in the "west' which also includes Australia, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea etc. You actually can. Your say in Totalitarian regimes becomes zilch as does freedom of information or the free press.
I just wonder whether there were better alternatives such as offering better economic deals to Latin American countries, Cuba, Iran (Mossadegh) and so forth rather than sponsoring coups and propping up violent right-wing governments.
Also, if we analyze each and every intervention, would we conclude all were necessary for existential reasons? Was there not lobbying by the United Fruit Company to intervene in Guatemala, for example?
I don't think any of them were necessary for existential reasons, but they were often an emergent property of the cold war and how structural realism affected the post WW2 global political order where powerful states were incentivized to gain and consolidate power and resources during their escalating competition with another.
Right. But then we shouldn't be surprised about morality-focused criticism and just acknowledge that in that Cold War competition a lot of horrible stuff was supported/tolerated by the Western powers.
Yeah United Fruit and Guatamela was really bad - as was 1953 and the Iranian crisis. They do leave a sour taste in the mouth. Although, forced nationalization of foreign assets is a grim policy too, it shouldn't be responded with coups.
Maybe there was a room for negotiation at the time, but given the context of the cold war the state planners didn't want to leave things to chance - especially since that while those individual events were not existential, the bigger picture was.
Spot on. It was little more than great power competition that affected many countries and people who lacked the rights or sufficient means to do anything about it.
Can't this be merged with the geopolitics thread? Essentially its just a continuation.
It's definitely not that simple. There is strong reason to believe that Japan eventually would have surrendered without a full-scale invasion, with far fewer deaths and injuries to civilians.
The idea that the dropping of the nukes was the humane and quick option and that this was the main reason for why the US did it, is also contested. The arms race with the Soviets and the need for a real demonstration strikes me as the main objective. And looking at US foreign policy since then it is quite clear that they are "US first" with little regard for human life and the suffering of civilians when push comes to shove.
But I will agree that the nuclear bombs possibly ended up saving the world from a large scale nuclear war. Theories and test bombing in the desert/ocean would not necessarily be enough to deter world leaders.
Good call
Done
1) Nope, none. After the war the US scrapped what was left of the archives in Japan and transcribed and translated them and put them in the Washington War Archives. You can read the meetings of the Japanese War Cabinet. Three of them wanted conditional surrender (on hilariously outrageous terms) and three wanted to fight on to the bitter end. *After Hiroshima*. After Nagasaki, the view was still split down the middle. The Emperor decided to take power and declare a surrender, which triggered a constitutional crisis and a fecking coup. The War Cabinet believed that every last Japanese person dying was a better outcome than unconditional surrender, again after Hiroshima.
2) Also, not true. Go to the Harry S Truman library where all the minutes of all the meetings regarding discussion around the Atomic project and use was documented. What you describe was mentioned, very briefly, in two different memorandoms as an anecdote on the side. The main discussion was always ending the war as quickly as possible, with as fewer casualties as possible.
Well I've read theories that the Japanese were far more scared of a soviet invasion and occupation vs a US invasion. But essentially it boiled down to propaganda. A american prisoner told the Japanese that the US had 100 atomic bombs other than those dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki. In reality they had 4. Essentially terror ended the war.
One thing that does make me cringe, and I'm paraphrasing here, is when people advocate for a multi-polar world but then never put expectations on Russia/China. And the argument is usually "well, they're authoritarian, we can't expect anything from them". Do you want a multi-polar world or not? Because that includes authoritarian governments.
They didn't even have 4. They had 2 and one test device. After Nagasaki it would have been 1946 before another was ready.
I was just going after my muscle memory
1. How can a country fight to the bitter end when they are trapped on an island with no allies and most of their navy and airforce destroyed? At one point they would have surrendered one way or another. And how could the US have known for sure that Japan wouldn't surrender without the use of nuclear bombs? They translated the documents after the war after all.
But most importantly: I would add that when it comes to the nuclear bombs it is not just a matter of keeping score by counting the number of dead. It's also the horrible manner in which many of them died. And so many more were injured in horrible ways. Children were born with all sorts of ailments. And the people who had to do the rescue work, clean up and treatment were mentally scarred in a manner that is hard to imagine. There is a reason for why certain types of weapons (chemical for instance) are banned, even though the final number of dead is the same or even lower.
2. I wasn't talking about the nuclear bombs in particular. There is a long list of atrocities committed by the US since WWII that clearly show that their lack of humanity. Just because there exists worse regimes it doesn't excuse the US.
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When the difference was between killing 250K civilans and the estimated up to 1 million Allied casualties invading Japan it's was quite frankly a no brainer
Read the Japanese War council accounts. You are right, how can they? The answer was they would just all die and fight to the bitter end. It might seem abborrent and ridiculous to you, but this was all documented. It's just a fecked up mentality.
This "horrible manner", argument doesn't hold up for me. I mean yes, the method of death was horrible and bad. But why is it that only the nuclear weapons that held this argument whereas the other methods which were used on Japan barely get a mention? Why does Nuclear weapons get this special treatment of "too brutal" but we barely get a mention of stuff that was even worse?
If your argument was "Strategic bombing was a traversty" it would hold more weight. But why single out Nuclear weapons?
USAF Firebombing missions on Tokyo for example was far more brutal than Nagasaki/Hiroshima - and killed far far more. One particular firebombing mission was so intense that it created a firestorm raging within the city. People burned, slowly, and many suffocated to death as the oxygen was taken from the air to fuel the flames, even when they were tens of meters away from the flames.
Why does nuclear weapons get the "brutal" treatment but things such as a firebombing missions which killed more, were more brutal and more damaging don't get any mention? It's very contrarian.
See this analysis from the USAF. More people died in the tokyo firebombing raid in March. nearly 3x the area destroyed compared to Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. total casualties wise, Tokyo had more than both the Nuclear bombs.
It’s absurd because I commented on what I thought was wrong, not on what I thought should have been done instead.
This is insanely ridiculous and disgraceful. Have some shame. To call a nuclear strike on a civilian population ‘mercy,’ is the epitomy of western arrogance. To think the Americans did them a favour by nuking men, women and children. I’m sure the families of those poor souls will write the Americans a thank you card for years to come.
I’ll ask the question again, if the shoe was on the other foot, would accept 250,000 of your own people dying in that way and call it a mercy?
I have no idea!? That’s rich coming from sone who supports a genocide!
I’m sorry but have you seen what is happening in Gaza right now!? Tens of thousands of people are being slaughtered and you have the audacity to claim it’s all a conspiracy?
He's not saying that the thousands of deaths in Gaza is a conspiracy theory though, is he.
Absolutely it’s hopeful. The west should be isolated by the rest of the world but it’s not going to happen, as the west is too powerful (built on colonialism).
My responses are to those who try to claim the west is some pillar of morality when it clearly isn’t
You sound quite pleased by this. But that list is unfortunately very small. This is the hold the west has over the rest of the world.
But he’s attempting to say that those who oppose Israel and Zionism are putting forward conspiracy theory arguments when the truth is in plain sight. Their leaders spout genocidal rhetoric every day.
Ok Adolf. What a load of white supremacist nonsense.Okay but that's a different point. And that's not necessarily how I interpreted it but he can correct me. I interpreted it as conspiracy theories such as the Elders of Zion etc.
He's being sarcastic.
Oh give over - You haven't read any primary sources on what the Japanese were planning to do in the case of an actual American Invasion of the home islands.
You haven't read anything on this topic and you're giving judgement.
Given the alternative was Operation Olympic and the Japanese War Council Plan.
Let me give you a quote made by the Council in one of their documented meetings before the bombs dropped
The whole point of the original thread was to ask how isolated the global west had become.
I'm quite pleased that the UK isn't completely geopolitically isolated, well spotted.
I haven't argued that 'the West' has always been a moral paragon but I take issue with the as yet unevidenced assertion it is becoming isolated. You offered to 'join the dots' but have avoided any practical examples.
Nobody here has defended colonialism, white supremacy or genocide.
What we have defended is exaggerated claims, made up claims, claims without context
and the incapacity to recognise the alternative is far far far worse.
According to your logic if your home country (say, India) is invaded, it is wrong to defend instead of surrendering since your decision to defend means thousands of deaths?