‘US government documents admit that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not necessary to end WWII. Japan was on the verge of surrendering. The nuclear attack was the first strike in Washington’s Cold War on the Soviet Union. Ben Norton reviews the historical record.’
But the US motivation for dropping the bombs was to intimidate the Soviets, not to just attack the Japanese. They had already firebombed most Japanese cities to the ground at that point. Their goal for Japan with the bombs was to pressure Japan into surrendering to them so they could use them as a bulwark against the Soviets.
People tend to split history of the era into like, “WW2 ends. (Free Space.) Cold War begins.” But it isn’t nearly so clear cut. The cold war started long before world war 2 was ever over, and the US’s actions at the end of the war were just as much focused on their next conflict as they were on the current one.
if that was their goal, they could have accepted the surrender they were offered. imperial command had only one condition – the survival of the emperor – which they were granted anyway after the bombs were dropped. the US opted not to accept that surrender so they could use Japan as target practice.
At that time the US wasn’t accepting anything less than unconditional surrender. The US changed their minds on that when the Soviets invaded.
It’s messy for sure, probably one of the most eventful weeks in human history, so I’m sure there was a lot of back and forth. The pressure to surrender to the US came after they rejected Japan’s first surrender offer and after the Soviet liberation of Manchuria.
my point is that the desire to drop the bomb led them to prolong the war.
Oh right, I don’t disagree with you there. Turns out tiny paragraphs aren’t very good at establishing the nuance of a complicated historical event. (and I probably wasn’t very good at getting my point across)
yep, the fact that even brief summaries have to cover things day by day during that period are a testament to that. I have no clue how skullboi covered it in just 2 hours.
Yeah, going through this thread has reminded me to watch that video again. And his Harry Potter one. Not related to this topic, I just really like his casual destruction of TERF bullshit.
hah, I was planning to go back through it in the morning so I have all the dates lined up.