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FeeTinesAMady | 11 years ago
What are you talking about?
> Negotiating with irrational actors is risky
They never even tried it.
I'll make this simple. The only justification for the fire bombings and nuclear bombings that has any possible merit is that they were necessary to end the war. However, the US never even tried to negotiate, nor did they try to communicate to the Japanese that they would be willing to allow the Emperor to remain nominally in power. They could have used that to end the war far sooner.
So how could the bombings possibly be necessary to end the war when the war might have been ended by other means? I'm sure you'll say that that wouldn't have worked, but how would you know? The lack of any attempt shows that the US wasn't interested in ending the war: they wanted revenge, and therefore the bombings were not justified.
woodman|11 years ago
That doesn't work in real life. In order to know what level of force is necessary, one has to have a perfect knowledge of the opposition. That isn't possible, so you always respond with more force than you think in necessary - overengineering the carnage.
> So how could the bombings possibly be necessary to end the war when the war might have been ended by other means?
If we are going to play the what if game, why stop at the firebombs? What if Japan didn't attack? What if the US didn't apply economic pressure? What if Japan didn't stomp all over Asia? The what if game is pretty boring.
FeeTinesAMady|11 years ago
That's exactly the kind of thinking that leads to global nuclear annihilation, and when that consequence became clear, intelligent people finally realized how wrong it is.
But your argument is wrong anyhow. Either you're trying to end the war, or you're not. If you are, you try all avenues, including negotiation. If you don't try negotiation, you aren't trying to end the war, you're trying to prolong it. The US leadership knew they couldn't lose at that point, so they weren't trying to end it.
> The what if game is pretty boring.
It sure is when you lose right away, due to the US never trying to negotiate. Earlier you said that it was "risky" to do so. How?
And It doesn't matter that we don't know what would have happened if the US had attempted negotiations with Japan. It only matters that they never did.