Vault Dweller said:
The nukes were dropped for one reason: the military wanted to test them on live targets. Nuking one city would have been enough, btw, but two is obviously better than one, so...
Are you being serious? I hope not.
This has been debated to death elsewhere, but suffice it to say that the reason for using the nukes is a lot more complicated than simply "two is better than one!".
Plans were drawn up for an invasion of Japan, but the human cost, as demonstrated repeatedly throughout the Pacific campaign whenever land forces would confront the Japanese, would have been consistently high. Ultimately (as a gross generalization here), it came down to: why waste conventional forces when you can remotely annihilate the enemy with something else?
Vault Dweller said:
1. The Soviets were already working on the bomb. Truman told Stalin that they have "a new weapon of unusual destructive force". Stalin definitely got the message as he immediately contacted his people telling them to hurry the fuck up. A bomb wouldn't have stopped Stalin if he wanted to continue expanding, as he was more than willing to sacrifice his soldiers to achieve his goals and nuking Russian forces in Europe would have caused a lot more damage to European cities and civilians than to Russians. Nuking a couple of Russian cities would have started a new world war.
No. Stalin already knew about the bomb thanks to inside leads within the Manhattan Project. The Soviets knew where the US stood in terms of nukes, but they certainly weren't being lazy about their own weapons program, either. That's what many believe is the reason for being so nonplussed at Truman's statement: he already knew what Truman's surprise was. He was probably chuckling to himself inside his head. It coudl be argued that was one reason he could play hardball with East Germany later on.
Vault Dweller said:
2. "The nuclear attacks forced Japan to surrender and thus saved many lives of innocent invading US soldiers." It's a popular but deeply flawed theory. First, mass murdering civilians to save soldiers' lives was always frowned upon.
Yes, it is, and has formed the core of the debate for many such decisions made.
But as I had noted already, playing Devil's Advocate here, the Japanese soldier had consistently demonstrated his ability to fight on in order to inflict heavy casualties on the attackers. That was a significant factor in their question in asking who do you want dying more: us or them?
And this isn't the first time that the Allies had terrorized "the enemy" in such a way, especially when the war had begun to drag on in later years.
See: February 13th, 1945 - Dresden.
Vault Dweller said:
Second, one bomb would have been enough.
To a degree, but you left out that the United States had hoped that the one bomb would have been enough
to force the Japanese to the negotiating table following their silence on the Potsdam Declaration. It didn't thanks to hardline elements within the Japanese government. Even after the second bomb, there were still those that wanted to continue the war regardless.
But there were other factors for the United States wishing to hurry things along. One big reason was the Soviet Union which had also declared war on Japan and was prepared to stage its own invasion of the home islands. After seeing Stalin gobble up Eastern Europe with his armies hanging around like house guests that will never leave, there was reason to believe that the US didn't want to see the same thing in Japan.
Vault Dweller said:
Third, a lesser target could have been produced the same result.
It could have, but according to their criteria for targets, they wanted something both military and urban so as to cause the psychological impact they needed.
You've already quoted Kyoto below. Tokyo was considered, but ultimately left out for the simple fact that the US needed someone on the other side of the negotiating table. That, and Tokyo wasn't a strategically important target.
Dropping a nuke on a tent is not quite as terrifying as a city with a military base. As cold as that might sound, that's basically the gist.
Vault Dweller said:
Fourth, Japan could have been warned that it's coming.
The same could have been said for Pearl Harbor, even without the delays experienced by its diplomatic corps in delivering the ultimatum.
The Potsdam Declaration had drawn the line on what the Allies expected from Japan. When Japan met it with silence, that's when they had to decide what to do to force their surrender. Either with an invasion, or with the bomb.
Yet many people would say that these bombings were legitimate.
Vault Dweller said:
Who? The military? The Japanese attacked the military targets in PH, which was a brilliant operation. The US got butthurt and started hitting civilian centers with incendiary bombs. Nice.
I doubt that the survivors of the Rape of Nanjing would shed as many tears over the incendiary attacks made on Tokyo.
Again, playing Devil's Advocate, the number of factors considered by the military and their civilian authority gravitated towards one conclusion that they thought was best at the time: expediency.
Was it the right call? Is it ethical? Is it as "legitimate" as those that support it say it is? That's going to be debated forever by people better versed in it than I. But you could have at least presented significantly stronger reasons than "butthurt US uzed noob nukes!!! FFS!".
The fuck...debating history over Irenicus. Who knew?
You might disagree with all of the above positions, but my point here is that what some people might call evil can be morally defensible from other points of view, and that these points of view might very well be held by sane people wanting the best.
Vault Dweller said:
Sometimes. Sometimes not. Like I said, Lucas at least provided some reason, some justification for Anakin's fall. Bioware created a cardboard cutout villain. All we know is that Irenicus was willing to let everyone die for his chance to become a god. That's not a lot to work with.
Often insanity doesn't need a reason to do what it damn well pleases. The person sitting next to you could be someone that goes out at night and kills whoever he's hired to, coming home before the kids wake up to cook them pancakes and squeeze fresh OJ from oranges bought on the way home before having sex with his wife.