Terrorism by Any Reasonable Definition
By Anthony Gregory • Monday August 6, 2012 12:28 PM PDT • 96 Comments
The mushroom clouds from the 1945 atomic bombings over Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right).
Sixty-seven years ago, on August 6, 1945, the Truman administration dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, instantly killing tens of thousands of men, women, and children, and causing a nuclear catastrophe that took thousands of more lives in the weeks and years that followed. Three days later, on August 9, the U.S. followed up by dropping a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki.
Assuming the conventional narrative we hear about these events is true, these acts were acts of terrorism by any reasonable standard. The typical story is that the Truman administration made a necessary and difficult calculus, deciding that the lives of about two-hundred-thousand Japanese civilians were worth expending so as to save the lives of even more American servicemen who would have had to invade Japanese mainland and secure victory.
But killing innocent people—including children—for the purpose of war aims and to save the lives of soldiers, whose job it is to fight, is terrorism, and contradicts centuries of international law and the Just War Theory of the Christian tradition. Those defending these murderous acts on the basis of necessity are defending the indefensible.
Yet as it so happens historical facts make the case for dropping the bombs in 1945 even weaker. For one thing, the supposed half-million or so American lives saved are a post-war fabrication. The government’s estimates before the bombings indicated that fewer than 50,000 Americans might die in an invasion. Second, the virtually unprecedented demand for unconditional surrender prolonged the war. Earlier in the year, the Japanese demonstrated a willingness to surrender but they did not want to give up their emperor. In the end, the U.S. let them keep their emperor anyway. Third, many of America’s top brass condemned the atomic bombings, including Admiral William Leahy, General Dwight Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, and many others. Fourth, in 1946 the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey determined the atomic bombings were basically extraneous to winning the war. The Japanese were already defeated, blockaded, starving, and neutralized.
Even after the bombing of Nagasaki and the emperor said he would surrender, the U.S. firebombed Tokyo on August 14 with a thousand-plane bombing mission. Was this last mass killing necessary? We rarely hear about it at all, perhaps because it throws into question the entire morality of U.S. strategic bombing in the Pacific War.
Indeed, World War II featured a mass wallowing in collectivist slaughter on the part of both the Axis and Allied Powers. Japan’s and Germany’s brutalities, some of the most notorious in the history of humanity, are appropriately condemned, yet these evils have somehow come to obscure the evils committed by the United States, Britain, and even Stalin in the course of the war. The other side was guilty of unsurpassed inhumanities, but this should not give a free pass to the Allies for their own acts of barbarism, which by any sensible standard rank among the greatest war crimes of the modern era.
America’s introduction of nuclear warfare to the world was a distinctive act of a particularly insane anti-human collectivism that all decent people should abhor. Yet in terms of the willingness to kill scores of thousands of innocents, it was consistent with the unbridled total war of the 1940s. The United States torched dozens of Japanese cities and Britain, with America’s help, devastated over a hundred German cities. Civilians were not mere collateral damage, but the deliberately chosen targets of these attacks. In Hiroshima, the population was centered largely in the middle, where the bomb was dropped, the industrial infrastructure useful to the Japanese war effort left largely unscathed on the periphery. It became the policy in this great democratic war to kill as many civilians as was possible so as to break the back of the enemy. This policy of targeting civilians, coupled with the horrendous demands for unconditional surrender, frightened the populations of Germany and Japan into clinging onto their totalitarian regimes as the only hope against being liquidated and enslaved by the Allied Powers. At the end of the war, the West participated in the forced repatriation of as many as two million subjects back to Soviet Russia and the forced migration of millions of ethnic Germans that took about a million lives.
The vast immorality and collectivism of the 20th century, most notably seen in the fascist and communist regimes that sought total control of society and the total subordination of individual liberty, were also on full display in the enterprise of total war, which the U.S. came to adopt as policy in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. It should be no surprise that the main U.S. culprits behind these war policies were the very liberal Democrats who favored expansionist state power at home—FDR, Truman, and LBJ—although, of course, conservative Republicans soon enough proved just as willing to participate in and advocate such war collectivism.
In particular, the U.S. in the 20th century came to dominate the strategy of killing people from the sky, as almost every major bombing mission was done under U.S. auspices in the post-War period. In these bombings from World War II through the war in Indochina, the U.S. killed millions of civilians with firebombings, chemical warfare, the targeted destruction of dams and other civilian infrastructure. Remnants of this policy were apparent in the U.S. policy toward Iraq from 1990 through the second Gulf War, when water treatment facilities were destroyed and civilians were deprived of clean water, food, and medicine with the express purpose of fomenting revolution.
The only way to regard the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and so many other U.S. war campaigns, as anything other than state terrorism, is to define the concept in such an absurdly narrow way as to categorically exempt the U.S. from the definition out of pure convenience. If nuclear holocaust inflicted upon innocent civilians for the purpose of securing a diplomatic result is not terrorism, then there is no such thing.
UPDATE: Although I wanted to stress the moral dimension of the bombings, people responding to this piece continue to repeat the propaganda that the bombings were necessary to end the war. The Japanese were trying to surrender. The only substantive condition the Japanese insisted upon, which the U.S. denied, was retention of the emperor—whom the Japanese were allowed to keep, anyway. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unnecessary in every strategic sense. We’ve been sold a bill of goods to make us embrace pure evil in the name of American goodness. Here are the terms the Japanese peace feelers offered up in January 1945:
- Full surrender of the Japanese forces, air, land and sea, at home and in all occupied countries.
- Surrender of all arms and ammunition.
- Agreement of the Japanese to occupation of their homeland and island possessions.
- Relinquishment of Manchuria, Korea and Formosa.
- Regulation of Japanese industry.
- Surrender of designated war criminals for trial.
- Release of all prisoners.
Tags: Law, Liberty, Nuclear Weapons, Personal Liberty, Terrorism, The State, Totalitarianism, Utilitarianism, War 
As I understand it, as the Americans were counter-striking, they saw that the Japanese, including the civilian population, did not surrender. The calculation was that by using conventional warfare the cost in lives to end the war would be upward of half a million. By this measure, then, the atomic bomb had the effect of saving lives and bringing the war with Japan to a speedy close.
J Story | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
As I point out in my article, that half-million figure is a pure post-war fabrication. I do not see why people find it necessary to defend the mass slaughter of innocent people as being “necessary,” but on its own terms, it was not necessary.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
You must appreciate J Story’s comment and demonstration of a complete dedication to fantasy as he ignores every historical fact you mention in this article, and then dutifully regurgitates the very myth you just dispelled!
I am, however, most curious as to what exactly his statement that “the civilian population did not surrender” means and how it is he came to that conclusion.
Were the Japanese toddlers organized and demanding continued warfare? Were the, by definition, unarmed and helpless civilians tripping over one another to arm themselves and attack the US?
Or is this one of those nonsensical qualifying statements used to support an indefensible, fundamentally false narrative in defense of the U.S. military’s most devastating terrorist bombing?
Robert Fellner | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Okinawa is a small island. The invasion of this very small island killed:
1. 12,513 US servicemen
2. almost 100K japanese servicemen
3. anywhere between 50-100K civilians
How many US, Japanese servicemen and Japanese civilians do YOU estimate would have died in a full invasion of the mainland? 500K seems paltry.
Nick | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
I couldn’t help but notice your article makes NO Mention – Zero – of the Pearl Harbor massacre... and I don’t care if if was known well in advance that the Japanese were planning a strike.. They struck.. and they got spanked for it.
The concept of the “rules of war” have changed do dramatically in the many years since the bombing of Japan, no one would even consider anything so drastic ever again.. But that time, in that place the “Rules” were different.. Enemies had flags, countries, armies, navies.. they were identified by who they were and where they were and there was none of this touchy-feely hippie nonsense of “killing civilians is terrorism”.. There has Never been a war, which has qualified or been classified as a “WAR” where civilians weren’t killed.. That’s the point of “war”.. you have an enemy and you Kill Them..ALL of them.. Leave NONE to take up arms against you later. Period.
It’s EASY to look back on history and explain why one thing or another Shouldn’t have been done.. or how something could have been handled differently... But this notion of Constantly belittling America, or our previous use of extreme military force to somehow justify more anti-American sentiment is repulsive.
You want to know why the mass-public can not and WILL NOT take Libertarians seriously..? This article is near the top of that list.
Spew your hatred of America elsewhere.
Martin Elsass | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
That’s because Pearl Harbor is irrelevant to the question of whether Hiroshima was terrorism. Similarly, U.S wars in the Middle East in the 1990s do not mean that we should not describe the 9/11 attacks as terrorism. Two wrongs do not make a right.
I don’t hate America. I love America. I hate the government that loots the Americans I love and pushes them around. It is this very government that also kills foreigners in the name of security.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
to place the invasion of Japan into perspective, Germany was also a lost cause. In the Battle of Berlin 80,000 Soviets died to win a single city!
Any argument that says that the war was over and that US service would not have died in great numbers just isn’t reasonable.
Nick | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
In January 1945, Japan offered up terms of surrender that the U.S. refused. The idea that the bombs were necessary to win the war is a pure lie with which we’re indoctrinated in schools and the media so as to justify one of America’s greatest crimes of all time. Here were the terms Japan offered:
Full surrender of the Japanese forces, air, land and sea, at home and in all occupied countries; Surrender of all arms and ammunition.;
Agreement of the Japanese to occupation of their homeland and island possessions; Relinquishment of Manchuria, Korea and Formosa; Regulation of Japanese industry; Surrender of designated war criminals for trial; Release of all prisoners.
http://www.hnn.us/articles/129964.html
Anthony Gregory | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
How ironic Anthony...in the same publication I found this:
http://hnn.us/articles/52502.html
tit for tat
Nick | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Excellent, much-needed article. The bombing also weakened our ability to restrain other countries from aquiring the bomb, and in the case of Israel , we actually aided, or enabled, their aquiring it. War begets war.
richard | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
“..Pearl Harbor is irrelevant to the question of whether Hiroshima was terrorism”
IF the US had struck Japan – unprovoked, your contention might.. might... have some credibilty, here. But the Japanese, by attacking the US – by attacking Pearl Harbor (and coincidentally, killing civilians, as well) effectively Declared War on the US..
When war is Declared.. especially in such a loud grotesque manner, to Not answer the declaration is to admit and accept defeat...
The attack on Pearl Harbor, similar to 9/11 was, I’ll agree, an act of terror, different from 9/11, however it was the First Strike in a declaration of war.. the terrorists of 9/11 had been killing Americans long before September 2001. The presidents and military of the US responded to those previous attacks with the same “proportional response” you seem to be advocating. It didn’t work. They kept attacking. They continued killing Americans until they mustered enough courage to make the mainland assault in New York and D.C....
Two Wrongs..??
One wrong. Pearl Harbor.
How many times has Japan attacked the US since..?
Lesson learned.
For the same reason You don’t poke a resting tiger or alligator with a stick – you Know it won’t just swat you away, it will Kill you.
I will agree all day long that America has no business attacking Anyone, anywhere unprovoked. The air raids on Libya would be a prime example – not our war, not our fight, none of our business. Although there is some argument to be made comparing our air support to the naval support of the French near the end of our own revolution.. but that’s for another day.
Anywhere that there is a gov’t acting or a military carrying out orders which the people of that nation do not support or agree with, it is the responsibility for those people to overthrow that gov’t by whatever means available or necessary.. if the people remain compliant and accepting of their gov’t/military actions and do nothing to change it – they are equally culpable.
Martin Elsass | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Wow J Story, did you even read the article before posting your comment?
“But this notion of Constantly belittling America, or our previous use of extreme military force to somehow justify more anti-American sentiment is repulsive.”
If we are unable to look critically at our past, how are we to improve? Closing your eyes to history seems more repulsive.
Craig K | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
That article by Maddox, concerning Japanese diplomacy in the summer of 1945, does nothing to contradict the article by McLaughlin, which discusses Japanese peace feelers in January and the U.S. reaction to them in February. Find me evidence demonstrating that the surrender terms conveyed from MacArthur to FDR in February were not as I report them or did not exist, and I’ll retract what I said, because I do take facts very seriously.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Martin Elsass, the terrorism against America before 9/11 did not predate U.S. aggression in the Middle East, propping up dictators and slaughtering Arabs and Muslims.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Anthony
Please link us to the actual document. If there is a 40 something page document with MacArthur’s signature on it showing that the Japanese were willing to surrender under those terms then I may be willing to open myself to your views.
Show me evidence that the surrender terms were as you described!
Nick | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
I agree that the two nuclear bombings in Japan were acts of terrorism, but I don’t agree that they were distinctive. The earlier fire bombings of Dresden and other German cities killed at least as many innocents as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. None of those bombings were necessary to secure victory.
I agree that the Axis forces engaged in acts of terrorism early in World War II. That made it easier for the Allies to adopt acts of terrorism, but it doesn’t justify those acts.
MingoV | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
The memo has never been published. It was reported in the Chicago Tribune and never contradicted by the U.S. government. The many high officials who indicated that Japan was indeed ready to surrender seem to bolster the veracity of this reporting. So do the multiple documents that are available that indicate the Japanese were insistent upon one major caveat: retention of the emperor as a bulwark against communism: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol9no3/html/v09i3a06p_0001.htm
Anthony Gregory | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
MingoV, I agree that those other bombings were terroristic too.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
I’m not going to argue that the bombings were just, but I have a slight qualm with the history here. It’s true that the Emperor was retained, but it is not true that the Emperor’s survival was accepted as a condition of surrender. See John Dower’s magisterial ‘Embracing Defeat’ for the details; in short, the Japanese were guaranteed nothing and Japanese conservatives struggled mightily to preserve the Emperor and the imperial house.
The decision not to attack the Emperor in official propaganda was made during the war for fear of stiffening Japanese resolve (see Dower’s ‘War Without Mercy’), but the decision not to try Hirohito as a war criminal was not taken until 1946, and it was taken by MacArthur and the occupation forces, not as a condition of the surrender.
Jon | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Jon, I didn’t mean to imply that the emperor was allowed as an ultimate condition of surrender, only that the U.S. ultimately allowed him to remain. I should have written it more precisely, however.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
My father, the WW II historian, says this whole article is pretty much a joke and has dismissed it as the usual America-bashing crud we’re seeing all over the place.
Sorry, but we weren’t the only ones pursuing nuclear weapons, and as I said on Facebook, I doubt our enemies would have warned us the way we warned the Japanese. They chose not to listen, and they paid. TWICE. Considering the attitude of the Emperor, and even the attitude of the Japanese while conducting this war, they may not have paid enough. Check into the slavery, torture and other tactics they used, and then we’ll talk.
Seriously though, is there an ethical way to wage war? Europeans have killed over 50 MILLION of their own people in the last 100 years, and when you had the mass graves of Bosnia filling up, the Europeans sat in rooms and talked because it just wouldn’t be right to arm the UNarmed side of the equation. It continued until the U.S. stepped in to stop the carnage.
Only one power in the history of the world has tried to minimize the deaths of innocents, but how much can you do in a war? The entire point is to end the war where your side wins with the fewest deaths as possible on your own side. Interesting how American lives were minimized in the scenario above. We didn’t start the war in Europe or in the Pacific, but we sure as heck finished the job.
And like I said, investigate just how the Japanese treated their POWs, the citizens of the areas they overtook, the torture...and then get back to me. How did we behave when we were the temporary occupiers? MacArthur laid down the law that he would tolerate no abuse, theft...slightly different picture isn’t it?
Susan Dwyer | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
The object of war is to kill the enemy and destroy their stuff to the extent necessary to make them decide to surrender and submit to your political will.
Arguing about the nuclear bombings seems like mere quibbling over details. Hiroshima was a center of Japanese steel production. Nagasaki was a major shipyard. Both of them were legitimate military targets. Does it really matter whether the US used two bombs or 10,000?
Michael Pelletier | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Martin, If as you state “the point of “war”.. you have an enemy and you Kill Them..ALL of them.. Leave NONE to take up arms against you later. Period.”, then does this mean that the Nazis were correct in killing millions, or the Soviets, or others? They had enemies whom they considered very real threats. Were they right in doing so and if not, why not? Isn’t the point to stop aggression and restore the rule of law? But if you deliberately kill innocent people, then you become the aggressor and there is nothing to distinguish you from any other mass murderer.
The problem here is that the end NEVER justifies the means because every means is an end in itself and whatever standard you use to justify an end also applies to every means. Perhaps the following book will be of value:
Opposing the Crusader State: Alternatives to Global Interventionism, edited by Robert Higgs and Carl P. Close
David J. Theroux | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Anthony, I agree that to target non-military for death is generally immoral, or, as you say, terrorism. But this isn’t black and white:
If targeting non-military, i.e. innocent women and children, would spare one’s own such innocents, then the party who did not initiate hostilities, would be immoral NOT to protect those own innocents.
One might advance a step further then and say that the innocent service men, called into battle as a result of Japan’s attack, are at least as innocent as the Japanese citizens who supported a warring regime.
War is the last terrible vestige of evolution.
http://whatdirectdemocracymightbe.wordpress.com/of-morality/
Daryl Davis | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
You can argue all you want, but the USA won WWII and it was done by blowing the hell out of Imperial Japan. It was just and moral and I am proud to be an American because if it. If one USA would use more nukes—- on Iran especially. Hopefully Israel will do the job for us!
Mepho | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Michael, There is no “object of war” except murder, rape, theft and fraud on a mass scale. War is a condition in which the rule of law has been abandoned or is being seriously trampled. The moral object is to stop the aggression of war and restore the rule of law and defensive measures to do this are just. However, in no way does this justify killing innocents in the process. To say otherwise is to embrace collectivism.
As Mr. Gregory has discussed, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary acts of mass murder and had nothing to do with ending World War II. Indeed, they were continuations of and consistent with the fire bombings and other deliberate killings of civilians that were pursued as official policy. In this regard, we should keep in mind that these acts were implemented by the same folks who were behind the New Deal and other statist outrages.
For an excellent discussion of the actual facts of the atomic bombings as revealed in the archives of the Truman Library, please see the following:
“The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered,” by Barton Bernstein (Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 1995, pp. 135-152)
David J. Theroux | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Mepho, The reason we were against Japan and Germany dropping nukes on American cities is because we recognize such acts as mass murder of innocent people. The same rule applies universally for the U.S. or anyone. This is what the rule of law means.
David J. Theroux | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Susan Dwyer, I am well aware of the Rape of Nanking and Imperial Japan’s other crimes against humanity. I am half-Korean, and am well aware of the brutality of that regime. But the little children in Hiroshima cannot be blamed for any of that, and murdering them was a crime regardless of the vicious crimes committed by the Japanese government.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
I agree that the strategic bombing campaigns against the axis civilians probably constitute war crimes. In fact the only reason I insert the “probably” is because Axis powers, especially the Japanese, distributed military production throughout their civilian residential areas. Of course, it’s clear that terrorizing the population was a stated goal of the campaigns and was imagined as the likely strategy for long range bombers almost as soon as they were conceived.
However, the idea that there would only be less than 50k American servicemen killed as part of Operation Overlord is ridiculous on it’s face, and should have been left out of your argument. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with World War II military history should be able to see this. A quick yardstick: The Battle of Berlin alone had nearly 600k casualties. Of course your link only goes to an abstract, but I took the trouble of tracking down the actual article, and by my reading, these casualty numbers are only for the initial invasion of Kyushu. The article make no mention of any operations beyond invading the Tokyo plain.
What might a battle for Tokyo or Kyoto look like? Keep in mind that Japanese military casualties were typically multiples of American casualties, to say nothing of likely civilian casualties. Furthermore, American wartime estimates of Japanese strength were found to be quite low in the postwar occupation. Isn’t it possible that japan might have recalled some of the 1,000,000 veteran, well-supplied troops they had in China to the home islands?
The argument that dropping the nuclear weapons, hastened the war’s end and therefore was a net positive in terms of suffering seems quite plausible to me. Furthermore, I wonder how much the demonstrated horrors of atomic weapons in Japan contributed to preventing a cold war between two nuclear armed powers from going hot in the following decades?
supagold | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
I can’t be swayed by revisionist “history.” I was alive then. Japan had to be utterly crushed. We were in a WAR that needed to be ended. Truman made the right decision without hesitation.
Chas | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
I really love it when some body who reads about the war makes armchair decisions about what happened years before they were born. You do realize that social more’s were very different in the 30′s and 40′s. You can’t take today’s social views and try to foist them back into a period when others were in charge. I had uncles and cousins that fought in WWII. I heard story’s first hand of atrocities committed by Germany and Japan. Human beings react to acts of violence differently today than they did in 1945. If you have relatives or parents who were alive in the 40′s, I suggest you ask them what they thought of the bombings. There are enough problems happening today without dwelling on something you can’t change. We can work to keep it from happening again. I won’t become a Muslim just to satisfy some lunatic jihadist.
John 1939 | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Since their is no proof that a memo or dossier contemplating a Japanese surrender ever existed, your point that their was no need to drop the bomb because Japan wished to surrender cannot be proven either. The facts that Japan fought fiercely to defend little Okinawa and were preparing it’s people to defend the mainland along with how ferociously the German’s defended Berlin in their last days supports the historical view that an invasion would have been catastrophic for all involved. To indicate that America murdered innocent people places upon you Mr. Gregory The burden of proof. All you have provided is opinion. I am a skeptical man, but you have not even aroused my curiosity to believe you.
Nick | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
It would be terrorism even if Japan had not offered to surrender. But many top U.S. leaders at the time condemned the bombings as unnecessary: http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm
Of course the acts were murder. The only question there is is what the circumstances were surrounding this murder.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
“Had FDR not embargoed metals and oil and frozen Japan’s assets in the United States, there might have been no war with Japan. FDR knew than an oil embargo against Japan might very well spur the Japanese to invade the Dutch East Indies, meaning war with the U.S., because Joseph Grew US ambassador to Japan, warned him of this possibility.
“The U.S. chose to risk war and knew by the end of November 1941, through earlier breaking of the Japanese code, that an attack was imminent. Ambassador Grew warned Washington of rumors that Japan would attack Peal Harbor, but U.S. officials believed it would be impossible.”
–Ivan Eland in No War for Oil.
Source documents:
The Road to Pearl Harbor, by Herbert Feis, page 19
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Money, Oil, and Power, pages 310, 314-316.
Robert Fellner | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Nice article, Anthony. Both sides were brutal in that war, which is probably why most of the vets just wanted to put it behind them and not talk about it.
I would add that there appeared to be some ‘pre’-cold war calculus going on in Truman’s head when he made the choice to drop it. And, unfortunately, the Japanese were low hanging fruit for that test.
joe | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
That is is disgusting and depraved comment. Why are you even looking at this site? The Independent Institute, NOT the GroupThink Islamaphobic Institute. Try AIPAC’s site for that kind of approach.
Bill Anderson | Aug 6, 2012 | Reply
Nick, the Japanese offered to surrender. No invasion was necessary, all that was required was to accept the surrender and send in soldiers to assure that the conditions of the surrender were met.
Chris Ferrell | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
Thank you, Mr. Gregory, for this blog post. These atrocities were atrocities and unnecessary, as you correctly point out.
Yes, the Japanese got to keep their Emperor, which was wise.
However, this is what was most visible. The Emperor was all but totally emasculated by the new constitution written by Americans.
Also, the Emperor was forced to denounce his divinity. The official name of the Empire of Japan was dropped too.
Could we not then say that Japan was nuked into democracy and that the Pacific War was Wilson’s war on steroids?
J.K. Baltzersen | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
Susan,
You continually reference the actions of the Japanese military and government as justification for the mass murder of a different group of people – namely the women and children who make up the civilians that were annihilated in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
This makes no sense.
Robert Fellner | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
Robert Higgs addresses this “truncating the antecedents” tendencies of those who continue to ignore historical fact in favor of regurgitating the myth that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor for no reason.
See George Victor, The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable:
“The claim that Japan attacked the United States without provocation was...typical rhetoric. It worked because the public did not know that the administration had expected Japan to respond with war to anti_Japan measured it had taken in July 1941...Expected to lose a war with the U.S. Japan’s leaders had tried with growing desperation to negotiate. On this point, most historians have long agreed.
Meanwhile, evidence has come out that Roosevelt and his Secretary of State Cordell Hull persistently refused to negotiate...Japan offered compromises and concessions, which the U.S. countered with increasing demands...According to Attorney General Francis Biddle, Roosevelt said he hoped for an “incident” in the Pacific to bring the U.S. into the war.”
See also Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Its Aftermath.
Higgs also notes that Secretary of War Henry Stimson testified after the war that, “We needed the Japanese to commit the first overt act.”
Robert Fellner | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
I read your update at the end of the article. Whether the bombings were necessary to end the war IS the moral dimension. That a single uncorroborated source claims that the Japanese wanted to hand us everything on a silver platter is interesting, but not convincing. You act as if the fact that it wasn’t “disputed” is somehow proof. (I’m not even going to touch whether “Macarthur’s neighbor said that he said...” counts as evidence.) If you don’t agree that the surrender offer existed then all of the sudden your moral calculus gets a lot harder.
Which is kind of the point of all these comments. It seems to me that your claim that dropping of nuclear weapons was an unalloyed evil rests on two claims: One, that Japan wanted to surrender, which is an impressive claim with relatively weak evidence. Two, that even if they didn’t surrender, casualties for invasion would be relatively light, that I’ve already shown to be nonsense in my post above. Without these two pillars, vastly more people end up suffering in a world where we were forced to go forward with Operation Overlord.
Closely related is Robert Fullner’s defense above. Of course Roosevelt wanted us in the war with both Japan and Germany. I’m not a fan of Roosevelt, but you’d have to give me pretty good arguments as to why this wasn’t the moral position. What exactly is the counterfactual you’re arguing for? Keep in mind that the oil embargo was a reaction to Japan’s unprovoked aggression against China. Is the idea that we should have stayed out of the Pacific war that was already raging and leave hundreds of millions to the tender mercies of the Japanese? And not only that, but sell them the oil enabling them to subjugate those peoples?
supagold | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
It may not sound moral, or Christian, but I would postulate that most americans in 1945 would go with 200,000 dead Japs vs 200 more GIs much less 50,000; forget the half million. War is hell brother. We didn’t start it.
Korea, Vietnam, and the current mid east fiascos are something else. They were avoidable, unnecessary and counter productive.
Bags | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
@Bags,
So basically terrorism is okay when it’s “them” and not “us”?
iceberg | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
The U.S. did more than refuse to sell Japan oil. It carried out most of the eight-point plan to get Japan to fire the first shot. It supported the Flying Tigers in China. Japan was clearly the aggressor in the Pacific, but the Chinese regime butchered millions too.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
Even if dropping nuclear bombs would have been necessary to end the war quickly, ending the war quickly does not justify the murder of innocent children. Had America stopped waging war in the Middle East after 9/11, we could then say 9/11 was “effective” in ending conflict, but it would have still been a terrorist act.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
“The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”—Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman
Anthony Gregory | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
“The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan.”—Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet
Anthony Gregory | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
Bags, As has been noted, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were completely unnecessary acts of mass murder and had nothing to do with ending World War II. Japan had agreed to surrender months earlier so long as the Emperor was not tried. Truman refused. Yet after the dropping of the atomic bombs and unconditional surrender, the Emperor was not tried after all. So why did the U.S. refuse to accept surrender months earlier and avoid the deaths of hundreds of thousands? The answer is that Truman wanted to use the bombs as a demonstration to scare Stalin, which is what the documents in the Truman Library reveal. In addition, many of the generals wanted Truman is use an uninhabited atoll for the demonstration, but Truman insisted on targeting civilians in major Japanese cities to show the horror of what was now available. If Hitler had had the atomic bomb and similarly bombed Paris or Rome or London or New York, what should we call such an act?
For an excellent discussion of the actual facts of the atomic bombings as revealed in the archives of the Truman Library, please see the following:
“The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered,” by Barton Bernstein (Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 1995, pp. 135-152)
David J. Theroux | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
Not to beat a dead horse, but:
a) there was no need to invade Japan at all, they were blockaded and knew they were defeated;
b) while there were civilian casualties in Pearl Harbor, the primary target was the US Navy;
c) there can be no doubt that Japan was manipulated into attacking us;
d) what I have not yet seen mentioned here, why was “our” Navy in Pearl Harbor anyway? On what grounds did “we” attack and conquer Hawaii?
e) last, but certainly not least, and what I see as AG’s main point – wrong is wrong, no matter who did what leading up to that point.
Messianic Theonomist | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
“UPDATE: Although I wanted to stress the moral dimension of the bombings, people responding to this piece continue to repeat the propaganda that the bombings were necessary to end the war. The Japanese were trying to surrender.”
That is only part of the story. As a constitutional monarchy, the decision to end the war would have had to be a unanimous decision by the Japanese cabinet. The cabinet was comprised of both civilian and military representatives. The civilians wanted a negotiate cease fire, the military wanted to fight until the bitter ends. Even after Hiroshima was bombed Admiral Soemu Toyoda Chief of the Navy General Staff and General Korechika Anami, both cabinet members argued that the bombing was meaningless because the US didn’t have any more and refused to entertain a surrender.
As far as casualty estimates of a mainland invasion goes, thankfully we will never know if the estimates were accurate or not. Regardless, not included in any of the estimates were the 200,000 allied POW’s held by the Japanese who were to be executed at the commencement of the invasion of the mainland.
Mike H | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
@Martin – I just want to make sure I understand your viewpoint correctly. Is is your opinion that killing civilians is wrong, but only if the political and military establishment of the country that those civilians reside in had not previously killed civilians of the killer’s country and declared war?
John Natoli | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
In summer 1945, American casualties were about 1000 a day, 7000 a week, 30,000 a month. The sooner the war ended, the fewer Americans would die. The American government’s goal was therefore quite obviously to end the war as soon as possible, not “in a few months.”
Japan was clearly defeated after the battle of Midway in 1942, but was unwilling to surrender. Instead, it fought on for three more years, and it wanted to fight to the death. Japan had 10,000 kamikaze planes, 2,350,000 trained troops, and a civilian militia of 28 million armed with bows and arrows, spears, and muzzle-loading muskets ready to resist the Americans. No Japanese force, not even a single battalion, ever surrendered to the Americans during the whole war until its very end. As late as August 9, 1945, after the bombing of Nagasaki, the Japanese inner cabinet (the “Big Six”) was split three-to-three on surrender and Hirohito finally broke the tie. This was the very first time surrender was even considered.
Conventional bombing was not going to make Japan surrender. We had hit their sixty largest cities beginning in February 1945 and pretty much burned them out, and we created a firestorm in Tokyo that killed more than 100,000 people on the night of March 9, 1945, more than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
The number of people killed if America had invaded Japan, which it planned to do in two stages, an invasion of Kyushu in November 1945 and then a final assault on Tokyo in March 1946, while the British invaded the Malay Peninsula and retook Malaya and Singapore in November 1945, would have dwarfed the number of victims of the atomic bomb. We now know that the Japanese anticipated the Kyushu invasion and had fourteen divisions on the island. The US military estimated that there would have been 100,000 American casualties in the landings, and these calculations were based on fighting only three Japanese divisions, which is what we thought they had on Kyushu. It’s more likely that American casualties would have been on the order of several hundred thousand, and if we had had to invade Honshu, over a million. The American planners assumed that fighting in Japan itself would have been like fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the most horrible battles fought in modern history. At Okinawa we lost 12,500 dead and the Japanese lost 185,000 dead, half civilians. More than a million Japanese would certainly have been killed in an American invasion.
Meanwhile, the Americans had wiped out Japan’s merchant fleet, as the Japanese had no concept of submarine warfare. And what we learned in Germany, after years of trial and error, is that the best bombing targets are railroad junctions. The plan was to hit a dozen key bridges and about fifty key railway yards and junctions along the Pacific coast of Honshu and destroy Japan’s capacity to transport food. Tokyo, for example, produced only 3% of the food it needed. With no ships or trains to deliver food, literally millions of Japanese civilians would have died within a few weeks–they were already down to rations of fewer than 1500 calories a day–and the country would have been completely destroyed. And we were planning to use chemical warfare on their rice crop, if necessary, as well as poison gas. There would be no Japan today.
As for charges that the Americans were trying to scare the Soviets, the answer is quite simply no. They were trying to put an end to the war. The Soviets already knew we had the atomic bomb, as the Klaus Fuchs spy ring had kept Stalin informed.
To quote Richard Frank, “The atomic bomb was the least abhorrent choice.” And to quote Paul Fussell, “Thank God for the atom bomb.”
Pep | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
“Even after the bombing of Nagasaki and the emperor said he would surrender, the U.S. firebombed Tokyo on August 14 with a thousand-plane bombing mission. ”
Is there a source for this? http://www.atomicbombmuseum.org/2_manhattan.shtml
Shows 95 B29s fire-bombed Hikari, Osaka, Marifu, Kumagaya, Isezaki, Tzuchizaki-minato and 7 B29s fire-bombed Koromo, Nagoya, on August 14, 1945
Mark | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
An interesting article, but one not totally convincing. Targeting civilian populations for killing is certainly terrorism on the face of it, as it is clearly intended to inflict terror, not military losses. But since when is war ever without terror? Can you point to ANY modern war that has been without significant civilian casualties, inflicted with varying levels of intent? (This is, of course, an argument for peace in preference to war, but unless we get into a discussion of pacifism that’s another discussion for another time.) The assertion that only 50,000 people would have died in a conventional invasion of Japan seems ludicrous to me, given the bloody defenses of the various islands across the Pacific. An estimate made before the invasion is hardly proof – and, of course, that estimate ignored the deaths of Japanese that would have occurred during the invasion, including unknown numbers of civilians.
The other questionable part of the argument here is the bald assertion that Japan was willing to surrender as early as February 1945. This I have never heard before, and if true it certainly casts a harsh light on the American war leadership. The argument is based on what – one document, seen by one journalist at the time, but never since? Comments afterwards by various American military leaders? I find it hard to believe that if so well-known a figure as Douglas MacArthur knew this to be true, the documentation would be quite so hard to find. The article you linked to makes an interesting case, but I couldn’t help notice that a rebuttal was also published at the same site that casts some doubt on the thesis. It seems like a bit more evidence is needed before such a radical assertion can be demonstrated.
There’s no question that the use of the atomic bombs to attack cities was a risky and morally fraught action, and there’s nothing wrong with a sombre, thoughtful reflection on the evils of war. I think the article goes well beyond that, though, to make broad-brush claims that are both shocking and unproven.
walthamolian | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
David,
It seems quite a questionable presumption that the US rejected Japan’s peace initiative and moved ahead or that the war could have been stopped with an end to hostilities at that point. I think that that particular point has been well made here. Not considethat is just how hard a war is to stop. This military operation was pretty much the full-time occupation of millions and millions of people. Even if he wanted to, the president couldn’t just pick up the phone and say the “game over.” The absolute dreadfulness of WWII is very hard for us to comprehend from 67 years out. Too much was moving. It had to go out with a bang.
This moralizing is being done in a dream world, one inhabited by people without feelings or emotions. It is interesting nonsense.
In answer to Iceberg, killing anyone is wrong, soldiers included. Terrorism is the most abused word we have and the war on same is about the stupidest political gambit yet. Wars should be avoided. The promiscuous use of our military now is immoral and counter productive. Non the less, if you are in a war it’s better if your side wins.
Bags | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
Many American leaders at the time of the bombings condemned them. It is not only from a distance that we can criticize these acts.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
To bomb a city, taken as a descite act, is wrong. Is it more wrong than shooting a man from 100 yards. How about sticking him in the gut with your bayonet and finishing the job with the butt of your rifle? This is certainly more barbaric. These are all acts of war, not of civilization. If we are to make moral judgements, shouldn’t we contemplate the reasons we are fighting in the first place and the results of victory and of defeat.
Collectivism an an economic system is wrong but collective action in self defense is necessary. Libertarian doesn’t mean anarchist. Certain functions require collective action and defense is the most important. Our foes in WWII were bad guys promoting bad systems. We beat them as we should have and that was good.
Bags | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
Bags, our Allies in WWII were promoting bad systems, too. Stalin’s Russia easily ranked among the very worst regimes ever. China’s Chiang Kai-shek murdered millions, maybe as many as the Japanese regime. Even Churchill’s Britain was an empire far more vicious than what the American colonists fought a revolution against in the late 18th century.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
To be clear, I do think the Axis Powers were worse in WWII. But it was a matter of degree. Stalin was in the same murderous ballpark as Hitler. If you look simply at what the Allied Powers did, we see some of the worst war crimes in history.
Anthony Gregory | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
Bags, It is a mistake to believe that defense against aggression warrants aggression against innocent people because otherwise defense is not possible or practical. To stop aggression means to stop aggression, not unleash new aggression. Furthermore, libertarians uphold the rule of law from the natural-law tradition, not lawlessness, which is what invasive war means. The natural-law tradition stands in total opposition to the utilitarian, moral relativism that “the end justifies the means.”
We have now refuted all aspects of the official case for the atomic bombings and we have done so based on moral ethics and the historical record. Support for collectivism means support for evil and the mass slaughter of innocent people should be the most obvious example of what libertarians should fiercely oppose. Indeed, if liberty and justice do not mean standing against the deliberate mass killing of people, then such ideas have no meaning at all. Our Senior Fellow Robert Higgs clearly shows that opposing war crimes is fundamental:
“Are Questions of War and Peace Merely One Issue among Many for Libertarians?”, by Robert Higgs (The Independent Review, Fall 2011)
David J. Theroux | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
Another well-reasoned and principled essay, supported by broad reading in revisionist history.
Congratulations.
Socrates Wilde | Aug 7, 2012 | Reply
Michael Pelletier writes that, “The object of war is to kill the enemy and destroy their stuff to the extent necessary to make them decide to surrender and submit to your political will.”
That seems to be writing unnecessary killing into the definition. As Sun Tzu wrote in the 2000+ year old classic “The Art of War”, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
Starchild | Aug 8, 2012 | Reply
It helps that hindsight is 20/20. Any sane person is troubled by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but nevertheless they did prevent a horrible invasion and the writer expresses a little ignorance of the level of Japanese determination to fight on. Think of the thousands who fought on the island campaigns; don’t forget the number of times that American soldiers had to pull the knives out of the hands of Japanese parents as they tried to kill their children.
Perhaps if the level of destruction had been known, the US may not have used the atomic bomb on a city, but chosen some other target. Has the author watched the most excellent TV series “World at War?” If you watch the episode that dealt with the atomic bomb, you would have seen the deputy foreign minister’s interview where he discussed the Japanese cabinet’s dilemma over the issue of surrender. They delayed because of their pride not just the issue of the Emperor. They were trying to find a suitably large neutral power to negotiate terms. After the Soviet Union said no (as they planned to declare war), the Japanese government still hesitated. Why didn’t they ask Mexico? What about Spain? Why didn’t they ask the Pope? No. The fault of the war and th4e atrocities lie at the feet of the Japanese Government and no other. They started the war; they did not even have the excuse of the Versailles treaty. Japan has been able to escape the stain of their own war crimes against their subject people -especially the Chinese. Part of that is probably due to American feelings of guilt over the atomic bomb.
As for Allied bombing of Germany, it falls into the same thing. It is easy to talk about not issuing the call for unconditional surrender. As a result of the war and talking with German people after the war we realized that the bombing campaign failed to shorten the war, but again there are two factors that may call this into question. A) Hindsight is 20/20 and B) after the full and true nature of the horrible crimes of Nazi Germany came to light many Germans were trying to avoid responsibility for the crimes of the German nation.
As Arthur “Bomber” Harris put it: “The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.” Japan did the same.
Jay Peterson | Aug 8, 2012 | Reply
Excellent post.
Jay Peterson | Aug 8, 2012 | Reply
There can be no doubt the Japanese were manipulated into attacking us? Please don’t believe everything you see on the history channel or what Pat Buchanan writes.
Jay Peterson | Aug 8, 2012 | Reply
The military generated range of US casualty predictions pre-totally-unnecessary-nuclear-device detonation was between 20,000 and 46,000 (Barton Bernstein, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June/July 1986).
Given that, at the time of these terroristic attacks on Japan with nuclear devices, the US knew that the USSR would be entering the war, “by August 15th” (Conveyed by Stalin to Truman at Potsdam, “P.M. [Hermit - Winston Churchill] & I ate alone. Discussed Manhattan [Hermit - the atomic bomb project] (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. of telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace. Stalin also read his answer to me. It was satisfactory. Believe Japs will fold up before Russia comes in. I am sure they will when Manhattan appears over their homeland. I shall inform Stalin about it at an opportune time.” Truman’s Diary 1945-07-08), with the requested Japanese terms and Stalin’s reply both included in the documents seen by all three leaders at the conference and are included in the report, “Foreign Relations of the U.S., The Conference of Berlin (Potsdam) 1945″
So before commanding the delivery of the nuclear devices on Japan Truman knew that even the 20,000 to 46,000 estimates were both too high and totally unnecessary.
So why did he insist on bombing Japan? I suggest that Truman’s decision was indubitably shot through with racism, “When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true.” Truman (on the use of nuclear weapons on Japan, Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb p 563). This bigotry continues to be reflected in the utterances of most of those seeking to defend his deeply flawed putative justifications for this ethically unjustifiable war crime.
===============
Anyone actually studying the events leading up to the war would discover that Japan was forced to war with the USA by the regime of illegal sanctions imposed on her by Roosevelt in the full expectation of establishing a pretext to cease the USA’s underhanded breaching of neutrality, and declare war on Germany despite his solemn electoral promises to do no such thing. The last straw for Japan was the oil blockade against her, which left her with only an estimated 6 months of oil reserves for military operations had she stopped all civilian oil use, which forced her to enter a defensive war against American “preemptive aggression” (despite all American propaganda about an “unprovoked attack”, after repeated warnings). Roosevelt discussed this, establishing, before Japan entered the war, that the US would only fight a holding action in the Pacific until it had defeated Germany and Italy.
PS @ Jay Peterson: Germany airmen en route to a military target bombed London accidentally – and Germany was indeed horrified when the UK responded with totally illegal, very deliberate, bombing raids on civilian population centers, particularly Berlin. These attacks caused the man most responsible for Britain’s amazing victory (over Churchill’s bloody minded incompetence) in the “Battle of Britain”, Air Chief Marshall Hugh Dowding, to protest that bombing German civilian areas would be an infamous war crime – an accusation which neither Churchill nor Harris forgot or forgave – probably because it was so absolutely on the mark.
Which rather puts “Bomber Harris” into place.
Das Hermit | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
The Bosnia mass murders were only 1/10 of what was claimed. Many of the “mass grave sites” were burial locations from dozens of battles and contained many ethnic groups. There was no mass extermination as claimed by the “Kosovars”. Such claims proved to be nonsense which is why the Milosovic trial turned into a drawn-out fiasco that ended in what was most likely Milosovic’s poisoning.
Joseph Zrnchik | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
Hi Anthony- I wonder what you would think of the idea that the Japan bombings, awful as they were, probably prevented much more devastating use of atomic bombs later, potentially when two sides possessed them?
For instance, I don’t think Truman would have been able to resist MacArthur’s plan to use atomic bombs against China in 1950 if atomic bombs had not been used against Japan.
Basil McDonnell | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
I would guess that those who feel a nation is justified in doing anything in order to protect itself would maintain that we are a “Christian” nation. A truly Christian nation is guided by the Christian principles that constitute a just war. The Nazis believed they were protecting the German nation that saw its existence threatened after WWI, now the Israelis feel they whatever they may do is justified because of the Holocaust, and because of this are becoming nazified, and we are no longer the nation that existed in the ’50′s, as I can witness. Principles are important.
Robert Charron | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
It is important to bear in mind, that unlike Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Pearl Harbor was purely a military target. Japan could just have easily bombed Honolulu with even less resistance. The oil embargo Roosevelt had previously imposed on Japan was a recognized act of war and had put Japan into the position of being forced to defend itself in order to survive as a nation. The attack on Pearl Harbor was similar to the attack on Fort Sumter, where the South was suckered into firing the first shot for the purpose of justify the military invasion that followed. This same tactic is being used once more against Iran, where efforts are being made to sucker Iran into firing the first shot that will be used to justify a war to destroy yet another perceived enemy of Israel.
carroll price | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
Suzan, I question your father’s dedication to REAL history, instead of the feel-good about America history he has chosen to embrace. It is disconcerting to hear all tis macho kill-em all talk...I hope our future enemies are not as hateful and bloodthirsty as some of you posters are. “They” started it, so we slaughter every last one of them, right? How many wars have WE started and continue to start? Better hope there is no such thing as Karma.
Vic Pittman | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
A point that is frequently missed is that there where two reasons to drop the atom bomb on Japan. One was a potent mix of racial hatred and desire to avenge the US humiliation at Pearl harbour. The less known reason was to intimidate the Soviets, make them fearful of American power, and scare them into being compliant with US post-war plans. The assumption was that the bomb would give the US unparalleled leverage on the world stage and that the Soviets would be unable to build an equivalent.
This was a classic case of blowback. It not only prompted the Soviets to undertake a massive atomic program (and an ongoing arms race) but gave justification to Soviet suspicions about the US long term intentions.
Stalin was apparently much troubled by the atomic bombings. He realized that not only were the US government capable of sanctioning the eradication of whole cities with tremendous loss of life, but that they were willing to do so even when it was unnecessary. The Soviets knew the Japanese wanted to end the war, and that diplomacy would have resulted in the Emperor ordering surrender, yet the US chose to drop the weapons anyway.
The Soviets inferred the obvious. If the US will drop bombs on Japan, they are more than capable (and willing) to drop them on the USSR. This realization, combined with the US drive to mass produce atomic arms and extend the range of their bomber fleets gave the Soviets every reason to be paranoid.
To summarize, US geo-political scheming laid the foundations for the Cold War and ensured Soviet hostility for the next 4 decades. Bravo Truman, what a legacy.
Gary Sellars | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
If you want to know how thoroughly defeated the Japanese were already, study the battles near the end of the war.
The war had been started because Japan needed access to oil. By 1944, American unrestricted submarine warfare had pretty much cut off Japan from the oil fields they’d captured in Indonesia and Borneo at the start of the war. By the battle of Leyte Gulf, the Japanese carriers that had been dominant early in the war were reduced to decoys because they didn’t have the fuel to train naval aviators. Thus the carriers on their suicide decoy run at Leyte, as well as the appearance of the Kamikazes.
Then, after the Philippines fell to MacArthur’s return, Japan was completely cut off from its oil. In modern war, that means the war was indeed over.
Jimmy | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
We didn’t fight in the Middle East; only gave them supplies to fight for control of their own country. Them bombing us was their choice and not America’s fault. and we had every right to defend ourselves and the innocent affected by the Taliban and other extremist groups.
LisaG | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
Umm did you even read the article? The points you made were refuted.
elmysterio | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
Silly me I always thought the dropping of the bomb was to show the Russkies we would not be willing to share Japan like we did Germany. Is it just possible that all those Japanese civilians were sacrificed to keep the Russkies out of Japan? After all Hitler was defeated at that point and the Red Army was making a mad dash to throw down Soviet flags wherever they had troops. We did not want to split the spoils with the Russkies when it came to Japan.
scott harvey | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
As I understand it Japan had already sent out “feelers” regarding a surrender which would have left the emperor untouched. Yet, the US was determined to “test” the effectiveness of this diabolical weapon on a massive concentration of human beings. Don’t give me the excuse of “Wanting to shorten the war and saving lives of soldiers.” Humbug!!!
hans Boeker | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
My thoughts exactly! Why are people so many people hung up on the false notion that the US had to make a frontal assault on the island of Japan, when all they needed to do was sit back and wait them out, casualty free? It is true that they could have invaded the island, but it would have been extremely hard to justify. By the time the atomic bombs were dropped, the war had already been won and Japan posed no further threat to the US or anyone else. Some writers have speculated that the bomb was dropped primarily for the purpose of intimidating Russia, who the US had already settled upon as the new enemy needed to justify a permanent war economy neccessary to prevent the US from sliding back into a depression far worse than the one they had escaped only five years earlier.
carroll price | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
Sir:
For a multipart rebuttal of your assertions, by many with far more interest in the outcome, I would point you to:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/331666.php
A re-post from last year, but as thorough an answer as you will likely find.
Alex Pournelle | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
Lisa,
Take a close look at all the evidence and you will conclude that “they” did not bomb us on 9/11.
carroll price | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
A few comments at this point:
While the Pearl Harbor bombing should not impact directly on this whole issue (unlike Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Pearl was, at least, clearly a military target) there is no question at this point in time that the Roosevelt administration was deliberately provoking Japan in hopes of creating an incident sufficient to enter the war. Sources on this are many and varied, and cut far deeper than the History Channel and Pat Buchanan. For contemporary evidence of this, as well as a strong case that Roosevelt and his inner circle well knew that an attack was coming at Pearl, see John Toland’s Infamy, and Stinnett’s Day of Deceit.
Truman and his advisers well knew that Japan was desperately attempting to disengage from the war by 1945, due to their reading of the Japanese diplomatic code. They also knew that the only thing that kept them fighting was the question about the full meaning of the term “unconditional surrender,” and the slim hope that Russia would remain neutral. The hardest of the Japanese hard-liners had always known that the game would be up if the Soviets entered. Truman was advised by most of his top men (including Sec. of War Stimson) to clarify the surrender terms. He ignored this advice, and instead listened to Jimmy Byrnes, who was committed to using the bombs. Why was Byrnes so committed? He told scientist Leo Szilard that the main reason was to “make the Russians more manageable in Europe” via a demonstration of US power and will.
Japan did not surrender because of the atomic bombs. Horrific though they were, their use did not change the military situation. What DID change it – and the real reason for the surrender, as Hirohito acknowledged internally – was the Russian entry.
Bottom line: Truman decided to atomize over 200,000 people when he knew that Japan was attempting to surrender, and he knew that there were alternatives that could have ended the war. The atomic bombs saved NO American lives. In fact, the refusal of Truman to clarify the issue of the Emperor’s future and to leverage the forthcoming entrance of the Russians into the war while waiting for the bomb led to unnecessary fighting and caused more US and Japanese deaths than were necessary. He listened to the old con-man Byrnes, who was fighting the Cold War, rather than to the sound judgement of his military men and his Secretary of State. If Nuremberg had been something other than the “victor’s justice” it was, Truman would have been in the dock.
Alan Kent | Aug 9, 2012 | Reply
John, I know you love playing the role of the condescending realist who lectures libertarians on their failures, but the fact is that they’re just aren’t that many libertarians in the country.
You’ve repeatedly pushed the idea that FDR somehow “forced” the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Which is nothing but ham-fisted America hatred, a completely retard view of the non aggression principle and does nothing but discredit libertarian ideas to anyone that does not hate America.
And I write this as someone that is disgusted by all of the civilian bombings of WWII.
JoshINHB | Aug 12, 2012 | Reply
The U.S. did more than refuse to sell Japan oil. It carried out most of the eight-point plan to get Japan to fire the first shot. It supported the Flying Tigers in China.
You’ve repeatedly pushed the idea that FDR somehow “forced” the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Which is nothing but ham-fisted America hatred, a completely retard view of the non aggression principle and does nothing but discredit libertarian ideas to anyone that does not hate America.
And I write this as someone that is disgusted by all of the civilian bombings of WWII.
JoshINHB | Aug 12, 2012 | Reply
Of course FDR didn’t “force” an attack on Pearl Harbor. That’s not the question. Did he follow the recommendations in the McCollum plan, a plan which was acknowledged by its author to be likely to provoke war? Yes. Did the diplomacy of Cordell Hull (particularly after Nov. 25, ’41) mirror the current “diplomatic” approach to Iran: make demands, increase sanctions, and ignore Japanese counter-proposals (proposals that were known to represent a genuine effort to compromise)? Yes. Is there a strong case for foreknowledge on the part of the top men in the Roosevelt administration? Yes, per the work of Stinnett, Toland, and the older (but still valuable) work done by George Morgenstern, and Charles Tansill and – in a thorough summary of the record, Harry Barnes’ swan song, “Pearl Harbor After a Quarter of a Century.”
To answer these questions in the affirmative does not constitute “America-hatred” – ham-fisted or otherwise. It is simply a recognition that an American President and his key people were quite capable of lying their way into a war. Shocker.
Alan Kent | Aug 13, 2012 | Reply
Anthony, great article. I appreciate your determination to question the narrative. It is amusing how many commentaters form their argument against your objection to the official narrative by using the official narrative.
Daniel Ellsberg was on Scott Horton’s radio show last week, discussing this very topic. On the morality of the bombs, Scott posited whether or not supporters of using the weapons would have approved of another method of killing – as long as it was justified by the same argument(s): we did it to save US lives, to end the war, to make a point, and so forth – something like rounding up the same civilians – men, women, children, infants, elderly – and executing them with a shot to the head, or otherwise hands-on methods. It’s crucial to keep this comparison on the point of these deaths were necessary to end the war, because that’s what we’re ultimately accepting: not a bomb being dropped, but people being killed. An instantaneous, one-time event of dropping a bomb is a hell of a lot easier to swallow than that same amount of people being executed one by one.
I submit that to consider, not as a means to shut up ‘the other side’, or to be ‘right’ – frankly, I don’t care about winning or about changing anyone’s mind – but as a way to say, the ‘it’s worth it’ argument should be owned for what it is.
Jessica | Aug 15, 2012 | Reply