Why didn't the US drop an atomic bomb off the cost of Japan, instead of bombing a major city?

Why didn't the US drop the bomb on a military or strategic target instead of exterminating population centers?

inb4 quasi-racist arguments that Japanese are an insectoid hivemind who only respond to total annihilation. Those arguments might have held sway in the 1940s, not today.

>The 80,000+ casualties is exactly the reason it was effective you moran

Not really

why didn't nippon just not act retarded and stay in war to no gain

They had a demonstration, you idiot. The Japanese thought it was bait until the US actually dropped the damn thing on Hiroshima.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both strategic targets - Hiroshima had a good sized military base and Nagasaki was a major industrial center.
I imagine the US had already BTFO every other strategic asset that wasn't in a population center so that kind of narrowed down the remaining available targets.

>they had a demonstration
Are you suggesting that the Trinity test was some kind of international demonstration, and not a highly classified weapons test that was not revealed publicly until after the war?
Because that would pretty fucking retarded.

Where and when?

The Japanese sent observers?

You're retarded to compare the two scenarios.

Japanese tried to surrender multiple times. It basically comes down to the fact that Japan did not want to get rid of their 2600 year old dynasty. Japan wanted to keep the Emperor. Japan also agreed to give up all conquered land if they got to keep the Emperor. They were turned down on several of their peace treaties.

Source: Japanese Peace treaty attempts

Also, it makes you wonder. Maybe the US did it so no one in the future would mess with them. Think about it. No one would mess with a country knowing they have superior military technology.

That's actually a hypothesis I've heard for the rather flippant use of the second bomb, basically a warning to the Soviets.

To imply that the nukes were somehow magnitudes more heinous than a conventional bombing campaign is just foolish.

Had the US just conducted the kind of bombing raid that it had conducted all over Japan, ultimately killing far more people than the A-bombs, would that have been preferable? The death tolls achieved at Hiroshima & Nagasaki could have been repeated without even using the A-bomb. Would it have been better if their deaths came from conventional weaponry?

war is terrorism, so you gotta finish it quick

t. sherman

They got to keep the Emperor.... it was in the treaty offered before the nukes were dropped,. they declined.

You mean, the attempts they made through a soviet embassy that were by and large not even transmitted to the Americans because they didn't meet minimum American requirements on things that had nothing to do with the Emperor, like continuing their occupations of the DEI and Malaya?

I'm talking about the power of the Emperor...

Spreading culture is bad? Even if it makes the people more civilized?

>hacking people to death as a game
>more civilized
Are you retarded?

>Boo hoo the Japs tried to surrender (and keep some of their pilfered territory)
>Why didn't the evil Americans accept?!?!
We told them what they wanted and said that there would be no negotiation. They didn't seem to understand that until they got nuked.

Great analogy user. 2,000lb bombs equal 200kt bombs

More like the destruction that caused those deaths.

Bait

Expensive. 1945 American leaders didn't want the war to go on any longer so they took the quick way out.

Would have been much more accurate tbf.

Because it wasn't about defeating Japan, but spooking the Soviets.

(You)

That doesn't make the nuking any more morally justifiable.

Everyone will have their excuses but imo the reason is that people were going insane during WII and all sense of human decency was dying on all sides. We don't notice now because the winning side (of whom includes the majority of this site) writes the history books and WWII has been reimagined as the good war that most closely resembles a magnificent war between good and evil as can be expected to exist out of fantasy.

Truman simply did not care about Japanese civilian lives. No one did at that point, everyone was targeting and massacring civilian centers when they could. It was just a statistic and one sin everyone else was doing and had done previously. The realpolitik reasons were a bonus, but I don't think they truly factored in to a weighting measurement on the utilitarian justification for the bomb because they weren't even seriously considering it as something not to be done on universal human rights grounds. The question isn't why but "why not?".

It was about defeating Japan, defeating Japan before the Soviets could land a small infantry battalion in Hokkaido then claim half of Japan post-war.

Because they wanted to actually do some damage with the incredibly expensive and time intensive weapons they had built. There was no guarantee that japan would surrender following the bombs. america was preparing for a ground invasion and anything that made that invasion easier was a good thing. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both actual military targets

>I have a six year old's understanding of politics

It's funny because the "unconditional surrender" was actually still conditional. The US made certain assurances to Japan, assurances that were very similar to some of the dove's demands.

>hey got to keep the Emperor.... it was in the treaty offered before the nukes were dropped,
There was no treaty offered. Only "offer" was unconditional surrender.

>Source: Japanese Peace treaty attempts
That's not how source works, tomodachi.

Source: certain assurances made by the US

Rofl, everybody knows that the only reason why US used nuclear weapon is to scare the Soviet Union and show the soviets american power. If you learn some history you would exactly know, that even after these 2 bombings japanese didn't agree to accept the surrender. Though after soviet blitzkrieg in Manchuria (when ussr army fully defeated and crushed superior japanese army almost withous casualties), which ended only 08.20.1945 (less than 2 weeks), Japanese Empire agreed to surrender and capitulate to the Allies. So funny to read here that some american kids surely believe that their country saved a lot of american lifes with these bombings. Sorry to disappoint you, but it was only made to show the world the power of US and make other countries cooperate with it. Ofcourse, what do the lives a couple of hundred thousand japanese civilians mean against the economic and military influence of the great murrica?

>So funny to read here that some american kids surely believe that their country saved a lot of american lifes with these bombings.
>drop nukes
>don't land troops
American lives saved
>don't drop nukes
>land troops
American lives lost

Not exactly rocket science family

Seems like you didn't even read. Told ya japanese would surrender anyway whether murrica attacked them or didn't. It was not the question of atomic bombing, it was the problem of crushing their army on land which was fully solved by soviets in less than 2 weeks. 2 bombs didn't make any sense at all as after the second one on august 9-th japanese refused to surrender, but they agreed after russian blitzkrieg on 20-th. Do you get it know?

>IT WUZ THE BIG BAD SOVIETS
Fuck off, Vatnik.

Actually you are the only vatnik here as you dont have any arguments to confirm your point of view and use stupid memes on /his instead of trying to prove your position. Oh, sorry, ofcourse, you dont have any kind of position as you haven't even ended the school.

>Oh no we going to lose war
>herro? America? Y-yeah, we surrender!
>now just let us surrender in peace and leave us alone and let us do whatever we want

Yeah, it's totally not like you have statements by the Japanese government contradicting it, the surrender speech by the Emperor specifically mentioning a "new and terrible weapon that would utterly annihilate us".

It's also not like the Kwangtung army was their entire land force, or that the Soviets had a fleet with which to invade Japan. (Their plan to continue by invading Hokkaido literally started with "beg some ships from the Americans)

And it's certainly not like the extremely dysfunctional dynamics of the Japanese government, where multiple independent bodies all had veto power over decisions like this, can't come to decisions quickly.

Get bent, retard.

>I'm talking about the power of the Emperor...
The Emperor of Japan hadn't had any real power since the Shogun took over in medieval times, you clearly have no fucking clue what you are talking about.
The Potsdam declaration made absolutely no mention of the Emperor, so you're talking shit.

different user here, and is correct

Given that the Soviet plan to invade Hokkaido involved getting ships from the Americans, if Truman was that hellbent on denying Soviet access, why didn't he just..... deny them access?

Why didn't they just blockade japan with battleships until they surrendered?

They had already done that, except the blockade was accomplished more by airplanes, submarines, and mines than battleships, BB are overkill when your enemy's fleet is in ruins and you've got a lot of coastline to cover.

So then all they had to do was wait.

Theoretically. But of course, they weren't sure how long it would take for the blockade to bring about surrender, they weren't sure how many people would die from starvation, but it was certain to be an enormous number, and they hadn't gotten any indication since February when they started the mine dropping that Japan was ready to call it quits, even with the blockade.

>Yeah, it's totally not like you have statements by the Japanese government contradicting it, the surrender speech by the Emperor specifically mentioning a "new and terrible weapon that would utterly annihilate us".

That's a speech to the people, not the internal rationale of the Japanese High Command. It makes sense for the Emperor after the decision to surrender has already been made to claim that it was the fault of a 'terrible new superweapon' because then it's not the Japanese leaders fault the war was lost. It was unavoidable. Nothing could be done about it. No need to blame your leaders. Nobody could have foreseen this.

That line of reasoning shifts Japan from being violent imperial aggressors responsible for numerous warcrimes to being the prostate victims of some new heinous weapon.

Underrated

To imply that the Holocaust was somehow magnitudes more heinous than a conventional genocide is just foolish.

Had Nazi Germany just conducted the kind of mass killings that it had conducted all over Eastern Europe, ultimately killing far more people than the Holocaust, would that have been preferable? The death tolls achieved at Auschwitz & Treblinka could have been repeated without even using industrial methods. Would it have been better if their deaths came from conventional executions?

Because it didn't take seeing the devastating aftermath of ONE atomic bomb destroying a city for Japan to finally surrender....it took seeing the devastating impact of TWO atom bombs destroying their cities, before the stubborn yellow bastards finally gave up.

>Wahhh wahhh muh 200,000 civilian deaths
>meanwhile mainland Asia civilian casualties caused by japs 5 million and up

Crocodile tears

And the rest of it?

Funny to watch at murrica dog barking in pathetic attempts to excuse US war crimes. Besides the already mentioned fact that it was the much better way to talk about super weapon than to admit that they were totally beaten by soviet union, russian empire in the past, it is also has to be mentioned that from this moment until today japanese are licking american boots without stopping, so it is not suprisingly at all that they started to blame the great murrica in their loss.

And yes, the Kwangtung army was the hugest one, and it's total destruction in few days simply led to rise of the defeatism and, finally, capitulation of army which, since this moment, could not protect it's country anymore, especially from the best army in the world at that moment, trained by the most bloody war of 20-th century.

And ofcourse, you probably don't know about coup d'etat attempt which took place on 08.15 and was orginized by group of people who were against of capitulation. Seems strange that after 6 days of using a GREAT SUPER MURRICA(GOD BLESS IT) WEAPON stupid japanese generals still had some hope, isn't it? Only after the suppression of this uprising and realization of the fact that one country cant fight versus all others, including the one with the strongest army, led to final capitulation of Japan.

But it's okay, murrica dog, you can still believe that Japan would fight till the end versus all the nations around the world if only the great god bless it long live holy murrica would not kill some civilians, which, ofcourse are more important for winning the war than trained soldiers, more than 1.000.000 of which were killed or captured by russians in a few days (more than were killed or captured by the great murrica through all the 4 years of war).

>Had Nazi Germany just conducted the kind of mass killings that it had conducted all over Eastern Europe, ultimately killing far more people than the Holocaust
>implying they wouldn't have if they had the chance to

>inb4 quasi-racist arguments that Japanese are an insectoid hivemind who only respond to total annihilation. Those arguments might have held sway in the 1940s, not today.

Do you have any argument refuting this or are you just going to assert this without evidence??????????????????????????

>inb4 quasi-racist arguments that Japanese are an insectoid hivemind who only respond to total annihilation
>implying this isn't not only true, but true for all Asians
>implying that Germany, who were much less collectivist, didn't need to be totally subjugated in a conventional campaign
>implying that there isn't a huge amount of historical precedent for this shit

Seriously, it's funny to see some really believe this crap. Isn't it obvious that US wouldn't have lost anything if they didn't use nuclear weapon? Were there some japanese soldiers threatening the security of the United States? No. Were there any serious economic problems? No. Had they to get their soldiers landing on the japan to fight their army? No, it was enough to block the country and wait or to let the soviets deal with it. How is it possible to believe this american propaganda crap for 6-years old children? Shame on you.

its more civilized than the cannibalistic rituals pacific islander tribes were participating in

Or they could have just blockaded the islands and waited for a surrender.

They didn't actually need to bomb anybody.

>America
>worrying about starving civilians of foreign and hostile country
>lol

Guess japanese have to thank US nonstop for this great of mercy. Just think about how many people could die in case of blockade! And America saved all these innocent people lives by dropping 2 atomic bombs on small cities. Isn't it sweet?

>why don't we go with the humane option
>starvation

Have you heard of a place called Biafra?

>And yes, the Kwangtung army was the hugest one, and it's total destruction in few days simply led to rise of the defeatism

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwantung_Army

taiwandocuments.org/japansurrender.htm

Objectively wrong.

>And ofcourse, you probably don't know about coup d'etat attempt which took place on 08.15 and was orginized by group of people who were against of capitulation.

Because coups get organized in a day, right? Oh no wait that's retarded. It's almost like Japan had a "government" formed of feuding cliques who didn't see eye to eye, and the various factions had different appraisals.

>But it's okay, murrica dog, you can still believe that Japan would fight till the end versus all the nations around the world if only the great god bless it long live holy murrica would not kill some civilians, which, ofcourse are more important for winning the war than trained soldiers, more than 1.000.000 of which were killed or captured by russians in a few days (more than were killed or captured by the great murrica through all the 4 years of war)

Kwantung dind't even HAVE a million soldiers you idiot. And I suggest you do the math for the Philippines+ the Solomons, because I get the impression you're too drunk on cheap vodka to do basic addition.

And let's not forget, that the Soviets didn't have the means to GET to Japan. Surely, the Japanese were shaking in their boots from the "form bridge of drowned bodies from Korea to Honshu" method that Stalin probably had planned.

Were you born this stupid, or did it take some hard work to get there?

Butthurt faggot
We didn't want more Americans to die
That's enough justification to turn the whole shitty island into glass

>muh Japan surrendered because they were afraid of the Soviets meme
Japan knew the Soviets would attack them months before the nukes when Soviets refused to renew the nonaggression pact.

Guess you should better try to learn to read all words correctly at first. Then there may be a discussion.

Who said anything about being humane?

I'm just pointing out that there was no actual reason why Truman HAD TO drop the bomb.

Japan was already soundly defeated. All they had to do was surround the japanese islands and wait for a surrender.

The primary motivation for dropping the bomb was to demonstrate the power of the atom bombs to the soviet union.

But they didn't knew it will take less than 2 weeks for soviets to completely defeat them.

That or we'd already been bombing them to ashes for years, and we simply moved onto the next deadliest thing.

The atomic bombings weren't even the deadliest American bombing raids.

>Besides the already mentioned fact that it was the much better way to talk about super weapon than to admit that they were totally beaten by soviet union, russian empire in the past,

>russian empire in the past

You lost the Russo-Japanese War senpai.

>There were no forces in China
>There were no forces in Korea
>There were no forces in Japan itself

Inbred vatnik cannot into counting or geography.

>The atomic bombings weren't even the deadliest American bombing raids.

My point is there really wasn't any reason to be doing any bombing raids at all, nuclear or otherwise.

Just blockade the islands and wait.

What are you talking about? You are forgetting the japanese terrorists invaded US which were ready to take the hostages any moment until their country surrender. Ofcourse the american government couldn't risk their lifes.

No, the japs were mad cunts who would have fought to the last man, woman and child before they surrendered to the West.

The atom bombs just scared them into submission, and even then there was a planned coup to stop the surrender

Because we wanted the war to end.

This isn't tremendously complicated, people don't like being conscripted and dragged from their homes, and governments don't like spending billions of dollars a month to send them halfway around the world.

Yeah that is exactly what i was speaking about. It was hard for japanese to admit their total defeat by those russians who lost versus them 40 years ago

>No, the japs were mad cunts who would have fought to the last man, woman and child before they surrendered to the West.

You can't really fight a naval blockade after your own navy has been destroyed.

>there were no forces in china
Where do you think the Kwangtung army was disposed, 10-years old historian?

Fucking butthurting brainwashed kids, it's hilarious sometimes to see how much the population of US is hypnotized by it's own massmedia and stupid education system.

>This isn't tremendously complicated, people don't like being conscripted and dragged from their homes, and governments don't like spending billions of dollars a month to send them halfway around the world.
Yeah, much cheeper is to construct some atomic bombs.

I'm just pointing out that Truman did in fact have other options that didn't involve risking American lives.

This whole idea that somehow Truman was forced to drop the bomb "to save American lives" is just wrong.

All they really had to do was blockade the islands and wait.

Yes, it would have taken a bit longer, but not very much longer because by that point Japan was already defeated anyway.

I love that phase when somebody is so BTFO that they can no longer respond to individual posts, so they start leaving passive aggressive comments instead.

That is literally all conjecture based on Stalin's personal reaction...

Yeah, probably.

The Manhattan project was pretty expensive, but it was probably cheaper than a blockade.

ethnic cleansing.jomon

The immense cost of the manhattan project is another factor in why alternative options weren't considered.

>"We spent a bazillion dollars developing this bomb, we have to use it whether it makes sense or not!!!!!"

Fucking butthurting brainwashed kids, it's hilarious sometimes to see how much the population of Russia is hypnotized by it's own government and stupid education system.

this

The Manhattan Project cost 2 billion bucks.

That's actually a lot less than it would cost to maintain a blockade until Japan surrendered.

Military operations are not cheap things.

Manchuria, you epsilon minus retard, which if you look at a period map, was considered a different territory entirely.

I don't know.

2 billion dollars could go a long way in 1945.

Are you retarded or a stupid troll? Manchuria was always a part of China, these times it was occupated by japanese. Oh my lord please phone your history teacher and beg him to give you some special lessons.

>Manchuria was always a part of China
Holy shit, not even him but no. The fucking Chinese HATE Manchus and it was only "Chinese" under the Qing and even then it wasn't considered Chinese. Manchuria being Chinese is a post-war phenomenon.