<story><title>The Bomb Didn&apos;t Beat Japan</title><url>http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/29/the_bomb_didnt_beat_japan_nuclear_world_war_ii?page=0,0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gruseom</author><text>This comment is contentless. It doesn&apos;t address a single specific thing the article says. Instead it offers woolly generalities (&quot;Japan was threatened on many fronts and made the best choice it could. That much is clear&quot;) and platitudes (&quot;all of the actions, taken together, were the reason for the war to end. Yes, Stalin played a big role. But it&apos;s not an either-or situation&quot;). It sounds like it&apos;s saying something; indeed, it sounds like it&apos;s saying something wise and avuncular. But I&apos;ve read it three times and can&apos;t find a single part that is saying anything at all, other than where it repeats exactly the bromide about how the Pacific war ended that the OP is critiquing (&quot;dropping the bombs on Japan saved millions of both Japanese and allied lives. It served as a quick end to a long war&quot;)—ironically, right after it says &quot;Nobody is finding comfort in simplistic stories&quot;. If you&apos;re going to respond to a critique, shouldn&apos;t you answer what it actually says?&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s unfair to put the article in the same bucket as &quot;UFO stories&quot;. No one who has read it (and is being fair) would describe it as &quot;speculation&quot;. It isn&apos;t anything like counterfactual fan fiction. Almost the entire piece does nothing but cite facts, such as: the dropping of the nuclear bombs does not figure significantly in historical records of the Japanese leadership&apos;s discussion about surrender; the Japanese war council decided on August 8 not even to discuss the Hiroshima bombing; damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not out of scale with the earlier fire-bombings of other cities; Japanese leaders had expressed a willingness to sacrifice their cities if necessary; Japan&apos;s war strategy was predicated on the Soviets staying neutral; and so on. Are these wrong? If so, how? Are there other, more important facts omitted? If so, what are they?&lt;p&gt;The negative responses to this article so far are so insubstantial that they form a defense of it by omission. I&apos;m very curious now to hear a credible counterargument. Surely there is one?</text></item><item><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>I love UFO stories, and I love history, and I love pseudo-science. Hell, I even like counter-factuals. What if Lee had won at Gettysburg? What if Patton had actually commanded the Normandy invasion? And so forth.&lt;p&gt;But these things are the province of speculation, not knowledge.&lt;p&gt;Think for a minute about what this essay is asking &quot;What if action X did not end the war in the Pacific?&quot;&lt;p&gt;Well dang, Action X could be just about anything. The fact of the matter is that all of the actions, taken together, were the reason for the war to end. Yes, Stalin played a big role. But it&apos;s not an either-or situation; it&apos;s an amalgam. The logical structure of trying to support a statement such as &quot;The Bomb Didn&apos;t Beat Japan&quot; is flawed. It&apos;s like saying the landing on Tarawa didn&apos;t beat Japan. Well no, and yes. The assertion itself is flawed.&lt;p&gt;While I love all sorts of semi-non-fictional essays, I have a little warning bell that goes off when I&apos;m mostly through an essay and the essayist starts telling me a story about how I&apos;ve been misled. Smells of a political agenda and manipulation.&lt;p&gt;Japan was threatened on many fronts and made the best choice it could. That much is clear. Atom bombs did not cause as much building and population damage as the fire-bombing did. That&apos;s also clear. But atom bombs represented one thing that Stalin and fire-bombing did not: the end of Japanese culture. A few dozen atom bombs would not only have made huge holes in the landscape, it would have erased the culture of Japan.&lt;p&gt;Nobody is finding comfort in simplistic stories. In fact, the more details people know, the happier I am. But dropping the bombs on Japan saved millions of both Japanese and allied lives. It served as a quick end to a long war, and it saved thousands of allied prisoners whom the Japanese were ready to execute. It also allowed the great Japanese culture to continue.&lt;p&gt;Most serious historians don&apos;t get into counter-factuals, except maybe as fiction. It just doesn&apos;t work.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ekianjo</author><text>I agree with your feeling. Reading through this thread of answers and seeing so many poorly written comments, all supporting the &quot;official patriotic version of American History of the World&quot; is pretty sad.&lt;p&gt;For those who disagree with the article, why don&apos;t you ask Japanese what they think, instead of speculating about these two bombs ending the war? It was clearly obvious that these two bombs were, just like the article said, just another two drops in a long history of bombing on Japan that has destroyed most of the largest cities. Come to Japan and see from yourself how little is left of Old Japan. All cities are built of concrete here, because there was nothing left of what they were before. And check Japanese litterature of the time - there was ample suffering and hardship without even talking about the atomic bombs.&lt;p&gt;There&apos;s nothing &quot;revisionist&quot; about these claims.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Bomb Didn&apos;t Beat Japan</title><url>http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/29/the_bomb_didnt_beat_japan_nuclear_world_war_ii?page=0,0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gruseom</author><text>This comment is contentless. It doesn&apos;t address a single specific thing the article says. Instead it offers woolly generalities (&quot;Japan was threatened on many fronts and made the best choice it could. That much is clear&quot;) and platitudes (&quot;all of the actions, taken together, were the reason for the war to end. Yes, Stalin played a big role. But it&apos;s not an either-or situation&quot;). It sounds like it&apos;s saying something; indeed, it sounds like it&apos;s saying something wise and avuncular. But I&apos;ve read it three times and can&apos;t find a single part that is saying anything at all, other than where it repeats exactly the bromide about how the Pacific war ended that the OP is critiquing (&quot;dropping the bombs on Japan saved millions of both Japanese and allied lives. It served as a quick end to a long war&quot;)—ironically, right after it says &quot;Nobody is finding comfort in simplistic stories&quot;. If you&apos;re going to respond to a critique, shouldn&apos;t you answer what it actually says?&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s unfair to put the article in the same bucket as &quot;UFO stories&quot;. No one who has read it (and is being fair) would describe it as &quot;speculation&quot;. It isn&apos;t anything like counterfactual fan fiction. Almost the entire piece does nothing but cite facts, such as: the dropping of the nuclear bombs does not figure significantly in historical records of the Japanese leadership&apos;s discussion about surrender; the Japanese war council decided on August 8 not even to discuss the Hiroshima bombing; damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not out of scale with the earlier fire-bombings of other cities; Japanese leaders had expressed a willingness to sacrifice their cities if necessary; Japan&apos;s war strategy was predicated on the Soviets staying neutral; and so on. Are these wrong? If so, how? Are there other, more important facts omitted? If so, what are they?&lt;p&gt;The negative responses to this article so far are so insubstantial that they form a defense of it by omission. I&apos;m very curious now to hear a credible counterargument. Surely there is one?</text></item><item><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>I love UFO stories, and I love history, and I love pseudo-science. Hell, I even like counter-factuals. What if Lee had won at Gettysburg? What if Patton had actually commanded the Normandy invasion? And so forth.&lt;p&gt;But these things are the province of speculation, not knowledge.&lt;p&gt;Think for a minute about what this essay is asking &quot;What if action X did not end the war in the Pacific?&quot;&lt;p&gt;Well dang, Action X could be just about anything. The fact of the matter is that all of the actions, taken together, were the reason for the war to end. Yes, Stalin played a big role. But it&apos;s not an either-or situation; it&apos;s an amalgam. The logical structure of trying to support a statement such as &quot;The Bomb Didn&apos;t Beat Japan&quot; is flawed. It&apos;s like saying the landing on Tarawa didn&apos;t beat Japan. Well no, and yes. The assertion itself is flawed.&lt;p&gt;While I love all sorts of semi-non-fictional essays, I have a little warning bell that goes off when I&apos;m mostly through an essay and the essayist starts telling me a story about how I&apos;ve been misled. Smells of a political agenda and manipulation.&lt;p&gt;Japan was threatened on many fronts and made the best choice it could. That much is clear. Atom bombs did not cause as much building and population damage as the fire-bombing did. That&apos;s also clear. But atom bombs represented one thing that Stalin and fire-bombing did not: the end of Japanese culture. A few dozen atom bombs would not only have made huge holes in the landscape, it would have erased the culture of Japan.&lt;p&gt;Nobody is finding comfort in simplistic stories. In fact, the more details people know, the happier I am. But dropping the bombs on Japan saved millions of both Japanese and allied lives. It served as a quick end to a long war, and it saved thousands of allied prisoners whom the Japanese were ready to execute. It also allowed the great Japanese culture to continue.&lt;p&gt;Most serious historians don&apos;t get into counter-factuals, except maybe as fiction. It just doesn&apos;t work.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>supercanuck</author><text>I find it frustrating that someone so prominent in their field to merit an audience at the UN and British Parliament and to be published in Foreign Policy is able to be so easily dismissed on Hacker News as not &quot;a serious historian.&quot;</text></comment>