Oops, turns out Arafat probably was murdered after all..

[regexcellent]

Yeah that wasn't the Japanese intention. They were expecting to defeat us decisively before we had a chance to build a ton of ships.

If you're interested in the circumstances surrounding the decision to nuke Japan, you should read this book. It outlines fairly clearly why nuking them was a Good Idea.

[giblets]

Yeah that wasn't the Japanese intention. They were expecting to defeat us decisively before we had a chance to build a ton of ships.

That would be impossible since they had no plans of invading the US and actually preventing the US from building a ton of ships.

[regexcellent]

That doesn't really matter. Ships take a long time to build. They would have had several months before new carriers and battleships hit the fleet, and at least a year before they would be available in enough quantity to oppose them at all. Which would be plenty of time to secure necessary shipping channels for resources and be at a position of strength.

But as a practical matter, they really didn't have a chance of winning at any point.

[giblets]

That doesn't really matter. Ships take a long time to build. They would have had several months before new carriers and battleships hit the fleet, and a year before they would be available in enough quantity to oppose them at all. Which would be plenty of time to secure necessary shipping channels for resources and be at a position of strength.

Yes. At which point they figured the Americans wouldn't think removing Japan from the Pacific would be worth the cost.

[MikeH]

Yeah that wasn't the Japanese intention. They were expecting to defeat us decisively before we had a chance to build a ton of ships.

If you're interested in the circumstances surrounding the decision to nuke Japan, you should read this book. It outlines fairly clearly why nuking them was a Good Idea.

Summary : "because they couldn't nuke back"

[giblets]

Summary: "If we hadn't nuked them we totally would have had to invade the country at the cost of millions of lives, just because."

[kentonio]

But as a practical matter, they really didn't have a chance of winning at any point.

Sure they did, there was absolutely no guarantee that things would turn out the way they did. The US fleet could have been completely crippled at Pearl, the UK could have fallen, Barbarossa might never have happened, the list of things that could have made the allies lose is nearly endless.

[regexcellent]

Summary: because they had dozens of divisions on the home islands, and had managed to predict exactly when, where, and with what we would be invading both in Kyushu and in Honshu. They had immensely favorable terrain, which would allow them to effectively approach landing ships with kamikaze aircraft and suicide boats. Terrain would also allow them to reinforce their positions by night movement on secondary roads, conceal artillery behind natural barriers, counter American firepower with reverse-slope defense, and counter-attack at key locations. The constructed defenses were robust and nearly complete at the time of surrender. Hills and rice paddies would have made movement by our armored vehicles difficult, and effective direct fire against them trivial. We would have been under a strict timetable similar to Barbarossa in order to get the offensive in before the rainy season made vehicle movement extremely dangerous, and typhoons would have easily disrupted that schedule.

[kentonio]

Correct, invading the home islands would have been an utter bloodbath. The people who argue that the bombs were not necessary are simply wrong.

[giblets]

Correct, invading the home islands would have been an utter bloodbath. The people who argue that the bombs were not necessary are simply wrong.

Well here's a whacky idea... maybe Japan could have surrendered without nukes or invading the home islands?

[regexcellent]

Not unconditionally, which is what we needed.

[kentonio]

Well here's a whacky idea... maybe Japan could have surrendered without nukes or invading the home islands?

Which they had no interest in doing. Even after the two bombs there was almost a coup to prevent the surrender.

[giblets]

Not unconditionally, which is what we needed.

What conditions would they have insisted upon that were worth killing hundreds of thousands of people to avoid?

[Hauldren Collider]

China, a number of British and French colonies, etc? Or continuing to attack Allied ships and civilians in low-level conflict.

[Dauphin]

The U.S. nukes were nothing in the minds of the Japanese. The Soviets were coming in and taking the islands. They'd rather surrender to the U.S..