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

[kentonio]

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..

Sorry that isn't factual. The Japanese refused to surrender until after the second bomb landed, and even then it was heavily resisted.

[Dauphin]

"Sorry that isn't factual. The Japanese refused to surrender until after the Soviets entered the war, and even then it was heavily resisted. "

[Dauphin]

The issue is - do you accept a U.S. occupation or a Soviet one. The Japanese feared a Soviet one far more. Just like the Germans did. There were of course those who would say no surrender. Like Hitler.

[kentonio]

There are records about discussions held in the Japanese high command at the time, and I've never seen any that suggest that they wanted to surrender to the US to avoid defeat by Russia. Rather they tried to prevent the Emperor from delivering the surrender. I don't see how that supports your theory.

[Dauphin]

They spent a lot of time and effort trying to stop the Soviets entering the war and negotiating a separate peace. Within a week of the Soviet invasion the surrender was made.

[kentonio]

You mean 6 days (and an attempted coup) after the second bomb was dropped?

[PLATO]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War_(1945)

Always had been in the kentonio line of thought until I read the wiki article. Looks like Dauphin may have a point.

[kentonio]

I'd agree to the point that the combination of the Soviets joining the war and the bombs falling were the final push that led to the realization that surrender was the only option, but that doesn't mean that just the Soviet declaration alone would have been enough.

[regexcellent]

The Soviet declaration was not enough. It spooked them a ton because the Kwantung divisions from Manchuria had been moved to the Home Islands to prepare for the US invasion, on the assumption that the Soviets were too busy wrapping things up in Europe to adequately invade. But on its own it would not have resulted in an unconditional surrender. The Japanese had stockpiled a ****-ton of fuel, food, munitions, and other supplies for the home islands, and would have been able to defend them without its holdings in China and Korea.

The Soviets also had absolutely no ability whatsoever to invade the Home Islands and the Japanese were not concerned with a Soviet occupation. Any attempt by the Soviets to land in Hokkaido could have been easily repulsed, even though such a landing was in the planning stages in Moscow at the time of the surrender.

Final point on the nuclear bombings: it was really just an extension of the firebombing campaign that had been ongoing. More people died from the conventional firebombing of Tokyo than in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

[regexcellent]

The issue is - do you accept a U.S. occupation or a Soviet one. The Japanese feared a Soviet one far more. Just like the Germans did. There were of course those who would say no surrender. Like Hitler.

The Flensburg government under Donitz after Hitler's death tried to surrender to the Western allies to maximize the amount of territory that would be occupied by Britain, France, and the United States as opposed to the Soviet Union. For whatever reason Eisenhower would have none of it and demanded unconditional surrender.

[Dauphin]

I'd agree to the point that the combination of the Soviets joining the war and the bombs falling were the final push that led to the realization that surrender was the only option, but that doesn't mean that just the Soviet declaration alone would have been enough.

I've oversimplified, yes. There is no one cause. But the use of nuclear weapons was not the key asset of the Alllies/Americans. Firebombing didn't make them surrender, so why think a few nukes (which did less damage) would. The Soviet entry was, in my mind, a bigger tipping point. The entry can not be considered in isolation to other factors of course.

[Hauldren Collider]

The soviets were not equipped for an amphibious invasion of the home islands.

[regexcellent]

The nuclear weapons enabled us to destroy much more much faster.

The Japanese knew this and said as much when they surrendered that it was the principal reasoning. The delay was more from political infighting than anything else.

The invasion of Manchuria simply demonstrated the IJA's massive intelligence/planning failure in moving the Manchurian divisions to Honshu and Kyushu, with obvious political implications.

The soviets were not equipped for an amphibious invasion of the home islands.

Correct; the Soviet navy had zero experience with seaborne invasion beyond trivial point-to-point distances, and only had enough sealift capacity available to move a battalion at a time.

[Aeson]

The idea that we had to nuke civilian populations before any other examples of the power of nukes were made is ridiculous. If they don't capitulate after demonstrations (on military installations/sparcely populated areas) ... then end the war the way we did.

We didn't try the other way. That's something that will always reflect badly on our decisions at the end of the war.

[notyoueither]

They didn't have enough material for that, Aeson.