Reply #6: I'm afraid that you have tunnel rear vision [View All]

[Spinzonner]

and choose your points selectively from history.

A sizeable contingent of the army wished to fight on and Hirohito was initially inclined to try and keep the royal perogatives. His mind was only changed at the end by both the perceived futility that was heavily influenced by the devastation of the atom bomb. It represented death and destruction that could be visited upon Japan without Japan exacting great casualties on the allies through resisting an invasion.

How would having to engage in a massive invasion which would have incurred great casualties for both armies and the Japanese civilian population - both through bombings and secondar effects of war (starvation, disease) - have saved lives ?

It's not at all clear where you get the quarter-million casualty figure for Hiroshima. That was the estimated population of the city at the time of the bombing (probably undercounted by prisoners, etc.) and while a substantial portion of them have died over the years that's hardly attributable to only the bomb.

There were arms races long before the introduction of atomic weapons. It's hardly surprising that their development would result in one of their own. Did you expect them to change human nature. But other than and since their use, they have not been used in war. That's hardly true of the weapons produced in previous arms races. (THere are arguable comparisons and considerations vis-a-vis chemical and biological weapons.)

Without the use of atomic bomb would there NOT have been a Cold War ? What is the likelihood that it would have turned hot had the threat of their use not been realized ?

All that is unprovable but so is your revisionist view.