Sun Tzu advocated never completely encircling one's enemy, but rather leaving them a clear cut opportunity to retreat, so that instead of fighting for their lives the enemy will instead fold under pressure and choose to retreat.
In a sense, this was a vital part of the strategy of the Western allies. The US and UK were little different from Japan or Germany or Russia in their pursuit of total war (okay, Russia was arguably more brutal even there), but in its treatment of defeated enemies, either as prisoners of war or as occupied territory, the Western allies were consistently magnanimous and benevolent compared to the Soviets or the Axis. That's a great way to get high-value individuals (the German rocket scientists like Von Braun) or even entire countries to prefer to surrender to you.
Of course, as the article illustrates, it helps when you have brutal allies like the Soviets prone to rape and plunder everything they conquer for magnanimous treatment of one's enemies to really encourage surrender. As the Mongols discovered, it also helps to be absolutely ruthless with enemies who resist while benevolent towards enemies who surrender quickly.
I don't think that was a conscious decision of the Western Allies, but rather a consequence of the freedom of the press. Gruesome stuff was quickly exposed to public reaction:
Using aircraft carriers to win naval battles wasn't a conscious decision either (the US was just completely out of battleships), but it sure worked out nicely.
Still, the press in WWII was not interested in making the government look bad. They were active participants in keeping many secrets throughout the war, including the fact that FDR was crippled from polio. "Total war", which is unknown to this country since WWII, means the entire civilization participates in the war effort, and while the press had the legal freedom to criticize the government and reveal their secrets, it would have been unconscionable at the time for them to do anything that could impede the war effort.
Even more importantly, it's hard to imagine the US matching the degree of Japanese, German and Soviet atrocities against POW's and occupied territories during the war. Souvenir taking against policy is one thing--deliberate plundering, torture, murder, and rape as policy is quite another.
"Even more importantly, it's hard to imagine the US matching the degree of Japanese, German and Soviet atrocities against POW's and occupied territories during the war. Souvenir taking against policy is one thing--deliberate plundering, torture, murder, and rape as policy is quite another."
Care to point out any instance of any order to do any of the things listed issued in any branch of the military in any of the countries you mention? I mean I know most Americans view everyone else as drooling, barbaric apes, but you seem to be an expert on the US media in WWII (https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...), so I assume you can point out some specifics of why they are drooling, barbaric apes.
Soviet sergeants and officers were often ordered to shoot their own men if they attempted to retreat - Soviet infantry was instructed to advance at all cost. Also, since Stalin executed his highly ranked officers frequently due to paranoia, the average Soviet officer was something like 12 years younger than the average Nazi officer.
These two factors combined meant utter brutality and massacre for Soviet forces and contribute to them having overwhelmingly the highest number of causalities in the war. With a culture like that against their own soldiers, is it any surprise they loot, raid, pillage, and rape? That's all fairly well documented among Soviet forces, there's plenty of memoirs of the gulags (which had a lower survival rate than even Nazi concentration camps), and there's plenty of memoirs of the horrors the Soviet troops committed in occupied cities. German women would often offer themselves to Soviet officers so as to be protected from the brutality of the enlisted men.
> so I assume you can point out some specifics of why they are drooling, barbaric apes.
Utter brutality, a win at all costs mentality more than anyone else, and very inexperienced leadership. Much of this is directly attributable to Stalin, but really all the Socialist Soviet Republics and People's Democratic Republics went similarly (USSR, cultural revolution, Khmer Rouge, etc). For whatever reason, it doesn't seem to be governmental model conducive to high morale, dignity, and respect in their armed forces.
That's an unfair assessment. The first-line Soviet armored and motor rifle divisions were well led and disciplined soliders who did their job and moved on.
The second/third line infantry divisions essentially levied anyone who could walk into service, including criminals, POWs, etc. Those units were mostly the ones where summary shootings and no discipline were common.
That wasn't a phenomena unique to the Soviets, either. Life for a German in the French occupation zone wasn't a bag of cherries.
Wow, way to take my trolling seriously. I didn't ask you to regurgitate your reagan zombie history "facts," I asked for some references that have some references that might have some other references to army orders/policy documents to "kill, rape, pillage" etc.
"We will turn our hearts into steel, which we will temper in the fire of suffering and the blood of fighters for freedom. We will make our hearts cruel, hard, and immovable, so that no mercy will enter them, and so that they will not quiver at the sight of a sea of enemy blood. We will let loose the floodgates of that sea [...] For the blood of Lenin and Uritsky, Zinoviev and Volodarski, let there be floods of the blood of the bourgeois - more blood, as much as possible." – Announcement of the start of the Red Terror on 1 September 1918, to the Bolshevik newspaper, Krasnaya Gazeta
> Wow, way to take my trolling seriously. I didn't ask you to regurgitate your reagan zombie history "facts,"
I might take this a little more seriously than most people since seeing the Killing Fields and Security Center 21 in Cambodia shook me to the core. Collectivism of any stripe - whether under a banner of socialism, communism, nationalism, whatever - produces really fucking evil results. Reagan was a decent American President in some ways, did a poor job in others, but that's besides the point. Playing down or ignoring or marginalizing the utter fucking atrocities that happened under National Socialism, Bolshevism, the Cultural Revolution, the Khmer Rouge, etc, etc - nothing else even comes close. Some people like to play a really backwards moral relativism card here - no, nothing else comes close. I've walked through the jails where they tortured people. Tons of real photos, the Khmer Rouge documented the hell out of it. I saw the metal plate that they cracked the the heads of the children of the "bourgeois" into as an inexpensive execution technique. These aren't Reagan zombie facts. This is reality. When people stop being individuals and give themselves over to a collective, all hell and madness breaks loose. If we forget this, we'll suffer for it.
Any other worn hollywood cliches happen to you while you were vacationing there?
"When people stop being individuals and give themselves over to a collective, all hell and madness breaks loose."
I bet you were really angry at healthcare reform.
This is why I love trolling HN political topics. Your responses are so predictable and thoughtless. Reagan zombie really is the right description. It has nothing to do with what happened or didn't happen in history - it's the way people like you interpret everything through your own narcissism and then filter it out through the viewpoints of some idiotic popular news cliches to support ideas you don't even care about to make yourself feel good for "standing up for justice."
> Any other worn hollywood cliches happen to you while you were vacationing there?
I'll reply one last time, not for your benefit, but maybe for someone else reading.
I'm typically pretty unfazed by things, but I've never been more horrified than what I saw at Security Center 21. There's books full of laminated photos of people taken before they were executed. And this is in the room these people were executed.
There's stains on the floor and walls. It used to be an elementary school before they converted it to a prison, torture, and interrogation center. There's beds with shackles attached to them, and some of the classrooms have been converted with makeshift jail cells the size of a pen for small animals.
There's pictures of people being whipped and electrocuted. At the risk of another Hollywood cliche, you can feel the death in the air. The misery. They'd hang people by their feet and dunk them in water mixed with feces and hold them under until they passed out. They'd take them out of the water, resuscitate them, instruct them to confess, and repeat. After a while, they'd execute the people.
You hear about horrible things happening, but it never felt so real until I saw it. 6,000,000 people before the Khmer Rogue led their revolution and Cambodia became People's Democratic Kampuchea. 2,000,000 people were killed, usually with shovels or sharp sticks in order to save the cost of bullets. All the capitalists, all the business owners, everyone who spoke a foreign language, everyone who had any ties with the French, British, or Americans. They thought those people were "exploiters" and that punishing them would heal society. They thought resources just appeared easily and anyone who had more than anyone else must have stolen and done horrible things to get them. They felt comfortable killing all of those people.
There was a Khmer Empire once upon a time, it was the most powerful in Southeast Asia. They had roads, law, commerce, built amazing buildings, had crafts, and lived well for the standard of the era. It'll never rise again after the Khmer Rouge. Half the buildings in Cambodia are thatched hay or one piece of corrugated steel. It's the most backwards place I've ever seen.
Progress comes slow. There's a path to getting out of poverty. It's gradual. Trying to speed that process up with violence and social control has led to so much misery and horrible things. Look, I'm all for making light and joking about otherwise serious situations, but not too many jokes can be said about this one.
It's horrible and senseless. A charismatic leader comes along and promises an easy solution to problems that have never been easily solved. But it never works out the way they promise. If you've never seen the very real artifacts of collective violence in real life, maybe it's just gobbleygook on the internet to you. But after I saw it, I don't know, I feel like everyone needs to know about this. How utterly stupid would it be to go down that road again?
You are completely missing the point. Let me help you:
I might take this a little more seriously than most people since seeing the Hiroshima bombing museum in Japan shook me to the core. Capitalism of any stripe - whether under a banner of liberalism, democracy, whatever - produces really fucking evil results. Marx was a decent German Philosopher in some ways, did a poor job in others, but that's besides the point. Playing down or ignoring or marginalizing the utter fucking atrocities that happened under Reaganism, Thatcherism, the McCarthy Era, Winston Churchill, etc, etc - nothing else even comes close. Some people like to play a really backwards moral relativism card here - no, nothing else comes close. I've walked through the jails where they tortured people. Tons of real photos, the CIA documented the hell out of it. I saw where they incinerated hundreds of thousands of children of the "Japs" as an inexpensive execution technique to end the war. These aren't Lenin zombie facts. This is reality. When people stop being individuals and give themselves over to a collective democracy, all hell and madness breaks loose. If we forget this, we'll suffer for it.
I do not quite understand what is your point, even with the "let me help you" comment below.
Are you suggesting that the article is wrong in stating that the Japanese believed that the Americans would treat them better if they surrendered to them rather than the Russians? If so, perhaps you can provide some authority.
Let's be perfectly clear and honest here. If you say anything about the atrocities committed by any group at any point in history, certain nationalists (Orwell on nationalism: http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/english/e_na...) take it as their sacred duty to defend the reputation of their chosen idol or to tear down the reputations of any other nationality to establish moral superiority, or at least equivalence, for the object of their defense.
Hence, a perfectly sensible remark acknowledging the brutality of all sides in World War II, paired with the observation that the Western Allies at least had a deserved reputation for being countries one was better off surrendering to, opens up an entire chasm of nationalistic anger, first tacitly denying that any such atrocities occurred, even on the part of the Nazis themselves (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1609926) followed, through the psychological mechanism of projection, by accusations of attempting to claim a "moral high ground" for the western Allies (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1610175), judging as propaganda near-universally-accepted truths about the brutalities of certain regimes (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1610199) and ultimately declaring that, whatever the evils of communism and fascism, the evils of the English speaking countries are worse (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1611142).
Alternatively, the entire campaign can also be viewed as purely an exercise in negative nationalism, attempting to tear down the reputations of the English speaking countries with the initial, tentative defense of the Nazis and Soviets meant only as an exercise in moral equivalence, rather than a genuine defense of totalitarianism. The psychology is the same.
Either way, there's no real point being made here, just a nationalistic knee-jerk reaction to anyone pointing out unsavory aspects of the history of totalitarianism, or alternatively the "savory" aspects of the history of certain English speaking countries.
Do you know how if you read any article on the United States online today, there are people who comment "OMG Obama is causing the downfall of America"? Anytime a political topic comes up on Hacker News, someone will come out and say "OMG totalitarianism is evil." No original thought, and nothing even remotely relevant to the core issues of the topic. These morons are the same, their views come from Fox news or equivalent tripe.
This particular one was really amusing to troll; I enjoyed his Pol Pot Disneyland story. There is nothing cynical or cruel in that remark - I really do believe that (for some reasons why, this is a good place to start: http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/forget.html).
"Are you suggesting that the article is wrong in stating that the Japanese believed that the Americans would treat them better if they surrendered to them rather than the Russians?"
This is exactly why these Reagan zombies are so annoying. They've managed to shift the topic of discussion from Japan's plan for a USSR-mediated peace treaty (which is actually the novel point of the article), to "OMG EVIL RUSKIES" idiocy turned "fact" turned bad cliche paid for by the CIA (http://www.amazon.com/Who-Paid-Piper-Cultural-Cold/dp/186207...). Even the topic of American vs Soviet occupation is completely bypassed - right away the discussion shifts to "collectives are evil, and fuck and downmod you if you say different". They're very effective at re-framing the discussion into something superficially similar, but really a completely unrelated, cliched trope where they know the outcome ("BUT THINK OF THE CAMBODIAN BABIES!!!"). What the fuck does Cambodia have to do with this article?
It's pointless to argue with them - the course of discussion has been tread and re-tread for over 65 years thanks to US sponsorship of right-wing think tanks, and the shape and conclusions ("OMG YOU'RE A NATIONALIST, NO WAIT, MORAL RELATIVISM IS WRONG") have already been determined and they know that. The only appropriate response is to troll and enjoy the lulz.
"Are you suggesting that the article is wrong in stating that the Japanese believed that the Americans would treat them better if they surrendered to them rather than the Russians?"
The Japanese leadership believed they would be treated better by the Americans, probably correctly. On the other hand the Japanese people were preparing for mass suicide in case of US invasion, believing (probably incorrectly; but to be fair the Marines did manage to kill a quarter of all civilians in Okinawa) that the US soldiers would rape, torture and mutilate them. From what I understand they did not hold similar views about Soviet soldiers.
I never said anyone were drooling, barbaric apes. Any race of people governed by fascists or Stalinists will commit atrocities. In fact, my willingness to blame these atrocities on the men at the top if anything exonerates the people of these countries--I don't collectively blame the German people for the Holocaust so much as I blame the individual leaders of the Nazi cult.
FDR was many things, but he wasn't a totalitarian thug who ordered the execution of prisoners. If he was, the US likely would have been no better than its enemies. And the US did happen to commit atrocities during the Second World War as a matter of policy, just not against POW's or occupied territory.
Now, let's be clear on what you're asking for. Any order to plunder, torture, murder, or rape either prisoners of war or the people of an occupied nation issued by any military branch of Japan, Germany, or the USSR.
"Military" does narrow it down a little bit--for instance, the only part of the SS that was really "military" was the Waffen-SS, which was separate from the SS departments that ran the concentration camps or rounded up the Jews. So I'm going to take the liberty of counting any state organization, including the SS and NKVD, not just the military itself.
Germany: If you're going to deny the Holocaust you're a very silly person and I'm not going to answer you.
Japan: Let's just start with Unit 731. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 That's not the end of it, and it's barely the beginning, but all you asked for was an existence proof.
Russia: The Katyn Massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre), was carried out based upon orders signed by Stalin himself to murder Polish POW's and residents of Soviet-occupied Poland. Again, not comprehensive, but all you asked for was an existence proof. And I guess it might not technically count because NKVD are separate from military. Oh well.
"I never said anyone were drooling, barbaric apes."
Right, you just said that the leaders of Germany, Japan and the USSR made "plundering, torture, murder, and rape" a matter of official policy and everyone followed, whereas the United States took the high moral ground, and any such "plundering, torture, murder, and rape" would merit "stern disciplinary action," things like "until every murdering Jap is wiped out" notwithstanding. Go democracy!
I never said anything about a moral high ground, and I've done the best I can to acknowledge that the US and UK committed their share of atrocities as well. I was speaking only about the matter of how various powers treated POW's and occupied countries. If you don't think the Western Allies treated Germany better than the Soviets did, just ask an East German.
There's value in illustrating the various evils and atrocities of any civilization--I can probably name just as many American and British atrocities as you can, beginning with the treatment of my own ancestors. This doesn't extend to whitewashing the truth about other civilizations' atrocities. I was making a strategic argument about not mistreating those who surrender to you; you're trying to make some argument that Hitler and Stalin were nice guys who never at all mistreated people in occupied countries. Respectfully, I don't think I'm the one with a nationalistic axe to grind here.
Rape of Nanking was a direct result of Bushido code. Japan's WWII government must be held accountable in history as pure evil, as a matter of official policy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_nanking
People always like to forget that the USSR was one of our key allies in WWI. In Europe, they faced over 80% of the German forces -- leaving the other allies (UK, Colonies, and finally the US) to deal with the remainder. Likewise, their vital role against Japan is generally not mentioned outside of stuffy university military history courses. Good to see it getting some mainstream love.
The USSR had a decisive role not only in defeating Germany and Japan, but also in shaping the very outburst of the war. E.g., Pearl Harbor was arguably a consequence of the battle of Khalkin-Gol:
>And Hitler would have never invaded Poland if it wasn't for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
It is not true ..
"In 1934, Hitler himself had spoken of an inescapable battle against both Pan-Slavism and Neo-Slavism, the victory in which would lead to "permanent mastery of the world", though he stated that they would "walk part of the road with the Russians, if that will help us.""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact...
What he said in 1934 and what actually happened though are two different things. You can't equate the one which happened to what would have happened if that had not been the case.
History only happens once, alternative branches are ruthlessly pruned by the things that actually happen and we have no way of knowing what would have happened for any of the other branches.
The fact that he said it in 1934 but waited until one week after the signing of the pact gives some doubt about whether or not he would have done it if the Russians hadn't signed.
He had good history of attacking places without Russian approval, so most likely he would have attacked Poland either way. The pact with USSR was tactically advantageous, but unlikely deciding.
I used past tense relative to our times, sorry. Does it really matter though that France turn wasn't before Poland?
Anyway, in 1938 Germany and Poland partitioned Czechoslovakia in the same way Poland would be handled year later. At this event Polish minister Beck said that Czechoslovakia is not a real country anyway, giving tacit approval to total German occupation. No one however would claim German incursion could be avoided if not Polish participation.
It was nearly identical situation in 1939, only the scale was bigger and some shots finally fired.
I don't think we're going to agree on that one. Poland was desperately trying to avoid being crushed by either Germany or Russia at that point and tried to save its own hide at the expense of Czechoslovakia. It's not as though Poland would have invaded Czechoslovakia itself, the way Germany and Russia made their pact.
Not quite idential.
Incidentally, I was in Prague 2 days ago, what a beautiful city it is.
Right, we then have to agree to disagree. The domestic excuse for Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in USSR was also, to recite my schoolbook, "an attempt to postpone inevitable war with Nazi Germany", politicians don't really have much imagination anywhere. Poland's role in Czechoslovakia was marginal, however military contribution of USSR in Polish campaign was also insignificant. To me it's almost as if Hitler used cookie-cutter strategy both times, and both adversaries fell for it.
Never been to Czech yet, but I've spent three fine days in Krakow last month. Beautiful town, fortunately left mostly intact in the war.
Krakow has the most beautiful town center set in the dirtiest town I've ever been too, though in recent years they've cleaned it up quite a bit from when it was at it's worst (late 1980's).
Although someone who's geopolitically dogmatic might say it's the same thing, it was the Russian Empire rather than the then non-existent USSR that was the US's ally in WWI.
I think that historical importance of Soviet roll in that was was purposely minimized to morally excuse nuclear bombing of civilian targets and to lessen the sentiments towards the people of soviet union who played the key roll in fighting Germany. This is very important to keep the general population afraid of commies.
Even today people reject well researched stuff like this out of hand within minutes of being confronted with it.
WWII was a complicated affair, no part of it (beginning, middle, ending) will benefit from a simplistic view.
For each of the parties there is a different viewpoint, and some of those viewpoints have been repeated so often and so loud that for many people to consider that there might have been an alternative is hard if not impossible to accept.
I always found the bleating moral outrage over the nuclear attack more than a little grating and ignorant. As horrific as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, the fates of Tokyo and other cities were little better.
The B-29s dropped white phosphorous, napalm, avgas, etc in specific patterns intended to create a firestorm -- a phenomenon pioneered by the British in places like Hamburg and Dresden. The flames were so intense that subsequent waves of bombers were lifted in flight, and the glow could be seen for hundreds of miles. Over 100k are estimated to have died. A million+ were homeless.
This isn't something that was covered up/deempathized, nor was the atomic bombing. Obliteration of the enemy from the air was heralded during and after the war.
It was far more effective against Japan, especially because they used wood and paper as building materials. The crews of the bombers at the tail end of those bombing runs could even smell the stench of burning human flesh.
Far from covering it up, this kind of thing was a massive boost to the career of Curtis LeMay, the man later charged with commanding the Air Force's nuclear arsenal as commander of SAC.
If the US Navy had carried through on mining Japan's home waters, it would have been irrelevant who occupied Manchuria or Korea. Nothing would have reached Japan. If carried out, naval blockade would have slaughtered gobs and gobs of folks through 45-46. As I recall, there was only one un-incinerated city left (Kyoto) after the two atomic strikes, so "bouncing the rubble" would have been inefficient.
Slaughtering concentrations of defenders, however, would have been gruesome and it WAS being planned for.
Even aside from that very little was reaching Japan, the allies were sinking incredible tonnage of shipping. Japan would have been starving by the end of 1945. By the end of the war the allies were sinking an average of 100+ merchant vessels a month, that rate takes a heavy toll on the ability to transport even the basics needed to keep the population of the home islands alive, let alone to run the machinery of war.
This isn't new - it's part of the premise of 'The Rising Sun', a book about WW2 from the Japanese perspective. It was written in 1970 by John Toland.
Awesome book, if you're into history.
The Soviet general beating the Japanese army in Khalkin Gol in 1939 was Zhukov, who later went on to beat the German advance in the Eastern front, and led the counter offenses to turn the tide. Zhukov was probably one of the greatest generals in Soviet.
- carried out his orders blindly and without thinking ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Rzhev where he blindly sent several hundred thousand troops into fortified German position - if you send your forces up the same road for two months straight without gaining any advances, wouldn't you at least try to find an alternate route that the enemy doesn't expect you to use? ) ,
- was very hungry for fame and glory (I can't find references now, but it was his initial reports to higher command during the first few days after 1941-06-22 that led Stalin to believe the German invasion was already mostly contained and delayed Russian defense deployments. In addition, Stalin demoted Zhukov later, citing "attributes others' achievements to himself" as a significant reason.), and
- was generally vain, sadistic and incompetent. Several high ranking officials and civilians reported his attitude towards his subordinates as nothing less than disgusting.
- He was also in charge of Totsk nuclear testing ( http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.... ), where he had over 40k soldiers split into two teams and engage each other moments after a nuke had been detonated above the battlefield.
Of course with one million Soviet soldiers in Stalingrad, there bounded to be many heros, but Zhukov was the top commander in charge of the defense. Even if he's not on the street fighting, he can claim some credit.
What does being "hungry for fame and glory", "vain, sadistic and incompetent. Several high ranking officials and civilians reported his attitude towards his subordinates as nothing less than disgusting." or "in charge of Totsk nuclear testing" has anything to do with being a great guy because he beated the Nazis.
God knows what would happened if they had managed to occupy Russia!
He had nothing to do with the Stalingrad breakthrough, and he wasted two whole tank armies in Berlin because he was too daft to see that narrow, barricaded and rubble-filled streets are not the best place for tanks. Such a great guy.
Excusing the Russians' war atrocities simply because they beat the Germans is quite like picking the frying pan instead of the fire - they are both very bad, just one is somewhat worse than the other. (Then again, I'm from the Baltic states, where we were actually stuck with the Russians until 1990, so I am probably biased.)
Did the Nazis have long distance bombers that could actually destroy the industrial complexes in Ural or further to the East? I am not aware of any.
>Despite the death toll from the atomic bombings — 140,000 in Hiroshima, 80,000 in Nagasaki the Imperial Military Command believed it could hold out against an Allied invasion if it retained control of Manchuria and Korea, which provided Japan with the resources for war, according to Hasegawa and Terry Charman, a historian of World War II at London's Imperial War Museum.
My understanding is it was not the US's intent to invade mainland Japan. After taking strings of Pacific Islands from the Japanese, ending with the Iwo Jima bloodbath, I thought it was decided to drop nukes on Japan till they surrendered, instead of invading them (one, to spare American lives, and two to scare the Soviets).
I'm sure that the Soviet army pushing the Japanese out of resource-rich Manchuria would have played a key role in Japan's eventual surrender had the atomic bomb never been invented, but saying that "The Soviet entry into the war played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender" is a bit of a stretch.
The Soviets may have cut off Manchuria, but Japan still had resources from Korea. And the Soviet Army was separated from the Japanese mainland by sea as well, where they would have been particularly vulnerable had they tried to cross and invade. Compared to the US razing entire mainland Japanese cities with a single bomb, at will... Sorry, don't buy it.
Soviet Union is always given far less credit than it deserves. Just imagine what would have happened if instead of resisting the Nazi invasion they gave up! I shudder everytime I think about this!
Keep in mind, the availability of nuclear weapons was unknown until they came into use. Also, it was unknown how effective they would prove in practice. The plan of record was to invade the Japanese home islands, using carpet bombing and chemical weapons to gain as much advantage as possible.
Also, the production of atomic bombs was constrained to around 3 or so bombs per month by late 1945. Which is significant but would have been only comparable (rather than greatly superior) to the destructive power of the conventional strategic bombing campaign. Even without atomic bombs Japan would have been utterly devastated by the end of 1945 had the war continued (every city destroyed, most of its shipping destroyed, most civilians starving and/or homeless).
The US did intend to invade the mainland with Operation Downfall. In fact, they ordered so many Purple Hearts in preparation for the attack, that in 2003, there were still 120,000 left from the order. All military casualties since WWII have been awarded these surplus Purple Hearts.
There was also talk at the top that has since been declassified about the usage of nuclear weapons tactically. As I recall the plan was to stockpile bombs if the Hiroshima/Nagasaki plan didn't work so that they could be dropped tactically to make way for the ground invasion. Keep in mind that if the casualty rate was only 5% of what it had been taking Okinawa, almost 300,000 US troops would have been killed.
In short, there is no doubt that the United States was going to invade mainland Japan. The Japanese were planning to repel the invasion. If the Japanese didn't surrender, millions of Japanese would have been killed in the invasion.
I know there were extensive plans for an invasion of the Japanese mainland, real plans not just hypothetical ones, because at the time no one was sure what the effects and consequences of the atomic bomb would be, even after its tests in the US southwest and South Pacific.
My apartment mate is Army officer whose job is to plan for literally every eventuality - it's what the military does, or tries to. In the case of WWII, not planning a detailed invasion of Japan would have been unfathomable, even if they fully knew the military and political effects and consequences of the atomic bombs.
Which they didn't. I'm pretty sure a few did - the inventors of the thing for one - but it was still too unprecedented and game-changing at the time to be able to annihilate an entire modern city with a single bomb, and no general was going to risk the war and his career throwing all his eggs into the nuke basket when it was only marginally more difficult to have his staff draw up plans for a full scale invasion as well. Why do one when you can do both? Hence all the standard invasion plans and expectations.
But I'm also pretty sure that Hiroshima and Nagasaki quickly invalidated those plans, because they were based on a prior understanding of the world and of wars that had also become invalidated by the atomic bomb. Had Japan not surrendered after the first two, I'd bet anything that the US would have simply continued to drop nukes on the island until they finally cried Uncle, instead of actually invading, after realizing how easy it was to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Japanese with next to zero risk for US forces.
My point is, the nukes changed the entire calculus of warfare, and did so at the last minute in late 1944 and 1945, and though extensive, documented, official plans had been drawn up to invade Japan, they were invalided by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There's no way the US would have invaded Japan once they saw how easy it was to simply annihilate the place with a single plane and bomb.
Try this thought experiment: In the history that actually happened, two things occured - the Soviets defeated the Japanese Manchurian Army and at roughly the same time the US nuked Japanese mainland, and shortly afterward Japan unconditionally surrendered. Now imagine two alternate histories:
1) The US fails to invent the atomic bomb, and moves to stage a full scale invasion of the Japanese mainland, while the Soviets still defeat the Japanese Manchurian Army as actually happened.
...and...
2) The US invents the atomic bomb and drops it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as actually happened, but Soviet military failed to organize on their Eastern border, never attacked much less defeated the Japanese military there, and never threatened their hold on Manchuria.
Which of those two do you think would more likely have led to Japan surrendering as it did in our actual history?
"arguing that fear of Soviet invasion persuaded the Japanese to opt for surrender to the Americans, who they believed would treat them more generously than the Soviets."
Well you can't argue with this statement. The soviets would have treated them far worse. However, according to the Japanese - it was the bomb that drove them to surrender. Additionally, though the Soviets were right next door, the U.S. had Japan essentially blockaded and completely surrounded. We would never had allowed the Soviets to close in and conquer Japan; nor did the Soviets have the ability to mount an invasion of mainland Japan. This blockade of Japan, and the fact that their forces in Asia were essentially cut-off, led to the weakening and thus capitulation of those Japanese forces when it came time for the Soviets to attack. The Soviets essentially attacked a weaken and already beaten Japanese army in Asia - a small feat, not a great decisive one.
I don't buy it. I'm sure it played a role in Japan's eventual surrender, but I don't think it was as pivotal as it's being made out to be. The Japanese knew full well the limitations of the Soviet's naval and air capabilities, and they knew that the Soviet's had zero chance of mounting an invasion of their home islands was extremely limited. Whereas they knew first hand the threat the US/UK forces posed through the experience of loss of many territories (including Japanese home territory), air raids, and naval blockades. Faced with the option of losing all their territorial advances in China and Korea and then having to cope with ineffectual air and naval attacks from the Soviets, I think Japan would have been ok with playing that game out as long as possible.
In contrast, the Japanese knew they were almost certainly doomed if the US/UK had the conviction to press home their invasion of the home islands. They thought they could play for time by upping the ante through conscripting the entire population and fighting to the death in the ultimate scorched Earth policy. They thought they could raise the stakes enough to make a negotiated surrender an option, or stretch out the war long enough for some magical degree of luck to fall their way (e.g. Truman, a freshly minted president, making different choices than FDR, or a kamikaze run becoming super lucky and taking out an admiral or two and several key aircraft carriers, that sort of thing). The use of the atomic bombs made it clear that the US was not only willing to slaughter the Japanese as much as was necessary to get an unconditional surrender, but they could do so far more easily and rapidly than they had been doing prior (which was such that it would have brought about the annihilation by bombing of all major cities in Japan and the starvation of the entire population of Japan within the next year or two by mid 1945). Given that, they knew the game was up and let go of their last bit of denial that they could get lucky and eke out anything other than wholesale surrender.
The Soviets may have killed several tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers in Manchuria, but I doubt this weighed more heavily on the Japanese than the routine losses of soldiers and civilians they were taking from the US/UK forces (which amounted to tens of thousands per day, on average) on their doorstep and on their home islands.
I think the article makes a different case, not the Soviet military was what they feared, but this:
""The Soviet entry into the war played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender because it dashed any hope that Japan could terminate the war through Moscow's mediation," said Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, whose recently published "Racing the Enemy" examines the conclusion of the Pacific war and is based on recently declassified Soviet archives as well as U.S. and Japanese documents..
"The emperor and the peace party (within the government) hastened to end the war expecting that the Americans would deal with Japan more generously than the Soviets," Hasegawa, a Russian-speaking American scholar, said in an interview.""
So even if the actual effect of the Russian attacks may have been small the fact that a country that seemed neutral to Japan suddenly joined the allies and attacked made a material difference in Japan's perception of the situation, in turn leading to a quicker end of the war than would have been the case otherwise.
1. The Japanese were hoping to reach a more favorable peace by USSR mediation.
2. Manchuria and Korea were providing essential resources for Japan's war economy.
3. Furthermore, after the USSR war declaration, Japan stood at risk of losing the island of Hokkaido for good, if they prolonged resistance.
You're not really addressing any of these points, except (tangentially) the last. Regarding that, the Soviet Pacific Fleet was certainly strong enough (and had plans) to mount an amphibious invasion of Japanese-held islands:
As I said, the Soviet invasion had an effect on Japanese decision making. By mid 1945 Japan was already in dire straits, the Soviet invasion and the use of nuclear weapons were just 2 more additional "really, really bad things" added to their list of woes.
What I want to know is whether it was the determining factor of their choice to surrender when they did. Would they have surrendered as quickly or at all without a Soviet invasion? Would they have surrendered as quickly or at all without the use of nuclear weapons? My reading of history is that even without the Soviet invasion they would have surrendered quickly (at most within a few weeks of when they actually did). Without the use of nuclear weapons they probably wouldn't have surrendered as quickly, though ultimately I think they would have surrendered before a land invasion of the home islands but after much greater destruction of Japan's cities and much greater loss of life of Japan's citizens.
As to the point of the Soviet amphibious invasion capability: conquering a sparsely inhabited island with few fixed fortifications hardly is not in the same league as the battle of Okinawa and D-Day. The Soviets might have been capable of taking Hokkaido, but the US and UK were capable of taking Honshu, and they had the recent experience to prove it beyond a doubt. I'm sure the latter fact weighed much more heavily on the Japanese mind at the time.
The Soviets might have had fewer landing craft than the Allies, but they could also afford much higher casualty rates. Witness the Battle of Berlin, in which they took 40 times as many casualties as the US in the (roughly simultaneous) Battle of Okinawa.
> The Japanese knew full well the limitations of the Soviet's naval and air capabilities, and they knew that the Soviet's had zero chance of mounting an invasion of their home islands was extremely limited.
It's not obvious to me that this was the case. In August 1945 most of the Japanese fleet was at the bottom of the sea, and they didn't have enough fuel for the rest. Ditto the air force -- there wasn't enough fuel, and pilots were poorly trained 9not enough fuel to train them).
The USSR in 1945 had thousands of effective fighter and bomber aircraft that could have won air superiority over the waterways needed to invade Japan. The distances an invasion would have to travel aren't enormous: 50 miles from Tsushima or 20 miles from Sakhalin. The Japanese would have found it difficult to send reinforcements against the Russian beachheads, because, again, they had little fuel, and Russian aircraft could have bombed the railways, putting them out of action.
Once the Russians had got a sizable body of men ashore, it would have been difficult or impossible for the Japanese to dislodge them: the Russian army was much better equipped and led than the Japanese army, and had just beaten the best army in the world. Japanese courage and self-sacrifice wouldn't have been able to make up that, any more than it was against the USMC.
The biggest difficulty I see for the Russians is whether they would have been able to cobble together enough ships to transport the necessary men and equipment.
Having said all that, Japan was deeply deeply fucked before Russia entered the war anyway.
In "People's History of the US", Howard Zinn adds another angle to this story. He suggests that the Americans, knowing an overwhelming Soviet invasion was imminent, used nuclear weapons to force the Japanese surrender to immediately. Then the US would be the only power negotiating the terms of surrender and could guarantee they'd be favourable to American economic interests.
I love how "historians" now troll the media with revisionist re-writings of history with glaring and obvious gaps. The US submarine fleet had so decimated the Japanese merchant marine by 1945 that they essentially ran out of targets. That wasn't news, and the ability for Japan's colonies to supply the home islands had been in decline for over a year.
I'm sure that even a group as disconnected from reality as the Imperial Military Command had figured this out, and gutted the army in Manchuria long before the Soviet land-grab. The Japanese faced veteran Soviet armored armies with no tanks and a few dozen effective aircraft.
IMO the pressure placed on Imperial Japan by the firebombing and nuking of Japan's cities, the impending total destruction of the overseas possessions and destruction of the Navy was enough to flip some key individuals in the General Staff or the Emperor to stop the insanity. The Japanese surrender IMO is all about internal politics and is something we are unlikely to ever understand fully.
In a sense, this was a vital part of the strategy of the Western allies. The US and UK were little different from Japan or Germany or Russia in their pursuit of total war (okay, Russia was arguably more brutal even there), but in its treatment of defeated enemies, either as prisoners of war or as occupied territory, the Western allies were consistently magnanimous and benevolent compared to the Soviets or the Axis. That's a great way to get high-value individuals (the German rocket scientists like Von Braun) or even entire countries to prefer to surrender to you.
Of course, as the article illustrates, it helps when you have brutal allies like the Soviets prone to rape and plunder everything they conquer for magnanimous treatment of one's enemies to really encourage surrender. As the Mongols discovered, it also helps to be absolutely ruthless with enemies who resist while benevolent towards enemies who surrender quickly.