The issue on real faults is they span massive areas. The San Andreas fault system spans basically the entire coast of California.
Even if we could identify the right points there's a big liability shift both legal and political between doing nothing and intentionally setting off an earthquake that would be hard to predict the size of. It's part of why ~~proscribed~~ prescribed burns fell out of favor, it's way easier to do nothing and blame nature than defending damage caused by intentional acts. It gets into messy areas where it's hard to convince people that the damage was lesser than it otherwise would have been in the future.
The main reason is there are alternative paths where neither were required. Japan was already fishing around for diplomatic end to the war with the major sticking point being conditional vs unconditional surrender and their main condition iirc was protection for the Emperor which the US ended up not messing with significantly anyways (at least in terms of execution for various war crimes committed by Imperial Japanese forces). That's usually the main argument I see and honestly I see the points there, Japan really was putting out fairly significant feelers about a possible negotiated end to the war before the Soviet Union was able to pivot to the Far East theater.
We'll never /really/ know what the outcome of a negotiated peace would have looked like since it was obviated so soon after it started by the bombing and Japan's unconditional surrender afterwards. We don't really know how much that path would differ from the outcome of the unconditional surrender turned out to be. The main point is it's not an either or situation between bomb and the bloody full on land invasion scenarios as presented by the bomb apologist [0] camp.
[0] I mean this in the neutral dictionary sense of simply "one that defends a controversial position", just to clarify.
3-days is a pretty short time for such a major shift in politics for starters. Would a 3rd or 4th have been justified in the 6 day gap before their August 15th surrender announcement if the US had had them available?
Also the justification for the second bomb, that it was required to demonstrate it wasn't a one off doesn't require the that bomb be dropped on a second city either. The main thrust isn't that the bombs weren't effective it's that the extreme nature of the act requires extreme justification bordering on it being the only option but for a bloody home island invasion. See my other long posts about the anti-moral-bomb argument in this thread, I don't want to duplicate them here to avoid spamming the thread.
If the premise is that nuclear bombing was excessive compared to the firebombing and if the United States had waited a few more days between nuclear bombings they would have still continued with firebombing which was just as destructive as nuclear bombing and more people would have died.
The US wanted to end the war as quickly as possible and prevent the Soviets from invading and holding even a small piece of Japan for an indefinite period of time.
In doing so they probably prevented more deaths of Japanese civilians from continued firebombing and a Soviet occupation that would have been incredibly brutal.
And you can look at how the Soviets treated the people in the states that it occupied for decades after and compare it to how the US treated occupied Japan in the post war period.
The effects of both occupations still linger to this day, it's startling to look at economic differences in West Germany vs East Germany. It's doubtful that the USSR would have been able to prevent massive famines in Japan in a post war scenario where they occupied Japan or a portion of it.
A scenario where the US lacked nuclear weapons would have resulted in tremendous firebombing campaigns by both the Americans and the Soviets, as well as famine induced by a naval blockade and the war would have dragged on for much longer, drawing resources away from rebuilding both Europe and Asia, and the result would have been more civilian casualties from war and later famine that would have followed.
I don't think the blame for these civilian deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki falls on the shoulders of the Americans just like the deaths of civilians in the battle of Berlin were the responsibility of the European allies -- The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the madmen who lead their countries to their doom for ultra nationalist reasons and a deranged sense of pride.
And that sense of pride thing there probably played into why the nuclear bombings were necessary -- The ultra-nationalist Japanese leadership needed to save face and it was easy to do so by surrendering to an enemy who had an unfathomably powerful new weapon.
Communications between Hiroshima and Tokyo had totally broken down. When input was received on what actually happened, it would have been so fantastic that it would have been hard to process. And this was at a time where the Bolsheviks-hard to understate the Imperial Japanese government's loathing and horror of Communism despite the pragmatic and often deeply mutually cynical relationship they had during the war-were about to go to war with them.
ortusdux · · focus · HN ↗
rtkwe · · focus · HN ↗
Even if we could identify the right points there's a big liability shift both legal and political between doing nothing and intentionally setting off an earthquake that would be hard to predict the size of. It's part of why ~~proscribed~~ prescribed burns fell out of favor, it's way easier to do nothing and blame nature than defending damage caused by intentional acts. It gets into messy areas where it's hard to convince people that the damage was lesser than it otherwise would have been in the future.
WarmWash · · focus · HN ↗
Morbidly adjacent, the US is still getting dragged over the coals for using nukes on Japan rather than a ground invasion.
rtkwe · · focus · HN ↗
We'll never /really/ know what the outcome of a negotiated peace would have looked like since it was obviated so soon after it started by the bombing and Japan's unconditional surrender afterwards. We don't really know how much that path would differ from the outcome of the unconditional surrender turned out to be. The main point is it's not an either or situation between bomb and the bloody full on land invasion scenarios as presented by the bomb apologist [0] camp.
[0] I mean this in the neutral dictionary sense of simply "one that defends a controversial position", just to clarify.
Teever · · focus · HN ↗
rtkwe · · focus · HN ↗
Also the justification for the second bomb, that it was required to demonstrate it wasn't a one off doesn't require the that bomb be dropped on a second city either. The main thrust isn't that the bombs weren't effective it's that the extreme nature of the act requires extreme justification bordering on it being the only option but for a bloody home island invasion. See my other long posts about the anti-moral-bomb argument in this thread, I don't want to duplicate them here to avoid spamming the thread.
Teever · · focus · HN ↗
The US wanted to end the war as quickly as possible and prevent the Soviets from invading and holding even a small piece of Japan for an indefinite period of time.
In doing so they probably prevented more deaths of Japanese civilians from continued firebombing and a Soviet occupation that would have been incredibly brutal.
And you can look at how the Soviets treated the people in the states that it occupied for decades after and compare it to how the US treated occupied Japan in the post war period.
The effects of both occupations still linger to this day, it's startling to look at economic differences in West Germany vs East Germany. It's doubtful that the USSR would have been able to prevent massive famines in Japan in a post war scenario where they occupied Japan or a portion of it.
A scenario where the US lacked nuclear weapons would have resulted in tremendous firebombing campaigns by both the Americans and the Soviets, as well as famine induced by a naval blockade and the war would have dragged on for much longer, drawing resources away from rebuilding both Europe and Asia, and the result would have been more civilian casualties from war and later famine that would have followed.
I don't think the blame for these civilian deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki falls on the shoulders of the Americans just like the deaths of civilians in the battle of Berlin were the responsibility of the European allies -- The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the madmen who lead their countries to their doom for ultra nationalist reasons and a deranged sense of pride.
And that sense of pride thing there probably played into why the nuclear bombings were necessary -- The ultra-nationalist Japanese leadership needed to save face and it was easy to do so by surrendering to an enemy who had an unfathomably powerful new weapon.
FireHorseAutumn · · focus · HN ↗