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Three Russian submarines surface and break Arctic ice during drills

How many women and children would have died in an invasion?

War is horrible. That is why it is something to be avoided.
Maybe put it another way

Yes it was by all accounts the least horrible!

What if:
the war continued ...
More fire bombings
More shelling
More suicide attacks
Additional invasions

yet none of the above including the nuking would match the losses
from the pogroms that proceeded it or the cultural revolutions that followed.

Enough already on the horror “American the only nation to use nuclear weapons”.
Did Japan surrender when the last of their island military outpost fell and Tokyo was being fire bomb. No they didn’t consider the additional loss of their people or ours worth it to end the war. They would have held on for honor or pride or complete inability to launch any military defense no matter how many died.

It’s a weak talking point discredited that only holds sway in the collective guilt of latter generations who didn’t live through it. And the quivers of academics and activist to throw mud when convenient.
 
Do you think if the roles were reversed the axis powers would have not nuked NY or LA? My father was a Marine in the Pacific and I probably would not be here if he had to be in the invasion of Japan.
First, that's not the question.
Second, if the Germans had dropped an atomic bomb on NY, the responsible persons would have been sentenced to death by the Nuremberg Tribunal after the lost war.
It was a war crime.
 
First, that's not the question.
Second, if the Germans had dropped an atomic bomb on NY, the responsible persons would have been sentenced to death by the Nuremberg Tribunal after the lost war.
It was a war crime.
Weighing the Lives lost compared to not using them I see no war crime.

But you are correct if the axis had won there would have been war crimes against US.
War crimes are legitimatized to the victor. as historic as executing or making a slave of a vanquished enemy.
Just a new facade on an old practice.

In war there are the victors and the vanquished. The blood cost of war demands it otherwise war would be much more common than it is.

Was it a war crime to force Japan to renounce their centuries old religious practice of venerating the Emperor.
By today’s standards even that could be argued.
maybe it was a war crime to even choose to fight Japan after Pearl Harbor.
 
I've seen both arguments for and against the use of nuclear weapons on Japan. To my knowledge, nobody on this forum was alive when his happened, so this can be debated until the heat death of the universe and it will change nothing and solve nothing.

The fact is nuclear weapons have been used in combat twice in world history.
The fact is that while America is the only country so fa to do so, the Soviet Union came within seconds of using them against the US on at least two occasions that we know of, probably more.
The fact is that we no longer live in a world where the leaders of nuclear powers are rational and stable.
The fact is that as more countries develop or obtain nuclear weapons, the higher the chances they will be used in combat again.
The fact is that nation-states are no longer the only threat. Multiple terrorist groups would detonate a nuclear weapon on foreign soil in a heartbeat if they got their hands on one.

So while it is important to learn from history and this is a discussion that deserves to be heard, let's not derail this thread from the current global crises. Please move it to the General Forum for debate and discussion. And keep it civil, please.
 
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