Both good threads, but with due respect to @wellerstein - whose work I admire - @baseballcrank is correct. Alex’s view seems rooted in old-school Cold War revisionism.https://twitter.com/EsotericCD/status/1027732601098981377 …
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Looked up my old (Jan. 2000) review of that book. I had forgotten: "To Frank's lasting credit, he is virtually the only popular author to point out that 100,000 Chinese a month were dying in 1945. That estimate is backed up by Frank and appears conservative."
As I've written already, I think the "bomb vs. invasion" way of thinking about this is not quite right, and necessarily prejudices the outcome. (If "2 bombs on 2 cities in 3 days" versus "worst invasion imaginable" are the outcomes, then yes, obviously the former is preferable.)
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If you haven't looked at Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy, it is worth the read, even if you don't totally agree with the conclusion. It has been enormously influential on historians since 2005.
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It doesn't dispute that Hiroshima had an impact, but it argues that the impact of the Soviet invasion has been understated. It is compelling on this front. Separately, Walker's review of A-bomb historiography is worth the read, and very fair.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-7709.2005.00476.x …
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Your conflating two issues. One is what objectively would make the Japanese surrender. As you note, no one can predict this. The other is whether there was any real alternative to dropping the bomb. There wasn’t, not in this historical context.
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Sure there were. They could have: 1. relented on the unconditional surrender 2. withheld the bomb while the pursued diplomacy given the invasion wasn't to take place for months 3. dropped one bomb and given the Japanese more time to respond etc....
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These are all terrific options if you consider them completely out of the historical context.
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No, they all fit well within the historical context as many eminent historians have argued- as some in the Truman administration argued.
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Many? Fewer. And at least one of them is distinctly dishonest in his approach. I know this because when the Truman papers were opened up in the 90s, and some of his main points were disproven, his exact words to me were: “I don’t care. It was wrong.”
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This is why I brought up historical revisionism. The question of Truman and the bomb is still intimately bound up with the feelings modern historians have about nuclear weapons and the origins of the Cold War.
End of conversation
New conversation -
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I am obviously out of my league here, so my first concern is that I may have mischaracterized Mr. Frank's argument by being too simplistic. He did consider other options, including long-term blockade. Japan was already cut off and suffering privations. 1/
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2/2 "Downfall," in some detail, concludes that such a blockade was not a good option. Your point remains valid, that "worst invasion" vs. "bombing two cities" is too simplistic, even if you add the third option of "starving a population of 71M." On to other points.
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This also assumes that the American public had the patience for a long, grinding blockade that still was going to cost US lives at sea, Even after we had beaten Germany to dust. This is simply not a real discussion.
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"The argument over the morality of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs will never end. Compassion balks at admitting a need for them. Logic cannot find an alternative." -- me, Jan. 30, 2000.
End of conversation
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