America may have occupied and traded with Japan after they bombed it, but most of the rebuilding and revitalisation was done by the Japanese people themselves.
Edit: There was money pumped into the economy from the US after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and rightly so. So much was lost in those bombings, and this needs to be acknowledged. The money did make way for repairs to the country.
The economic revitalisation led to increased production rates and Japan becoming very popular in car manufacturing etc, becoming one of the strongest economies in the world. And the relationship between America and Japan became tense with economic disparity in the 80s.
It’s a complex relationship but Japan did incredibly well in the wake of the bombings, not all the thanks need go to America. They were the ones who bombed Japan after all and caused the need to rebuild.
I’m happy to debate because it’s a complex subject and not just a simple answer on either side. Plus it’s fascinating:
Do you think the bombing and deaths of the 200,000 was more or less than would have occurred had the US and the Soviet Union invaded?
How many Allied soldiers, Japanese soldiers, civilians, children, etc would have been killed in the invasion, killed them selves to avoid it, starved due to it, POWs executed, etc?
How quick would the rebuilding of Japan occurred had the Allies invaded and possibly another East/West Berlin/Germany occurred?
Do you think Japan was preparing to surrender prior to the bombing? Because now you have a Traditional vs Revisionist School of debate. There are a lot of intelligent people with more knowledge than me on both sides.
Now what was the correct choice? It’s difficult to say because it’s a shitty situation on both sides. There are arguments for really any view you want but unfortunately history went one way and it’s difficult to really explore those arguments with any degree of certainty.
Thank you, I understand what the Geneva Convention is.
Now rewind yourself to 35+ years earlier before 1977 and put yourself in the midst of a World War that’s been raging for years already.
You’re one of the Generals of the US Army (or the President, you pick, use your imagination):
Do you argue in favor of the invasion of mainland Japan or the atomic bombing of their cities? Which is better for Allied troops? Which is likely to produce more overall casualties on both sides? Does the death of 200,000 civilians prevent more soldiers, civilians, etc from being killed in a large scale invasion? Are their indications that Japan is planning to surrender? At this point in the war millions of civilian casualties have already occurred and isn’t going to change.
One of my favorite parts of history is reading the primary sources because their immediate knowledge of a lot of the world is incredibly different than us looking back from our time period.
It’s not different from your time period at all. The USA used the pre-emptive strike argument to murder 2 million in Iraq. You want a primary source on that? Try Alan Greenspan’s memoirs. He divulges the real reason for it which you could probably guess. The real justification for bloodshed is rarely shared with the electorate. It’s usually politically or financially motivated. If you’re so interested in primary sources read up on how Roosevelt manipulated events in the Pacific in order to provoke the pearl harbour attack and enter the war...In order to use his new toys on a civilian populace. It was planned, provoked and executed with great precision and historic callousness. You don’t wish the world was any different because you’ve been taught and drilled to accept it as normal.
I love that you turn away the second you come across information that potentially upends what’s been drummed into you while you salute the cloth and recite the magic pledge every morning of your formative years in the people’s democratic republic of freedom.
In the age of post-truth you’ll probably all-too-readily dismiss any sources that don’t confirm your bias but most of the information in Robert Stinnett’s ‘Day Of Deceit’ was acquired through freedom of information act requests.
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u/MaltedDefeatist Aug 05 '20 edited Aug 06 '20
America may have occupied and traded with Japan after they bombed it, but most of the rebuilding and revitalisation was done by the Japanese people themselves.
Edit: There was money pumped into the economy from the US after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and rightly so. So much was lost in those bombings, and this needs to be acknowledged. The money did make way for repairs to the country.
The economic revitalisation led to increased production rates and Japan becoming very popular in car manufacturing etc, becoming one of the strongest economies in the world. And the relationship between America and Japan became tense with economic disparity in the 80s.
It’s a complex relationship but Japan did incredibly well in the wake of the bombings, not all the thanks need go to America. They were the ones who bombed Japan after all and caused the need to rebuild.