Bulaba Jones wrote:This is an idealistic, naive, and simplistic view of the conflict. Yes, those battles were decisive. I'm of the opinion that Hitler was doomed the moment he attacked the USSR when he did: he didn't have the manpower or the resources to overwhelm the Soviets when he did. Those battles resulted in a great deal of loss of life and materiel, but it ignores the infrastructure and industry Germany had which allowed them to continue the fight as long as they did.
The German economy, as with the economies of Europe and much of the world, had switched into wartime mode. The bombing of Germany by Allied bombers helped to shorten the war and thus save countless more lives. By bombing German infrastructure, cities, industry and production, the German war machine was literally crippled more and more as time went on. In a state of total war between all sides, it came down to more than a romantic, silly view of war in which battles are gentlemanly and everyone obeys rules of conduct. The object of the war was to not simply win battles, but to absolutely crush the enemy's capacity to wage war, to demoralize him, and to make him surrender as fast as possible to save the lives of your soldiers, your people, and to prevent further loss to your nation's infrastructure, industry, and wellbeing.
It was lack of resources that slowed down the war effort of both Germany and Japan, particular lack of oil. Bombing cities wasn't necessary.
The Soviet engagement of the bulk of Germany's military (90% of it) was going to succeed whether the Western Allies did much of anything. However, it would have taken longer, there might have been millions more dead, and more of the USSR might have been destroyed without the Allies thoroughly destroying German industry and cities. It ruined their economy over time, forced some units away from the Eastern Front, and shattered the morale of much of the civilian population.
It didn't shatter the moral of the civilian population. It had the opposite effect, as did the Luftwaffe bombing of London. What it did do for the Western allies was give them something to point at when Stalin asked them what they were doing to help.
Had the Allies not bombed the hell out of Germany and Japan, much of their industry, infrastructure, capacity and will to fight would have remained intact. The war would have dragged on longer, the Axis would have been less willing to surrender with their morale and cities intact, and the casualty toll of WWII would have been much higher.
The civilian causalites were in the millions. There would have been far less casualties if deliberate bombing of civilians had been avoided.
In a state of total war against fascism, you either win or you lose. Trying to apply a romantic view of the righteousness of war conduct to things that happened 70 years ago doesn't make sense at all.
Further, responding in kind to Axis bombing of cities helped to avoid a repeat of the "stab in the back" bullshit the world saw in the aftermath of WWI, when most of Germany was untouched but they lost anyways. Had we refrained from bombing their cities and turning their country to ash, their defeat would not have been total and devastating. They would have ended up believing they weren't truly defeated. We saw this before, and there's no doubt this fact was lost on the Allies.
That is a weak attempt at justification on moral grounds. The ruling party was fascist but the civilians who got bombed were not. As to teaching the Germans and a Japanese a lesson, had the treaty of Versailles been less punitive then WWII wouldn't have happened. It was the Marshal plan and MacArthur in Japan who built a lasting peace by being much more reasonable than the people who drew up the treaty of Versailles.
B0ycey wrote:I think nobody on here agrees with the use of Nuclear weapons and would have perfered for Hiroshima and Nagasaki to have never happen. But you have to be wearing some serious rose tinted glasses to believe that whoever developed the first nuclear bomb wouldn't have used it during war time. The UN resolution was a result of it's power and destruction. Unless they were dropped, no such resolution could exist. The only thing we can take from this atrocity is to learn to never to use such weapons again.
You are correct in saying if these atrocities had not happened, the conventions to prevent such things would not have been written. What was done was wrong and we can now only learn about what happened and do what can be done to prevent it in future. It is the only moral attitude one can adopt on the subject of these bombing campaigns.
However, it isn't the case that a weapon will be used if developed in a war. Australia was developing biological weapons of mass destruction in WWII. Those weapons weren't used. After the war the technology was used in an attempt to eliminate rabbits (an introduced pest), which worked reasonably well. I am greatly relieved these weapons were not release on human targets.
As for Japan, they learnt the hard way to not provoke a war. Had they created the atomic bomb, they would have used it on America. So to condemn America is a bit silly. This was WWII we are talking about. Not tickle wars.
Also I agree with pretty much everything @Bulaba Jones has said on this issue.
Again, the punitive excuse. "Learned'em good 'n proper". That is no justification for killing many thousands of people who had no say over nor even support their government and it's policies.
I draw your attention to the fact that I am not condemning America (though @anarchist23 is doing that). There were other nations doing the same thing. It is not a question of condemnation of America, but rather at issue is that dropping nukes on cities is wrong. I suspect much of the defensiveness, and the drive to justify what happened, is an attempt to hide the shame of American and British posters on this thread. It is best to simply agree nuking cities is wrong and should not happen again.