[ckaihatsu]

Berlin fell before the bombs were dropped though.

Incorrect -- the bombs were in 1945, and the Berlin Blockade was 1948-1949:

The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bo ... d_Nagasaki

The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Blockade

[wat0n]

Incorrect -- the bombs were in 1945, and the Berlin Blockade was 1948-1949:

No, I said the fall of Berlin - when the Soviets finally defeated the Nazis. If foiling the impending Soviet invasion of Japan counts, then foiling a Western invasion of Berlin counts too.

[ckaihatsu]

No, I said the fall of Berlin - when the Soviets finally defeated the Nazis. If foiling the impending Soviet invasion of Japan counts, then foiling a Western invasion of Berlin counts too.

Oh, I get it now -- you're *copying-and-pasting* the same dynamic here, as if all wars are just mix-and-match.

So you think *Russia* had to wrap-it-up before the U.S. got its grubby little paws all over postwar Germany.

Yeah, it doesn't work that way. The end of WWII was *different*, and postwar Germany got divided-up anyway, in the Cold War.

[wat0n]

Yeah they are not the same because it messes up with your narrative.

[ckaihatsu]

Yeah they are not the same because it messes up with your narrative.

Are you imputing *postmodernism* onto me -- ?

That's a new one for me, I'll give you that, but just a moment ago we were talking *actual history*, and now suddenly, a moment later, you've had to turn the trajectory into one of *interpersonal drama*.

Sorry, but that doesn't fly. I've been treating history factually. You've been trying to make it sound like the Soviets were the *aggressors* in the emerging Cold War but the available evidence actually shows the aggression and violence coming from the *U.S.*, postwar, into the Cold War era, most significantly in its atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing between 129,000 and 226,000 people, mostly civilians.

[wat0n]

Are you imputing *postmodernism* onto me -- ?

That's a new one for me, I'll give you that, but just a moment ago we were talking *actual history*, and now suddenly, a moment later, you've had to turn the trajectory into one of *interpersonal drama*.

Sorry, but that doesn't fly. I've been treating history factually. You've been trying to make it sound like the Soviets were the *aggressors* in the emerging Cold War but the available evidence actually shows the aggression and violence coming from the *U.S.*, postwar, into the Cold War era, most significantly in its atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing between 129,000 and 226,000 people, mostly civilians.

The Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings were part of WWII, not part of the post war. They were not aggression, and most certainly not against the USSR.

Under your stupid reasoning, the Soviets were the first aggressors by invading Berlin before the Western allies did. And yes, they did rush the invasion to have a stronger position in Europe for the post war.

If you don't want to consider that, then the Soviets were first by toppling Czechoslovakia's democratically elected government using their local proxy and blockading Berlin. You are wrong either way.

[ckaihatsu]

The Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings were part of WWII, not part of the post war. They were not aggression, and most certainly not against the USSR.

Under your stupid reasoning, the Soviets were the first aggressors by invading Berlin before the Western allies did. And yes, they did rush the invasion to have a stronger position in Europe for the post war.

If you don't want to consider that, then the Soviets were first by toppling Czechoslovakia's democratically elected government using their local proxy and blockading Berlin. You are wrong either way.

And this is all based on your say-so -- ? (grin)

I like *my* interpretation better, that the atomic bombings were *gratuitous* in the context of World War II since the U.S. already *knew* that Japan was going to surrender. The U.S. wanted to wrap-things-up and forestall its new rival, the USSR, from any quick claims to Japan in the emerging postwar / Cold War era.

For the Czechs of the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia, German occupation was a period of brutal oppression. Czech losses resulting from political persecution and deaths in concentration camps totaled between 36,000 and 55,000. The Jewish populations of Bohemia and Moravia (118,000 according to the 1930 census) were virtually annihilated. Many Jews emigrated after 1939; more than 70,000 were killed; 8,000 survived at Terezín. Several thousand Jews managed to live in freedom or in hiding throughout the occupation.

Despite the estimated 136,000 deaths at the hands of the Nazi regime, the population in the Reichsprotektorate saw a net increase during the war years of approximately 250,000 in line with an increased birth rate.[26]

On 6 May 1945, the third US Army of General Patton entered Pilsen from the south west. On 9 May 1945, Soviet Red Army troops entered Prague.

Communist Czechoslovakia

Main articles: History of Czechoslovakia (1948–1989) and Czechoslovak Socialist Republic

After World War II, pre-war Czechoslovakia was re-established, with the exception of Subcarpathian Ruthenia, which was annexed by the Soviet Union and incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Beneš decrees were promulgated concerning ethnic Germans (see Potsdam Agreement) and ethnic Hungarians. Under the decrees, citizenship was abrogated for people of German and Hungarian ethnic origin who had accepted German or Hungarian citizenship during the occupations. In 1948, this provision was cancelled for the Hungarians, but only partially for the Germans. The government then confiscated the property of the Germans and expelled about 90% of the ethnic German population, over 2 million people. Those who remained were collectively accused of supporting the Nazis after the Munich Agreement, as 97.32% of Sudeten Germans had voted for the NSDAP in the December 1938 elections. Almost every decree explicitly stated that the sanctions did not apply to antifascists. Some 250,000 Germans, many married to Czechs, some antifascists, and also those required for the post-war reconstruction of the country, remained in Czechoslovakia. The Beneš Decrees still cause controversy among nationalist groups in the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Hungary.[27]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslo ... war_period

[wat0n]

And this is all based on your say-so -- ? (grin)

I like *my* interpretation better, that the atomic bombings were *gratuitous* in the context of World War II since the U.S. already *knew* that Japan was going to surrender. The U.S. wanted to wrap-things-up and forestall its new rival, the USSR, from any quick claims to Japan in the emerging postwar / Cold War era.

Japan was not going to just surrender, just like Germany wasn't back in February 1945, by the Yalta Conference. Military action was necessary to force them to do so in both cases.

[ckaihatsu]

Japan was not going to just surrender, just like Germany wasn't back in February 1945, by the Yalta Conference. Military action was necessary to force them to do so in both cases.

Yeah, Japan *was* going to surrender.

My point stands that the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were aimed at forestalling the Soviets from invading Japan after Japan surrendered.

Japan, by August 1945, was in desperate shape and ready to surrender. New York Times military analyst Hanson Baldwin wrote, shortly after the war:

The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position by the time the Potsdam demand for unconditional surrender was made on July 26.

Such then, was the situation when we wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Need we have done it? No one can, of course, be positive, but the answer is almost certainly negative.


The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, set up by the War Department in 1944 to study the results of aerial attacks in the war, interviewed hundreds of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, and reported just after the war:

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.


But could American leaders have known this in August 1945? The answer is, clearly, yes. The Japanese code had been broken, and Japan's messages were being intercepted. It was known the Japanese had instructed their ambassador in Moscow to work on peace negotiations with the Allies. Japanese leaders had begun talking of surrender a year before this, and the Emperor himself had begun to suggest, in June 1945, that alternatives to fighting to the end be considered.

https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon ... eswar.html

[wat0n]

There being "talk" about surrender among the Japanese is rather vague, though. That was not a reason to stop and in any event quite evidently, at that stage the surrender had to be unconditional.

[ckaihatsu]

There being "talk" about surrender among the Japanese is rather vague, though. That was not a reason to stop and in any event quite evidently, at that stage the surrender had to be unconditional.

Agreed, though now you're *way* off-point -- my previous point stands:

You've been trying to make it sound like the Soviets were the *aggressors* in the emerging Cold War but the available evidence actually shows the aggression and violence coming from the *U.S.*, postwar, into the Cold War era, most significantly in its atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing between 129,000 and 226,000 people, mostly civilians.

viewtopic.php?p=15194344#p15194344

[wat0n]

That hasn't changed at all. The bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not attacks on the USSR or its allies.

[ckaihatsu]

That hasn't changed at all. The bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not attacks on the USSR or its allies.

Yes, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was aimed at the USSR:

[T]he US government dropped its atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the last days of the war, despite previous signs that the Japanese government was ready to surrender. This ensured that the surrender took place before Russian troops, advancing rapidly across Japanese-occupied Manchuria, could give Russia any real say in what happened in post-war Japan. Hiroshima and Nagasaki also brought home in the most horrific manner the US’s capacity to exercise global dominance.

Harman, _People's History of the World_, p. 527

viewtopic.php?p=15194304#p15194304

[wat0n]

Japan is not the USSR, that's a non-sequitur. The Soviets also pushed as far and fast as they could into Europe to avoid Western influence for similar reasons.

[late]

Sorry, but that doesn't fly. I've been treating history factually. You've been trying to make it sound like the Soviets were the *aggressors* in the emerging Cold War but the available evidence actually shows the aggression and violence coming from the *U.S.*, postwar, into the Cold War era, most significantly in its atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing between 129,000 and 226,000 people, mostly civilians.

You're oversimplifying.

You were never in a Soviet dominated country. I visited Hungary, there were Russian soldiers everywhere. A quarter century after the war ended, it was still an occupied country.

As I pointed out earlier, the end of WW2 was a race, a territory grab. A lot of Germans fled towards the American area.

You can call the Marshall Plan imperialism, but helping was a new way to do it if it was. You can pretend what the Soviets did wasn't imperialism, but it fits the definition.

At first, we didn't have a freaking clue what to do with Russia. We wanted to do something like the Marshall Plan, but the Soviets wanted all the territory it could get to use those countries as a buffer zone in case they got invaded again.

My country has done a lot of things I don't like, but I won't whitewash what the Soviets did. Post war, Stalin tried to grab more of Germany, resulting in the Berlin Airlift, and then there was Korea...

And then there was that classy moment in the UN when Kruschev pounded his desk with his shoe and hollered, "We will bury you".

[ckaihatsu]

Japan is not the USSR, that's a non-sequitur.

You're just being willfully *evasive* -- my point is that the Cold War started before World War II even ended, due to ongoing diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the USSR, and that the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- yes, in Japan -- was intended as an action towards the *Soviets*, per the historical material I've included.

The Soviets also pushed as far and fast as they could into Europe to avoid Western influence for similar reasons.

Yes, noted.

You're oversimplifying.

You were never in a Soviet dominated country. I visited Hungary, there were Russian soldiers everywhere. A quarter century after the war ended, it was still an occupied country.

As I pointed out earlier, the end of WW2 was a race, a territory grab. A lot of Germans fled towards the American area.

You can call the Marshall Plan imperialism, but helping was a new way to do it if it was. You can pretend what the Soviets did wasn't imperialism, but it fits the definition.

At first, we didn't have a freaking clue what to do with Russia. We wanted to do something like the Marshall Plan, but the Soviets wanted all the territory it could get to use those countries as a buffer zone in case they got invaded again.

My country has done a lot of things I don't like, but I won't whitewash what the Soviets did. Post war, Stalin tried to grab more of Germany, resulting in the Berlin Airlift, and then there was Korea...

And then there was that classy moment in the UN when Kruschev pounded his desk with his shoe and hollered, "We will bury you".

Yes, point taken -- I don't mean to take-sides at this point on the timeline, but rather to emphasize my *earlier* point that Russia in the 20th century was having to take *defensive* measures on the world stage. (Ditto for China.)

[B0ycey]

America offered the SU to be part of the Marshall Plan @ckaihatsu . Seems strange actiom if they were engaged in the Cold War? Besides, you do realise you are are condoning Eastern European invasion (Imperialism) for two nuclear bombs dropped during the Second World War against an enemy. You may as well blame DDay for starting the Cold War while you are at it.

[late]

Yes, point taken -- I don't mean to take-sides at this point on the timeline, but rather to emphasize my *earlier* point that Russia in the 20th century was having to take *defensive* measures on the world stage.

We were also playing defense a lot. You said point taken, but it doesn't seem to have soaked in yet.

Was Russia playing defense when they shot down KAL 007?

[ckaihatsu]

America offered the SU to be part of the Marshall Plan @ckaihatsu . Seems strange actiom if they were engaged in the Cold War?

It was because of having to negotiate, among the two superpowers, over post-Nazi Germany and European reconstruction in general:

Soviet negotiations

After Marshall's appointment in January 1947, administration officials met with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and others to press for an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods and infrastructure already removed by the Soviets in their occupied zone.[42] Molotov refrained from supplying accounts of Soviet assets.[citation needed] The Soviets took a punitive approach, pressing for a delay rather than an acceleration in economic rehabilitation, demanding unconditional fulfillment of all prior reparation claims, and pressing for progress toward nationwide socioeconomic transformation.[43]

After six weeks of negotiations, Molotov rejected all of the American and British proposals.[43] Molotov also rejected the counter-offer to scrap the British-American "Bizonia" and to include the Soviet zone within the newly constructed Germany.[43] Marshall was particularly discouraged after personally meeting with Stalin to explain that the United States could not possibly abandon its position on Germany, while Stalin expressed little interest in a solution to German economic problems.[43]

Marshall's speech

The Marshall Plan Speech

After the adjournment of the Moscow conference following six weeks of failed discussions with the Soviets regarding a potential German reconstruction, the United States concluded that a solution could not wait any longer. To clarify the American position, a major address by Secretary of State George Marshall was planned. Marshall gave the address at Harvard University on June 5, 1947. He offered American aid to promote European recovery and reconstruction. The speech described the dysfunction of the European economy and presented a rationale for US aid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_ ... gotiations

The *tensions* were already there, regarding European reconstruction, and beyond:

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov left Paris, rejecting the plan.[49] Thereafter, statements were made suggesting a future confrontation with the West, calling the United States both a "fascizing" power and the "center of worldwide reaction and anti-Soviet activity", with all U.S.-aligned countries branded as enemies.[49] The Soviets also then blamed the United States for communist losses in elections in Belgium, France and Italy months earlier, in the spring of 1947.[49] It claimed that "marshallization" must be resisted and prevented by any means, and that French and Italian communist parties were to take maximum efforts to sabotage the implementation of the Plan.[49] In addition, Western embassies in Moscow were isolated, with their personnel being denied contact with Soviet officials.[49]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_ ... _rejection

---

Besides, you do realise you are are condoning Eastern European invasion (Imperialism) for two nuclear bombs dropped during the Second World War against an enemy.

No, I don't think that the *defensive* Soviet inclusion of Eastern European countries in the Warsaw Pact and Comecon was 'imperialism', especially since the action wasn't *militaristic* at all, unlike the conventional meaning of 'colonialist' and 'imperialist'. The Warsaw Pact and Comecon wasn't in response to the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, but rather was in response to the Marshall Plan:

Comecon was set up initially to prevent countries in the Soviet sphere of influence from moving towards that of the United States.[speculation?] It was the Eastern Bloc's response to the formation in Western Europe of the Marshall Plan and the OEEC, which later became the OECD.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comecon

And:

The Warsaw Treaty Organization[3] (WTO), officially the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance,[4] commonly known as the Warsaw Pact (WP),[5] was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CoMEcon), the regional economic organization for the socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO[6][7][8][9] in 1955 per the London and Paris Conferences of 1954.[10][11][12][13][14]

The Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power[15] or counterweight[16] to NATO. There was no direct military confrontation between them; instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and in proxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and their integration into the respective blocs.[16] Its largest military engagement was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 (with the participation of all Pact nations except Albania and Romania),[15] which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than a month later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact

---

You may as well blame DDay for starting the Cold War while you are at it.

No, this is just spurious reasoning and a poor analogy.

[ckaihatsu]

We were also playing defense a lot. You said point taken, but it doesn't seem to have soaked in yet.

Was Russia playing defense when they shot down KAL 007?

You're jumping all over the historical timeline, late -- I'm talking specifically about *these* events, particularly from the first half of the 20th century:

Again, I'll uphold the line that Stalin was being *defensive*, geopolitically, versus the Allies' imperialism (in the Russian Revolution), then against Nazi imperialism (World War II), and then against Western / NATO imperialism (Cold War).

viewtopic.php?p=15194290#p15194290