this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago (8 children)

In the mouths of western politicians, the word "diplomacy" is synonymous with unconditional surrender. They would rather burn the world to the ground than accept that they can't get all of their maximalist demands and engage in actual good faith negotiations with their adversaries, trying to work out a compromise.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (7 children)

As seen in Nagasaki and Hiroshima

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (6 children)

IIRC the damage inflicted by the atomic bombings weren't especially noteworthy compared to the rest of the bombing campaign, and it was more a way to test out their new toys. If the nukes hadn't been used but conventional bombing had continued, it would likely have had a similar result. This video by Shaun lays out a pretty compelling case that the Japanese surrender was due to the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria.

This is all ignoring of course that despite the insistence of unconditional surrender, the Americans accepted surrender with conditions and allowed the emperor to continue to hold his titles anyway. There's definitely something to be said about taking maximalist positions just to make a point even when they don't actually care about several of the goals that make up those positions.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

it was more a way to test out their new toys.

And as a demonstration for any would-be challengers (one in particular, and we all know who) to the emerging US hegemonic dominance, a demonstration not just of the destructive capacity of nukes but of their willingness to use it.

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