Israel-Hamas War 2023

[Josquius]

Its been discussed to death but the 'nuclear bombs single handily won the war' thing is propaganda. Designed and taught for a variety of reasons post-war (one of which was threatening the Soviets). These days it is increasingly questioned as the needs behind this convenient explanation have faded away . Also there's a lot more cross-pollination between Japanese and western academics and source-sharing than historians used to do.

The Japanese leadership were scared shitless of the Soviets and communism in general. There was a very real belief a communist uprising could be sparked at any moment.
As seen with the Japanese peace feelers and behaviour in the immediate post-war keeping the emperor intact was highly important to them- with the Soviets swooping down they couldn't afford to keep trying to get it in writing that the Americans would let him live, they had to just surrender unconditionally as demanded.

The further idea that the bombs saved millions of lives in an inevitable suicidal Japanese defence against an American invasion just don't add up (even if you believe the Japanese actually would behave this way and there weren't other factors at work in Okinawa).
The time scales for the invasion were too far out. Even if you disbelieve the Soviet invasion was more significant than the nuclear attacks (lets not forget too that Japan was already getting its cities regularly plastered by conventional bombs) you can't possibly think it was worth nothing and still claim to have a grasp on the history.

Long as sin but this is a pretty good wrapup of things if you want something to listen to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCRTgtpC-Go

[Threviel]

Regarding the original question it's entirely irrelevant how the atomic bombs affected Japanese surrender discussions. What mattered to keeping the peace afterwards was the perception of the effectiveness of atomic bombs and their perceived effect of the Japanese surrender discussions, and they sure seemed effective. They were important for what they meant for the next war, no for their effect on Japan. 

[Josquius]

Regarding the original question it's entirely irrelevant how the atomic bombs affected Japanese surrender discussions. What mattered to keeping the peace afterwards was the perception of the effectiveness of atomic bombs and their perceived effect of the Japanese surrender discussions, and they sure seemed effective. They were important for what they meant for the next war, no for their effect on Japan. 

Thats certainly true as far as a NATO-Warsaw Pact war goes (indeed its the key argument for using the nukes being the right decision).
But there's lots of other nations in the world and there was a much reduced amount of war to be seen amongst these under the pact than before.

[Threviel]

Most of the rest of the world was under colonial administration for a lot of that time and after that they haven't been exactly peaceful. India and China have both been in several aggressive wars. South East Asia hasn't exactly been a paragon of peace. Middle East has had lots of wars, likewise Africa and Central America. South America has been relatively peaceful on the other hand, at least when it comes to wars between nations.

An argument can perhaps be made that the Vienna conference led to a decrease in war that has continued into modern times, but I don't really see a break of behaviour in the 30's.

Edit: Thinking about it all the great powers and many middling powers have invaded several countries in aggressive wars since 1945 and since 1929 almost all middling powers have done the same.

And even Caesar had to have a plausible Casus Belli to not be thought of as the aggressor. Not much has changed unless one wants the Kellogg-Briand pact to have been effective. But correlation and causation and all that.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think this has all been rehashed here before but:

The Soviets could not invade the home islands, period. Not for years and years. This has been discussed to death, but the idea the Soviets put the home islands at risk is video game shit, it ignores what an amphibious invasion requires and how they work. If the Soviets literally used their entire transport / landing craft capacity, they could move only half a division (ostensibly onto Hokkaido.) They would have to drop them off, turn around, sail hours away, and pickup another round of troops to land a whole division.

The Allied combined forces on Normandy landed 13 divisions on Day 1. A half division landing against Japan--a far more difficult prospect in every sense to invading Normandy, due to geography, the nature of the surrounding seas, the population density of Japan, the fact of invading a country's home vs Normandy being a fairly weakly protected German "possession", it is just inconceivable the USSR was invading the Home Islands.

In re the argument about the atomic bombings "saving lives", the main factor you have to consider is actually starvation of the Japanese civilian population. Starvation is one of those things, it isn't flashy like firebombings or atomic bombs. But when a population reaches a certain "critical point" in famine, the deaths start to rack up with incredibly scale and rapidity.

Gar Alperovitz represents one group of the "anti-bomb" camp who actually makes this argument really well in his book, but he makes it as an argument that Japan didn't need bombed because they would "have to" surrender imminently due to the impending famine conditions. The assumption implicit is the Japanese leadership would surrender before seeing a  chunk of their people die to famine--an assumption that was never quite tested.

I think the biggest, and most overlooked aspect of the bomb playing a role in peace is the influence of the Emperor. The Emperor decided to surrender, which, while he technically had a lot of power under the Meiji Constitution, rarely exercised it so directly. The Japanese final cabinet, the "Big Six", were committed to a war of extinction, but there were a few members who were at least discussing the possibility of peace. (It should be noted that in Imperial Japan, zealous Army officers had assassinated Japanese political leaders who in previous conflicts had indicated any desire away from militarism, so we don't have a complete record of these meetings, no officers were allowed in the meetings and they were kept incredibly closed to avoid any discussion of peace resulting in assassinations.) It is known that at one point, Fumimaro Konoe, who had been Prime Minister prior to Tojo, but remained an important personal advisor to Emperor Hirohito until the end of the war, warned the Emperor of the risks of continuing the fighting.

Hirohito was recorded as saying he couldn't consider peace until the army was able to fight at least one last major battle to try and inflict huge casualties on the enemy.

I suspect there are a few reasons for this. One, this was the strongly expressed desire of most of the Big Six, and the Meiji era Emperors typically fully deferred to the military leadership. For two, I think it comported with the sort of "honor based" obligations Hirohito felt he had to uphold as Emperor.

I think the atomic bombings are thus important, because they put the Japanese Emperor in a position where he realized there may not be an honorable last stand, where the Imperial Army, win or lose, inflicts massive casualties on the enemy. Instead, he was facing the prospect Japan could simply be destroyed through these new atomic weapons, city after city. No need for American boots on the ground. No honorable last battle, simple annihilation of his people. [Of course the Japanese also doubted we had a ton of atomic bombs, but the fact we hit Nagasaki definitely influenced their thinking as to how many we might have--we certainly could not have produced enough to level Japan in a reasonable period of time, but the Japanese had no way to know the particulars. An interestingly historical aside--an American pilot shot down and captured over Japan, told his Japanese captors under torture that the United States had a stockpile of 100 atomic bombs, and growing. This was viewed as credible enough that it was mentioned specifically in a meeting of the Big 6 after the atomic bombings. Note this pilot knew absolutely nothing about the Manhattan Project or anything about our bombs, it was just a crazy bluff he made lol.]

There is certainly significant argument to be made that the Japanese were "coming around" to surrender of some sort before the bombings.

A few months prior, Hirohito had observed the material degradation in Japan's fighting forces, sometimes at odds with what high command were telling him, and asked that options for peace be explored. Supposedly a major deciding moment for him was when he heard they were rounding up shrapnel from American bombs to build tools and equipment, since their own supplies of metal were so limited.

In the final days: the possibility Japan could not contain civil unrest, that famine was looming, that the actual military units intended to defend the home islands were woefully ill equipped and were missing every deadline set for preparation for defending against the invasion were all discussed.

It is possible these factors on their own could have lead to Hirohito's decision to accept Potsdam--but it seems all but certain at least in the immediate sense, the atomic bombings "shook loose" something in the Emperor and lead to him to tell his divided cabinet that they must accept the Potsdam declaration. The power of the Emperor, long only held in theory in Meiji Japan, was realized as even the hardliners on the Big Six decided that they had ultimate responsibility to accept the Emperor's will, even if they disagree with it.

While history, particularly massaged by America, long tried to minimize Hirohito's active role in government, the reality is the Japanese were in awe of the Emperor, including the highest members of the imperial staff. As long as he deferred to them, they were content to push agendas and have him cowed. But on the rare occasions when he asserted his authority as Emperor, none of them ever meaningfully opposed him. Some junior officers did, although even they couched their attempted coup as one to "protect the Emperor" from nefarious forces that had misled him.

For this reason I do think more focus than is commonly given, should be given to the singular person of Hirohito--and he does seem to have been genuinely moved, at least in terms of timing, by the atomic bombs.

[viper37]

Nerve gas paralyzes the heart and longs. Permanently.  No wonder viper is so well informed.

I don't think it's a nerve gas as the Palestinians imply.

The Russians used a similar technique to storm the theater during the hostage crisis, but miss their shot.

I have no idea how well ventilated are these tunnels.  Any kind of chemical agent needs dispersal.  In a theater, you have a ventilation system.  If they don't have that in a tunnel, it's difficult to "flood" it with any kind of chemical and keep the element of surprise.

[Barrister]

I think this has all been rehashed here before but:

The Soviets could not invade the home islands, period. Not for years and years. This has been discussed to death, but the idea the Soviets put the home islands at risk is video game shit, it ignores what an amphibious invasion requires and how they work. If the Soviets literally used their entire transport / landing craft capacity, they could move only half a division (ostensibly onto Hokkaido.) They would have to drop them off, turn around, sail hours away, and pickup another round of troops to land a whole division.

A Japanese invasion of Siberia was a favourite Axis and Allies move of mine - but really it only belongs in a game of that much simplicity.  Even starting from Manchuria the infrastructure of the soviet far east just wouldn't support the movement and supply of large numbers of troops.

[Razgovory]

Nerve gas paralyzes the heart and longs. Permanently.  No wonder viper is so well informed.

I don't think it's a nerve gas as the Palestinians imply.

The Russians used a similar technique to storm the theater during the hostage crisis, but miss their shot.

I have no idea how well ventilated are these tunnels.  Any kind of chemical agent needs dispersal.  In a theater, you have a ventilation system.  If they don't have that in a tunnel, it's difficult to "flood" it with any kind of chemical and keep the element of surprise.

It's an Arab conspiracy theory, like the one where Jews control sharks.  It's not worthy of consideration.

[Sheilbh]

A Japanese invasion of Siberia was a favourite Axis and Allies move of mine - but really it only belongs in a game of that much simplicity.  Even starting from Manchuria the infrastructure of the soviet far east just wouldn't support the movement and supply of large numbers of troops.

Although (and I know I bang on about this book....but) Stephen Kotkin's biography of Stalin in the 30s is really interesting on quite how much Soviet focus was on the threat from Japan and how big of a deal clashes in the far east where. I think even at the peak of Germany's invasion, the Soviets kept a huge force in the far east precisely because of the perceived risk from Japan.

[Tamas]

As far as I can see on Wikipedia the last reliable data on Gaza Strip population was in 2010 indicating roughly 1 million, but now it is estimated 2.2 million.

So using 2.2m, according to Gaza (Hamas) officials, 0.31% of Gaza Strip population (7,000) have died since Israel started its bombing campaign. So that's what, 0.1% per week. I wonder how that compares to the industrial-level terror bombings of the Allies in WW2.

[viper37]

It's an Arab conspiracy theory, like the one where Jews control sharks.  It's not worthy of consideration.

Option A: Do nothing and keep bombing the shit out of Palestinians and Hamas.
Option B: Send in the ground troops and raze a few buildings, forget about the hostages. It's essentially what Israel did the last time, but there were only two soldiers, IIRC.
Option C: Try and rescue the hostages and since there are American citizens, the US is usually involved.


I am deeply curious what will be the option retained.  Does the current government has put a cross on rescuing the hostages already?

What the Palestinians think will happen is interesting compared to what will really happen and when.

Will the IDF really pull it off?  Secure the hostages and avoid killing them all?  There's about 250 hostages.  Hamas says the airstrikes killed 20 of them, so presumably they killed them already.  Or they placed them where they would be killed, which amount to the same.

[The Minsky Moment]

Although (and I know I bang on about this book....but) Stephen Kotkin's biography of Stalin in the 30s is really interesting on quite how much Soviet focus was on the threat from Japan and how big of a deal clashes in the far east where. I think even at the peak of Germany's invasion, the Soviets kept a huge force in the far east precisely because of the perceived risk from Japan.

Also explains why Stalin gave so much support and backing to Chiang for so long, sometimes to the detriment of the CCP. Keeping Japan's land forces occupied was far more important than promoting a premature Communist movement in China.

[The Minsky Moment]

So using 2.2m, according to Gaza (Hamas) officials, 0.31% of Gaza Strip population (7,000) have died since Israel started its bombing campaign. So that's what, 0.1% per week. I wonder how that compares to the industrial-level terror bombings of the Allies in WW2.

Well the Tokyo one killed 100,000 in a single night; the rates aren't even remotely comparable. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

We're starting to see IDF larger scale raids into the strip, I am thinking they are running some form of the Battle of Mosul playbook--there was even some thinly sourced reporting that said they were consulting with the U.S. specifically to that ends.

While some aspects of the Battle of Mosul were bog-standard street by street urban combat, it has been studied extensively because it was seen as a battle in which an attacking force against a tunnel-infested, insurgent controlled city was able to avoid quite the level of brutal street by street fighting and attritional warfare often common in urban campaigns.

While there were a lot of moving pieces--one of the things the coalition forces did well in Mosul was they conducted lots of raids of ISIS territory. ISIS local units generally did not want to hunker down, they liked to conduct a 'mobile' defense, so a coalition raid would come in and local ISIS units would move around trying to get lucky and pick off or ambush parts of the raid's forces. This sometimes worked.

However, in aggregate what actually occurred is these mobile defensive maneuvers ultimately exposed ISIS fighters to much greater direct fire than hunkering down in prepared tunnels and other structures, whilst it likely served some good psychological purpose in that ISIS fighters got to claim coalition kills, and feel that they were fighting back, they steadily lost far more men from these skirmishes than the coalition--to a pretty bad ratio, actually. This attrited a lot of ISIS strength out in the open, where the coalition didn't have to level buildings or crawl into tunnels to get them.

When I read that the big Israel raid in the last 12 hours encountered several Hamas units that jumped out to try and hit Israeli tanks, I suspect that getting those Hamas units to come out of their holes is probably one of the primary goals of these raids in the first place--exposing them to more direct fire, and also exposing tactics and behaviors they are likely to exhibit throughout the campaign.

[The Minsky Moment]

ISIS local units generally did not want to hunker down, they liked to conduct a 'mobile' defense, so a coalition raid would come in and local ISIS units would move around trying to get lucky and pick off or ambush parts of the raid's forces. This sometimes worked.

However, in aggregate what actually occurred is these mobile defensive maneuvers ultimately exposed ISIS fighters to much greater direct fire than hunkering down in prepared tunnels and other structures, whilst it likely served some good psychological purpose in that ISIS fighters got to claim coalition kills, and feel that they were fighting back, they steadily lost far more men from these skirmishes than the coalition--to a pretty bad ratio, actually. This attrited a lot of ISIS strength out in the open, where the coalition didn't have to level buildings or crawl into tunnels to get them.

Problem with that is the people likely to engage in fights out in the open are the cannon fodder.  The core leadership and Hamas cadres will hunker down in the tunnels.