Israel-Hamas War 2023

[OttoVonBismarck]

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.

Hamas leadership aren't what allows them to fight--you need soldiers for that, an army of generals isn't an army, it's the remnants of one.

[Admiral Yi]

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).

Why not?  We have abundant documented evidence throughout the Pacific campaign about the unwillingness of Japanese troops to surrender and their preference to die honorably.

[Admiral Yi]

A depressing story for the scumbags on both sides case...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67206277

This story is depressing, not because it shows that both sides have internet trolls, but because official organs of the Israeli state have been peddling lies.  I was thinking back when Jake mentioned the infowar that the only thing Israel has to do to satisfy me on that front is not lie.

[grumbler]

Yeah I never got the whole "Soviets forced Japanese surrender" thing, I expect it was Russian propaganda. I mean, surely at that point keeping Manchuria was the least of Japan's worries?

In any case Raz originally referenced post-WW2 peace (in sense of no major great power war) which WAS I believe guaranteed by the presence of nuclear weapons so he was right.

Japanese leaders were holding out hope that they could keep Manchuria, Korea, and maybe other territories in the eventual peace. IIRC the peace feelers they put out through the USSR were all following that note.

The big mushroom cloud over Japan stopped most of the wars of the 2nd half of the 20th century.

Common misconception.  The USSR invasion was the final straw.  Fighting a war on two fronts was their nightmare and it was reflected in Hiro Hito address to the soldiers.

Revisionist history.  Japan was not even aware of the scale of the Soviet invasion when the decision  to surrender was made.  The atomic bombings demonstrated that the US no longer had any need to invade, and this eliminated the last hope that the Japanese had (their plan was to defeat the invasion and then sue for peace from a stronger position).  The loss of Manchuria was inconsequential at that point in the war.

And even the bombings didn't convince everyone: there was an anti-peace coup attempt while the government was about to surrender.

The Japanese put out no peace feelers through the USSR.  One Japanese diplomat, without any government sanction, sought a meeting with Molotov in which he wanted to express hope that the USSR would agree to be an intermediary, and Molotov turned him away because the diplomat had no government sanction for such a request.

It's true that there was a low-level coup attempt to try to prevent the Emperor's message from being broadcast, but it was short-lived.

[Josquius]

Why not?  We have abundant documented evidence throughout the Pacific campaign about the unwillingness of Japanese troops to surrender and their preference to die honorably.

Brainwashed hardcore military men who felt their side still had a chance of winning and in death they could contribute to this.
Not fresh conscripts who knew it was just a matter of time before they lost.
Look to the Soviet invasions and how many surrendered there. And this was despite the reputation of the Soviets with prisoners (such stuff was said about the western allies too of course, but this would have been somewhat less effective).

In Okinawa things are especially fucked up with the Okinawans not being regarded as proper Japanese and forced into suicide at gun point by fanatics.

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.

Technically. Legally speaking 100%. The Soviets already had invaded the home islands. Sakhalin (Karafuto) was incorporated as a regular prefecture in 1943 and the Northern Territories were/are part of Hokkaido.
Definitely true these wouldn't be regarded on anything like the same level as an invasion of the historic parts of Japan. Even a Hokkaido landing would be regarded as lesser and more about what it meant for future invasions. Okinawa too was officially Japan but still not quite mentally seen the same way (really odd turn of history that it ended up back with Japan in the 70s).
Nonetheless the invasion of these lands was regarded as a few steps above seizing just part of the overseas empire.

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",

Why do you say a lower population density makes the invasion harder?

And don't underestimate how poorly defended the north was at this point. The previous American diversions time had passed.

it is just inconceivable the USSR was invading the Home Islands.

I disagree as far as Hokkaido goes. The north of the island certainly. Its a very short trip from islands they did successfully take to Hokkaido, and it would not be easy for Japan to shift more defences up there at all.
Invading Honshu would be a far more difficult task of course. I'd see realistically Japan holding a line perhaps around Sapporo, certainly further south where the island becomes very narrow.

Regardless however the point isn't whether the Soviets actually could manage to conquer Japan. Its whether the Japanese believed they could. And signs suggest they really did see this as a very real threat- as mentioned they had a lot of fear of internal uprisings supporting the Soviets too.

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.

Yes. Though worth noting this comment of Hirohito was some time earlier in February 1945. A lot of bad stuff was still to happen for Japan at that point.

There are those who would question this and say it itself is simply post war propaganda, part of the arrangement the occupying authorities made with the Japanese, etc...but I do think there is a lot of truth to the Showa emperor being cloistered and ignorant view of things.
There's similar vibes today coming out of Russia with Putin and then to a lesser extent Hitler in his bunker. He has supreme power technically.... but knowledge coming through to him is frequently limited and heavily biased.
He is surrounded by militarists who are all telling him everything is fine, just one more battle and we'll get a favourable peace, so his actions are in line with a leader living in that reality.
As time ticks on however the cracks in the protective shell around him are steadily breaking and he's coming to realise people like Konoe encouraging an end to the war ASAP had the right of it.

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.

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.

Where I'd say the bombs have their importance as far as the Japanese surrender goes (their main importance lying elsewhere) is in being something new.
Destroying Japan's cities was already a standard day at the office for the Americans. There was nothing too new to report there. In the atomic bombings however the news shifted- it matter not whether this bomb was worse, in a way it could even have been less destructive and had the same effect, but in being something different it cracked through the news cordon/self-imposed filter around the emperor in a way "Yet another city firebombed into nothing" wouldn't.
Imagine it in terms of modern events- we've become quite numb to Russia's daily drone and missile attacks against Ukrainian civilians. They're horrors that just go in one ear and out the other. If Russia were to do a new sort of shiftiness however, even one that kills fewer people than the daily attacks do, then that would catch our attention.

Also sort of important for their role in the surrender was in giving Hirohito and the militarists a face-saving excuse for surrender. It wasn't that the Japanese army had been defeated fair and square...It was those cunning Americans and their sneaky magic bomb that did it.
Practically this really wasn't such a big deal. They knew America could destroy their cities anyway and that they probably didn't have many of these bombs.
But in terms of face "The enemy changed the rules. The magic will kill us all" works as an excuse in a way the rather more practical reason of "The Soviets are going to defeat our armies and wipe out the elites." didn't.

Nonetheless even without the bombs it doesn't seem likely they could have gone on much longer. With every day that ticked on, looming famine and fire bombings of cities, the Soviet invasion creeping down, and so on, the bar for what was an acceptable surrender dropped dramatically.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Jos I'm not sure if you were on drugs or what happened when you typed that post, but you can't actually be serious when talking about the Soviet invasion of Sakhalin--half of that Island was pre-war Russian territory, there was no amphibious invasion, they were already on the island.

It isn't even remotely comparable to having to land on a hostile beach for a country (USSR) that had minimal sea transport at all.

[Josquius]

Jos I'm not sure if you were on drugs or what happened when you typed that post, but you can't actually be serious when talking about the Soviet invasion of Sakhalin--half of that Island was pre-war Russian territory, there was no amphibious invasion, they were already on the island.

It isn't even remotely comparable to having to land on a hostile beach for a country (USSR) that had minimal sea transport at all.

Legally Karafuto was a full Japanese Prefecture and part of the home islands. This is a fact. A recent fact at the time and likely one disconnected from feelings. But a legal fact nonetheless. Soviet sea transport is irrelevant.

Sad you dodge everything else including mention of the kurils and Northern territories in the same bit just to hone in on what you think is a mistake.

[DGuller]

"Sorry, Joe, you can't invade over land.  Legally our half of the island is a full Japanese Prefecture, so you'll have to invade amphibiously.  Sorry for the inconvenience."

[The Minsky Moment]

The Kuriles are sort of the exception that proves the rule.  The Soviets landed an assault force of less than 9000 men on the main island and the surrender happened a couple of days later.  Virtually no combat naval forces were deployed by either side.  It doesn't really say anything about the feasibility of an invasion of the main islands, any more than the Nazi occupation of the channel islands was a demonstration of the feasibility of Sea Lion.

[Josquius]

The Kuriles are sort of the exception that proves the rule.  The Soviets landed an assault force of less than 9000 men on the main island and the surrender happened a couple of days later.  Virtually no combat naval forces were deployed by either side.  It doesn't really say anything about the feasibility of an invasion of the main islands, any more than the Nazi occupation of the channel islands was a demonstration of the feasibility of Sea Lion.

The distance between mainland Russian ports and the Kurils is much greater than between the northern territories, or even the kurils and sakhallin, and hokkaido.

As said however whether the Soviets could do it or not isn't particularly relevant. They probably wouldn't get around to trying it before the Japanese surrender either even if we assume they had plentiful landing ships.
That the Japanese believed it was going to happen was the key.

[Jacob]

The WWII stuff is fascinating

Meanwhile, it seems that Israel has entered a new phase in their operations? I see it reported that communication in Gaza has been shut down (or severely downgraded), and Israel is increasing the volume of attacks.

Has Israel stated any clear objectives at this point?

[Threviel]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-invasion-delay.html

"We have set two goals for this war: To eliminate Hamas by destroying its military and governing abilities, and to do everything possible to bring our captives home," Mr. Netanyahu said.

[Jacob]

Thanks Threviel.

The first one seems clear enough. The second one is a bit less significant, given the "do everything possible" part.

[Admiral Yi]

Brainwashed hardcore military men who felt their side still had a chance of winning and in death they could contribute to this.
Not fresh conscripts who knew it was just a matter of time before they lost.
Look to the Soviet invasions and how many surrendered there. And this was despite the reputation of the Soviets with prisoners (such stuff was said about the western allies too of course, but this would have been somewhat less effective).

In Okinawa things are especially fucked up with the Okinawans not being regarded as proper Japanese and forced into suicide at gun point by fanatics.

What I've read says indoctrination/brainwashing of the Japanese population (I would argue that most of the beliefs were intrinsic parts of Japanese culture and required no indoctrination) began at an earlier age than the moment of conscription.  Do you have evidence to the contrary?

If the realization that they were going to lose were relevant then surely it would have been a factor prior to the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.  Yamamoto knew Japan was going to lose but he kept on fighting.  Germans knew they were going to lose but kept on fighting.

Please tell me more about the Japanese surrenders to the Soviets.  I honestly know nothing about this.

As to civilian suicides my understanding is the Japanese settlers on islands like Saipan were not Okinawan and not forced at bayonet point.

[Sheilbh]

If the realization that they were going to lose were relevant then surely it would have been a factor prior to the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.  Yamamoto knew Japan was going to lose but he kept on fighting.

I don't think anyone says it's the Soviet invasion of over 1 million troops alone. But rather you have these series of shocks in a very short space of time. Hiroshima on the 6th, Soviets on the 7th and Nagasaki on the 9th with Japan's surrender on the 15th. In addition Japanese decision making structures are difficult and people, including the Emperor, say different things at different points to different audiences. Also the Japanese destroyed a lot of records - particularly those touching the Emperor.

I think the question will never be answered. I am more convinced by Hasegawa who wrote a book - a revisionist take - on this. He's a Japanese historian who specialises in Japanese-Soviet relations. His argument is that there are a series of shocks that cumulatively push Japan to surrender, but he argues the Soviet ivasion was the decisive factor/weighed heavier. My understanding is that his history is the most detailed of the hour-by-hour decision making between the different centres of power in Tokyo - but it isn't conclusive, it is an argument.

I really agree with his emphasis on the Cold War and that both Truman and Stalin are already thinking of the next confrontation between the US and USSR. That was, I think, already present in the logic of what was starting to happen in Germany and Austria. I don't think it's the fear of a Soviet invasion in the sense of this is going to make us lose the war (although I'm not so sure the USSR wouldn't have been able to do it - Japan was prepared for an American invasion from the south and I wonder how much they're judging what the Western allies would want in place before an invasion v what Stalin would tolerate), that pushes Japan - but the fear of peace with the Soviets at the table. They know what that will look like in the post-war.

It would involve zones of control, split occupation - and it will definitely involve removing the Emperor. Surrendering to the Americans on the terms of the Potsdam declaration with one edit (the imperial house survives) removes that possibility of Stalin at the table and the Soviets dicatating terms. I think setting out the terms in the Potsdam declaration after the bomb was canny politics by the Americans and I think Byrnes or Stimson actually suggested explicitly mentioning the possibility of a constitutional monarchy in Potsdam because they thought it would prompt Japanese surrender.

The framing of it was the bomb and we surrendered to the Americans, I'd argue, facilitated Japan taking a role in the Pacific in the Cold War. With Korea, China and the start of revolution in Indochina, the Pacific was a very hot theatre and focus in the early Cold War. I also think the argument that to an extent the bomb was partly a marker from Truman for the Cold War has some truth to it.

As I say there is no answer and there are competing explanations, incomplete sources and ultimately it comes down to what a few people thought and decided. In particular what resolved the Emperor to move. So we'll never know - I find Hasegawa's argument persuasive.

Germans knew they were going to lose but kept on fighting.

Although isn't at least part of that the same point? I could be totally wrong but for a lot of German military the reason to keep fighting was fear of the Soviets, the reason for Japan to surrender to the US was the same.