What force is justified in war?

@mott-the-hoople said
"I doubt Japan was anywhere near developing a nuclear weapon."

That has to be the case for you to have a point. But there was no intelligence suggesting this, if so please provide it.

"Wilcox makes a case that Japan successfully detonated an atomic device close to what was then called Konan, Korea, on or about August 12, 1945, which is to say six days after Hiro ...[text shortened]... d in kind."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/in-world-war-ii-what-if-japan-got-the-atomic-bomb-first

Where were they to get the fissile material from? Japan has coal, but it doesn't have uranium. They might have hoped for atomic weapons, but they could not produce them because of straightforward resource limitations. One needs 52 kg of Weapons Grade uranium for critical mass, that means, for a gun type bomb a minimum of around 75 kg of weapons grade stuff to make a bomb. Natural uranium has a U235 content of about 0.7% so they'd need a tonne of the stuff to make one bomb and Japan does not have uranium deposits. They simply couldn't do it.

@deepthought said
Where were they to get the fissile material from? Japan has coal, but it doesn't have uranium. They might have hoped for atomic weapons, but they could not produce them because of straightforward resource limitations. One needs 52 kg of Weapons Grade uranium for critical mass, that means, for a gun type bomb a minimum of around 75 kg of weapons grade stuff to ma ...[text shortened]... of the stuff to make one bomb and Japan does not have uranium deposits. They simply couldn't do it.

What? they were near completing an abomb.

Do you think they couldnt buy it elsewhere? how much did they already possess, I mean if they were near completion they had access to uranium.

Your argument doesnt hold water.

https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-japan-bomb-20150805-story.html

@vivify said
Wouldn't blockades have resulted in the suffering and starvation of civilians? That would arguably be a war crime (amazing that nuking Japan wasn't).

I'm not bringing that point up just to argue but to point out that there is no humane way to engage in war. It's easy to point out what shouldn't be done in a war; but what violence should actually be used in war is much less popular to discuss.

Obviously, "let's never go to war" isn't always realistic.

I don't know, but I don't think there's any reason to believe that Japan could not feed its own population in the face of a total naval blockade in 1945. This does depend to some extent on how much it would interfere with fishing. Making this type of call depends on detailed historical knowledge of what the Japanese could do agriculturally on their own territory and whether they could administrate the type of rationing system that existed in the United Kingdom for most of the war, and for a decade after it had finished. My conception of a military blockade is to prevent naval breakout and trading of surpluses, not a policy of starvation. I'm curious to know whether anyone has knowledge of agricultural production levels on the Home Islands and whether they were, or could quickly be made, sufficient to feed the population of Japan in the forties.

@mott-the-hoople said
What? they were near completing an abomb.

Do you think they couldnt buy it elsewhere? how much did they already possess, I mean if they were near completion they had access to uranium.

Your argument doesnt hold water.

https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-japan-bomb-20150805-story.html

Random media speculation is not evidence. I'm not following your links to sensationalised column fillers. They need tonnes of the stuff. Basically Japan could not sustain a nuclear weapons program left to her own devices. You are ignoring basic resource limitations.

@deepthought said
I don't know, but I don't think there's any reason to believe that Japan could not feed its own population in the face of a total naval blockade in 1945.

Blockades don't last for a week, they can last years, or at least long after supplies have run out. An effective blockade would obviously take over any areas that access the ocean, including fishing ports. If the goal of a blockade is military surrender but those in the blockade can still live out their normal lives, surrender will never happen.

But as Shav pointed out, those in the blockade have the ability to end it by surrendering. A vastly superior option than the bomb, as far humane war tactics, assuming all of Japan could realistically be put under blockade, a difficult task.

@deepthought said
Random media speculation is not evidence. I'm not following your links to sensationalised column fillers. They need tonnes of the stuff. Basically Japan could not sustain a nuclear weapons program left to her own devices. You are ignoring basic resource limitations.

https://fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/nuke/

Just where do you get your info?

@vivify said
Blockades don't last for a week, they can last years, or at least long after supplies have run out. An effective blockade would obviously take over any areas that access the ocean, including fishing ports. If the goal of a blockade is military surrender but those in the blockade can still live out their normal lives, surrender will never happen.

But as Shav pointed out, ...[text shortened]... uming all of Japan could realistically be put under blockade. A difficult, if not impossible task.

How was the US to know japan did or did not possess an abomb. Several countries were in an arms race to develop nuclear weapons. USSR finalized theirs soon after.

Name one blockade that has worked.

@mott-the-hoople said
How was the US to know japan did or did not possess an abomb. Several countries were in an arms race to develop nuclear weapons. USSR finalized theirs soon after.

Name one blockade that has worked.

Palestine.

@vivify said
Palestine.

Where exactly is palestine and who or how is it blockaded?

@mott-the-hoople said
https://fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/nuke/

Just where do you get your info?

If you read your own link you will see that Japan was essentially hampered in their attempts to build a device by their lack of weapons grade uranium [1][3]. Incidentally the link gives a figure of 560 kg of uranium oxide being transported to Japan on U234 before it surrendered. The FAS article says that it contained 3.5 kg of Uranium 235, which without checking sounds about right for natural uranium. They go on to claim that this is about 1/5 of what is needed for an atomic weapon - this contradicts the Wikipedia article on critical mass [2]. This material never reached Japan. There is no reason to think that Japan built an atomic weapon, tested one, or were ever anywhere near building one. For clarity, they had the technical competence, but being technically competent is not enough one needs the resources.

The critical mass for plutonium-239 is 10 kg, since what makes for a critical mass depends on the nuclear properties of the material, how much overdensity one can produce (in implosion devices) and the presence or absence of neutron reflecting materials. I think that this may have confused the writer of the FAS article, who will have been more interested in politics and current state policy than physics.

However, none of this is relevant since the decision to use atomic weapons, or indeed invade Japan, was not predicated on the possibility that they might develop atomic weapons. The policy should be judged on the information that Truman had at the time he authorised the attacks, not on some post hoc justification.

[1] https://fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/nuke/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_program

@mott-the-hoople said
How was the US to know japan did or did not possess an abomb. Several countries were in an arms race to develop nuclear weapons. USSR finalized theirs soon after.

Name one blockade that has worked.

Britain blockaded New Granada, a country that no longer exists, to secure the release of a Consul in 1837. The blockade succeeded, no shots were fired. You can read about a number of other blockades in the link below as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_blockade#Origin

@vivify said
Blockades don't last for a week, they can last years, or at least long after supplies have run out. An effective blockade would obviously take over any areas that access the ocean, including fishing ports. If the goal of a blockade is military surrender but those in the blockade can still live out their normal lives, surrender will never happen.

But as Shav pointed out, ...[text shortened]... mane war tactics, assuming all of Japan could realistically be put under blockade, a difficult task.

In what I wrote I was imagining the purpose as being to prevent the Japanese military from projecting force. Allied warships would wish to remain out of range of coastal artillery and so fishing would not be ruled out. It's not a realistic option to force Japanese surrender, but it would force isolation. This is all somewhat moot in any case.

For clarity, it's not clear to me that the use of the bomb at that time was justified and it's not clear that it was not.

@deepthought said
In what I wrote I was imagining the purpose as being to prevent the Japanese military from projecting force. Allied warships would wish to remain out of range of coastal artillery and so fishing would not be ruled out. It's not a realistic option to force Japanese surrender

Yeah, the more I thought about it, the less realistic the idea of a blockade became. Just goes to show that finding a better alternative to the A-bomb is not as easy to come up with as people think.

Also for clarity, I'm not defending the use of a nuke, I legitimately want to know *specifically* what a better option would've been.

@vivify said
Yeah, the more I thought about it, the less realistic the idea of a blockade became. Just goes to show that finding a better alternative to the A-bomb is not as easy to come up with as people think.

Also for clarity, I'm not defending the use of a nuke, I legitimately want to know *specifically* what a better option would've been.

Fair enough.

@earl-of-trumps said
How about the USAF and RAF carpet bombing of Dresden?

Same thing. Just as bad.

I agree.
As I pointed out in my original post in this thread.