I wasn’t planning on spending my morning watching a 2 and a half hour YouTube video, but here we are and that’s exactly what happened. That was a fascinating watch. I’d say for others that the TLDW is this:
The narrative that the atomic bombs were dropped to prevent an invasion of Japan is false and was constructed afterwards as a plausible and easy to understand solution that allowed all parties (both the US and Japan) to come out looking good in the end.
The reality of the situation was much more complicated. At the time, there was never a US plan to invade Japan.
Japan was already thoroughly defeated militarily and was looking to negotiate a surrender. Japan was hoping that Russia would be useful to negotiate peace with the US.
The US had previously asked Russia to enter the war, but then later realized it was not necessary to bring about an end to the war. The US actually realized having Russia involved would complicate the post-war logistics and would bolster Russia as a world super power. When sending terms of surrender to Japan, the US removed Russia as a signer of the terms, leaving Japan a false hope that Russia could still be used help them secure better terms.
Russia informed the US that they would be declaring war with Japan on August 15. The US dropped the bombs on Japan a week earlier in hopes of accelerating Japan’s surrender before Russia entered the war.
As a result, Russia declared war on Japan in the days between the bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan issued their surrender shortly afterwards. In all likelihood, dropping the bombs accelerated the surrender timeline by about a week. Though it could be argued that had Russia’s signature been kept on the surrender terms sent to Japan, it would have also ended the war earlier.
Isn’t he fantastic? His videos are so well-researched and well-written that I’d listen to his vaguely monotonous scouse voice talk about pretty much anything.
Yeah it really was a good watch. The length and minimal use of graphics at first were intimidating, but he still kept it interesting so it was easy to absorb.
I wasn’t planning on spending my morning watching a 2 and a half hour YouTube video, but here we are and that’s exactly what happened. That was a fascinating watch. I’d say for others that the TLDW is this:
The narrative that the atomic bombs were dropped to prevent an invasion of Japan is false and was constructed afterwards as a plausible and easy to understand solution that allowed all parties (both the US and Japan) to come out looking good in the end.
The reality of the situation was much more complicated. At the time, there was never a US plan to invade Japan.
Japan was already thoroughly defeated militarily and was looking to negotiate a surrender. Japan was hoping that Russia would be useful to negotiate peace with the US.
The US had previously asked Russia to enter the war, but then later realized it was not necessary to bring about an end to the war. The US actually realized having Russia involved would complicate the post-war logistics and would bolster Russia as a world super power. When sending terms of surrender to Japan, the US removed Russia as a signer of the terms, leaving Japan a false hope that Russia could still be used help them secure better terms.
Russia informed the US that they would be declaring war with Japan on August 15. The US dropped the bombs on Japan a week earlier in hopes of accelerating Japan’s surrender before Russia entered the war.
As a result, Russia declared war on Japan in the days between the bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan issued their surrender shortly afterwards. In all likelihood, dropping the bombs accelerated the surrender timeline by about a week. Though it could be argued that had Russia’s signature been kept on the surrender terms sent to Japan, it would have also ended the war earlier.
Isn’t he fantastic? His videos are so well-researched and well-written that I’d listen to his vaguely monotonous scouse voice talk about pretty much anything.
Yeah it really was a good watch. The length and minimal use of graphics at first were intimidating, but he still kept it interesting so it was easy to absorb.