Devastation and Defeat

" ...We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war.

It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam.* Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware."

-Harry Truman, August 6 1945

"...Despite the best that has been done by everyone... the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.

-Emperor Hirohito, August 14 1945

I haven't really had much to say about the anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's sixty years ago now, and it's been decades of us mulling over the moral and rational aspects of the bombing. Was it right? Did it end the war early? Did the US use the bomb unnecessarily? Was Japan ready to surrender? Well, the damn thing about history is that even though it's all written down for us, the facts are decidedly unhelpful when it comes to normative questions.

Was Japan ready to surrender unconditionally before Nagasaki? Almost certainly not - not so long as the imperial sovereignty was threatened, as it was by repeated American proclamations. On the flip side, seeing as Japan did get to keep the Emperor in any case, was it a mistake for the US to insist on unconditional surrender? Possibly.

But the wider point that I think should be remembered is the savagery of war. Matthew Yglesias writes:

Today's bombs (and, for that matter, artillery) are by no means incapable of going astray and killing some civilians. But compared to those of the 1940s they are vastly more precise and targetable. It now is possible to do enormous damage to military targets while mostly sparing civilian ones, and for that reason it seems incumbent upon us to try and do it. And while we don't always do it as well as one might like, we do do things very differently from how Curtis LeMay and Bomber Harris did them.

We could vaporize Falluja, Ramadi, and all the rest tomorrow if we wanted to without any real difficulty. But we don't. Because we don't want to. Because it would be wrong.

I think Americans have bought in to the supposed gentleness of their military far too much. It's hard to be "accurate" with a 2000-lb bomb, regardless of what it hits. Any idea how large the blast radius is? How many people the shrapnel can kill? And that's assuming it hits its target. Canadians know what happens when it doesn't.

Of course, the Army is a whole other story. An armored division is not precise when it rolls through your town - ask a Fallujan. But unfortunately, this is the way it's supposed to be. Ground warfare these days relies immensely on air and artillery support, rather than exposing soldiers to enemy fire. Sniper in a window? Hit the building with a rocket or three. Small arms fire from down the street? Roll a tank through there, see how brave the enemy is then. As destructive as this method of fighting is, it's really the only rational way to fight - not that this is comforting to anyone in the vicinity. So as much as some liberal hawks might want to believe that Iraq has been a gentle war, they need to wake the hell up.

It's a cliche, but that doesn't make it untrue - war is hell. It's supposed to be. To close off this quote-heavy post, let's go in to the wayback machine:

It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we should grow too fond of it.

Robert E. Lee, December 13, 1962