Finally, war is not some Nietzschean treatise, or some work of Clausevitz, or Sun-Tzu, or Musashi or Suvorov. It is not feint or salient, strike and counter-strike. It is not glorious. It proves nothing. It is a nasty, dirty, ugly, soul-destroying business of survival where men die, women die, and children die. I hope one day children will only see war in museums and films. But that day is not yet.

(I’ll just add that, unfortunately, war does at least prove something often enough. But that doesn’t mean we can’t eventually find a better way of proving it.)

There was a specific reference to war-weariness in the Military Channel’s documentary on Operation Olympus.

I am not a pacifist, but I do not glorify war in any way. I simply look at war as a necessary evil, but still an evil.

By the way, I’m not out to write a military history for your consumption.

And one of the problems with “original” sources are: personalities, MacArthur’s for example, and information not revealed for 40 years, such as Enigma and the secret correspondence between governments.

I am of a different mind concerning how to achieve peace, of course.

Nobody told the Japanese, “oh, we’ll go with MacArthur’s plan and say that your Emperor can live and rule, if you surrender now”. Read MacArthur’s own words through google search, Hirohito at the time he surrendered, did so unconditionally and with the belief that he would be executed as a war criminal. MacArthur, after the surrender, twisted arms and protected Hirohito because MacArthur knew the Japanese mindset.

Given a choice between believing in the primary documented words of MacArthur or your interpretation of history, I must say that you are in the weaker position.

So there’s my claim and my evidence and reasoning to back it up. Nothing irrelevant. No red herrings, no loop de loops.

I realize many believe the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. “Mr. President, that isn’t entirely correct,” initial overtures by the Japanese to make peace had too many unacceptable conditions, such as leaving the militarists with some power, but one condition was actually given them at the end: Hirohito was left as Emperor.

This is so unclear, Ariel. You don’t even state what you believe flat out, you say “I realize many believe”. I don’t care what ‘many believe’. You are supposed to be talking about your own beliefs, but you add these irrelevant details and sentences that don’t matter, and muddy up clarity.

As I hedged, the American change of will was only part of the equation.

I believe that America didn’t have a change of will. And there was nothing you said, that was a good justification for why you believed that America did have a change of will. Which was why I was talking about the 4 year plan in the first place. Because there, and only there, was a reason for why you might have, just possibly might have, believed that there was a change in American will. (WWII war length)

I did not say Truman decided to end the war sooner because the American people were war-weary, they were, but that it was part of a multiplicity of factors
Truman considered a multiplicity of factors and decided to end the war for another reason. I see. Is that what you meant, and if it isn’t, why don’t you just be more clear.

It only matters what you believe, why you believe it, and how strong are those reasons of belief.

Why don’t you cut through the smoke and lay out what you believe and why all this stuff you are bringing up is important to your beliefs.

Since that doesn’t matter to me, whether it was “the” factor because I don’t believe it was a factor AT All, why are you spending time on irrelevancies and red herrings? Coincidentally, I don’t believe it is a factor at all because I don’t believe it actually existed. Something I don’t think you addressed, you simply assumed it was true. I am not going to assume it is true.

With the war in Europe over, would the American people maintain the will to fight what would be the most gut wrenching loss of American life, likely near equal to that of the entire war, the invasion of Japan?

you keep talking about this as if a consideration of something that might happen is justification to believe that it did happen. Since it didn’t happen and probably wouldn’t have happened, obviously they were worried about ancillary issues. Why is it just because people worry about issues in war, means those issues actually existed, is something you don’t spend any time explaining, Ariel.

Whether the bombs would work or not was still in question up until the drop on Hiroshima.

Once again. I read what you wrote, and it is same now as it was before then. Meaning, you start to claim something is true, and then go to great lengths talking about things that matter not in the least to justifying your claims and assertions. What the heck does “whether bombs would work or not” have to do with Truman or other leaders worrying about America not completing an invasion of Japan? Or that there was a change in American will?

There’s nothing overtly wrong with the facts as you have presented them, most if not all of them are true as I see it. But the interpretations you draw are completely either unrelated or unexplained, or both.

They could have stood down.

A lot of things could have happened. It is no reason to believe that it did or would have. Which is the point. Trying to use history and what happened, to justify why you believe something else would have happened, is not the right way to go. At least not in the way you go about it.

If the gamble failed, only invasion was left.

Actually, one of the reasons why Hirohito surrendered was because the first bomb was from uranium as tested by Japanese scientists. Which they told Hirohito, was rare to make and hard to do. The second bomb was Plutonium, which the scientists said could be mass produced. And it was true. It could be mass produced in time. There was no need for operational Olympus, when enough time is there to collect/breed enough plutonium for the bombs.

Hirohito was left as Emperor.

That is not a true asser

So it doesn’t really matter, in an analysis of military ignorance or knowledge of a group, to consider all the members of that group concerning their individual expertise. It only matters what amount is allowed to dominate in the leadership fields. Because you see, it doesn’t matter how much talent is in the pool, if you choose only the worst applicants for leadership slots, then your organization will be poor and bad.

WW2 vets of what? Vets of journalism, not vets of war. They even knew they didn’t know, and said as much in Ernie’s columns.

Cronkite said he didn’t know, and acted like he did. Psychological problems there.

But like back then there are reporters embedded, talking to all sides.

The NYTimes was talking to the Germans to get the scoop on D-Day? Really.

Today you can argue the gap. But like back then there are reporters embedded, talking to all sides. Even in a war, there is more than just the military POV. And there are the retired military generals critics speaking out, like Zinni, Powell and Clark. Their military credentials are unimpugnable. IMO they get too little air play in MSM in favor of politicians and pundents. Probably because they aren’t as interesting to listen to.