As speculation mounts that Kim Jong-un and Trump could meet this month, analysts say Pyongyang will continue to see nuclear weapons as a matter of survival

As speculation mounts that Kim Jong-un and Trump could meet this month, analysts say Pyongyang will continue to see nuclear weapons as a matter of survival

North Korea’s launch last week of a missile from a naval destroyer elicited an uncharacteristically prosaic analysis from the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un. The launch was proof, he said, that arming ships with nuclear weapons was “making satisfactory progress”.

But the test, and Kim’s mildly upbeat appraisal, were designed to reverberate well beyond the deck of the 5,000-tonne destroyer-class vessel the Choe Hyon – the biggest warship in the North Korean fleet.

His pointed reference to nuclear weapons was made as the US and Israel continued their air bombardment of Iran – a regime Donald Trump had warned, without offering evidence, was only weeks away from having a nuclear weapon.

  • Ferrous@lemmy.mlEnglish
    82·
    19 hours ago

    Not sure what youre talking about, or how any of that follows.

    The simple fact is that the notion that the US did not need to nuke Japan is a well-respected position among historians.

    Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief of staff, put it this way: “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. In being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to barbarians of the Dark Ages. Wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

    https://www.wagingpeace.org/were-the-atomic-bombings-necessary/

    https://www.historyonthenet.com/reasons-against-dropping-the-atomic-bomb

    https://jacobin.com/2023/08/atomic-nuclear-bomb-world-war-ii-soviet-japan-military-industrial-complex-lies

    Alperovitz further highlights that the Japanese had initiated peace envoy missions as early as September 1944, reaching out to figures like Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek by December 1944 and engaging with the USSR in April 1945. That the Japanese were interested in negotiating a peace was well known. Moreover, the Americans knew that there was a potential for a surrender without necessitating an invasion as early as April 1945, provided there was clarity in the surrender terms.

    The argument that the bombings prevented the necessity of an invasion is undermined by the very cities that were chosen to be bombed. It is now known that as many as nine atomic bombs were proposed to be used tactically against Japanese military targets as part of a planned — though never authorized — invasion. That two of those bombs were ultimately used against cities of no particular military value is evidence that plans for an invasion had already been abandoned by August of 1945.

    The potential for a massive confrontation between the Red Army and the Kwantung Army in Manchuria introduced the prospect of the Soviets seeking equal participation in subsequent conflict-ending talks. This would have positioned them to assert a stronger claim over the region, resulting in gains that could far exceed their initial claims to territories lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Consequently, the atomic bomb, instead of being used tactically, evolved into a strategic weapon of terror intended to jolt Japan into immediate surrender.

    • couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zipEnglish
      55·
      18 hours ago

      Of course, they could have chosen to spend several hundred thousand soldiers instead.

      But I’m laughing harder at your other notion that the soviet ubermenschen were right about to swim across the Sea ofJapan and the US had to cheat to beat them there

      • Ferrous@lemmy.mlEnglish
        63·
        17 hours ago

        But I’m laughing harder at your other notion that the soviet ubermenschen were right about to swim across the Sea ofJapan and the US had to cheat to beat them there

        Again, not sure what youre talking about, or how this follows. The only person bringing this idea is you.

        Perhaps you need to check your le epic notes again.

          • Ferrous@lemmy.mlEnglish
            61·
            15 hours ago

            Uh, yeah. It was. You realize that imperial Japan expanded beyond the island, right?

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria

            Operation August Storm,[1] began on 9 August 1945 with the Soviet Union’s invasion of the Empire of Japan’s puppet states of Manchukuo and Mengjiang, in Japanese-occupied Manchuria and Inner Mongolia respectively. It was the largest campaign of the 1945 Soviet–Japanese War, which resumed hostilities between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Empire of Japan after almost six years of peace.

            Original claim:

            The US used the nuke to minimize potential Soviet influence over a post war Japan

            Your rebuttal:

            A normal human could not swim the Sea of Japan. 😏

            What are you even talking about?

            • couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zipEnglish
              1·
              7 hours ago

              Ah yes, first your source was claiming they’d “liberate Tokyo” but of course you only meant ‘mainland China’