By the time Pear Harbor came along, Japan had been at war for 10 years in China.
When they invaded Hong Kong and Singapore the troopers of the Japanese Imperial Army burst into hospitals and simply bayonetted patients right in their beds as they were being cared for.
After the Atomic Bombings in fact there was great celebration in much of Asia.
The American view of warfare in Asia at that general time starts on Dec. 7th and ends with Nagasaki. That is appropriate somehow but that view is skewed.
There are 100 wonderful things about Japan but accurate widespread teaching of Japan’s role in Asia is….so/so. There has been no process of reflection in Japan on her role, as took place in Germany and with things afoot in Asia again, well…such reflection would not now be constructive, probably.
Less than 1% of US teachers understand why Japan REALLY surrendered.
The Atomic bombings made a HUGE impression on the Japanese, but they were not the key reason:
The Churchill/FDR/Stalin meeting at Potsdam stipulated that after the defeat of Germany the USSR would make haste to assist the Brits and the US in the fall of Japan.
With Stalin’s grab of Eastern Europe becoming more and more obvious, the American side naturally wondered what a post-war Japan would look like: Germany itself and Korea had not yet been carved up but there was strong foreshadowing of events there:
If Stalin’s contributions to Japan’s fall were strong, Japan would clearly have to be subdivided.
How much? Less if her fall came sooner, and more if her fall involved Stalin more.
The Japanese made inquiries about whether or not a surrender to the USA could include a continuation of the Emperor system, and the answer was positive.
She surrendered and Japan remained whole —almost:
The only truly Japanese islands she lots are still lost to this day —to *Russia*, north of Hokkaido.
If Japan had been told clearly that the whole Imperial Family would be destroyed it is very likely we would have seen a North Japan/South Japan divide, just like we see in Korea to this day.
The bombs made a huge contribution to her defeat but there was some very important politics going on, behind the scenes.
[ There are 100 wonderful things about Japan but accurate widespread teaching of Japan’s role in Asia is….so/so. There has been no process of reflection in Japan on her role, as took place in Germany and with things afoot in Asia again, well…such reflection would not now be constructive, probably. ]
I wonder, if we had really forced Japan to repent like Germany would Japan have shifted into a multicultural cesspool of “white-guilt” like Germany is in today and would they now have a Muzzie problem like Germany has today?????
Japan today is still apologetically Xenophobic to a certain degree and that seems to be good thing in light of all this crazy immigration issues that are going on in Europe.