[4Tran]

On the original subject of a nuclear war sometime in the near future, this is highly unlikely since none of the current nuclear powers are prone to starting one. The only foreseeable conflict of this nature that I find even slightly likely is if Iran gets nuclear weapons, and even in that case, it'd be Israel striking the first blow. Despite its rhetoric, Iran has no real motive for destroying Israel (or even attacking it directly, for that matter).

Originally Posted by Tri-ring

So are you making a sweeping generalization that Jews were bad?
In any case, Japan did not have anything against the ethnic Chinese in terms of racism nor did Japan had any lavish scheme to cleanse the ethnic Chinese.
Just tried to subdue the resistance through ethnic choice.(Generalization and a bad choice I know but nevertheless those are the fact)

Whether there was any official program to kill the Chinese is academic compared to how the Chinese people fared under Japanese attack and subsequent occupation. In any case, if you want to be an apologist for Japan's World War II activities, I suggest that you put up some substantitive facts to back up any of your assertions.

Originally Posted by Mumitroll

those were secondary goals. yes, some people were interested in the actual effects of a nuclear explosion with so many test subjects. and yes surely there was a certain sentiment of taking "revenge" - especially in the yellow press. however, on the top level - Truman and military lead - that was of lesser importance. the predominant goal, confirmed by many different sources quite clearly, was a power demonstration to Stalin/claiming Japan before the USSR would get there.

I don't think that the decision was as straightforward as you're making it sound. While deterring Stalin with a show of technological prowess was certainly one of the prime considerations, there was also an imperative to end the war as well. In Hasegawa's "Racing the Enemy", the sequence of events suggest that while the nuclear attacks weren't completely necessary for several reasons, the Americans had no way of knowing that. Most pointedly, they didn't know that the Soviets would be true to their word and attack Manchuria almost exactly three months after the Germans surrendered. For that matter, it seems as if Stalin knew full well about the capabilities of the nuclear weapons (and for that matter, that the U.S. had only constructed three devices), so such a demonstration wasn't necessary.

Still, the invasion of the Japanese home islands - Downfall - would have cost both the Americans and the Japanese a lot of lives, and it's in the interest of all parties that it was avoided. The Americans had expected a vast amount of casualties (500,000 Purple Heart medals were made in accordance to the estimates), and they had actually underestimated the ability of the Japanese to resist an invasion, so there would have been higher loses than they predicted.