Some count Mussolini’s Italy, as it was the third in the Axis for whatever that was worth.
1 Like
From my point of view better WW2 would haven been one without Continuation War. My granddad could walk and wasn’t a nazi collaborator and we would still have Petsamo.
3 Likes
Seeing as nukes have not been used since I think we have to assume the timing of their use it WW2 had some effect on this period of stability. Maybe by their being the absolute conclusion of the war meant people were able to reflect and see the horrors in retrospect rather than just as another piece of an escalation.
2 Likes
Thanks for the tip! I must confess that I haven’t even heard of either of them. Hope I can find a version with subtitles.
Re: tactical nuclear weapons - bit of an on-and-off hobby horse. I spent almost a year guarding some once, got me interested in the subject. Limited nuclear strike exchange still is one of my favourite euphemisms ever.
1 Like
The Soviet Union didn’t just amass troops. Immediately upon declaring war they invaded Manchuria and crushed the main Japanese army there in a major battle.
3 Likes
The good thing about the advent of nuclear weapons, if that is the right way to put it, is that1) suddenly there was no “safe behind lines” anymore. Which is something even especially paranoid dictators understand.
1) In combination with the delivery system. One isn’t really that powerful without the other.
Incidentally, Einstein’s letter2) to FDR speaks of a device delivered by boat. The bomb was a couple of years into development when it became clear that it would just about be possible to fit it into an airplane; helped by the development of bigger planes like the B-29 and new tactics to fly those planes. This is where the names LeMay and Spaatz crop up again.
2) Which really was Szilard’s and Teller’s letter.
1 Like
My favourite “better WW II” is when in 1936 the signatories to the Treaties of Versailles and Locarno called Hitler’s bluff and opposed the remilitarization of the Rhineland.
Both are available on DVD with English subtitles. I really can’t recommend these enough.
Military jargon is fun stuff. I just dug a book out of storage on American war slang from the war of independence Civil War through Desert Storm.
A point often missed in disarmament discussions is the observation that shields are more dangerous than swords.
The factor that drives war isn’t “we have the power to destroy our enemies”. It’s “we’re invulnerable; we can be as dickish as we like and no-one can stop us”. Even worse is “we’re invulnerable now, but if we don’t destroy our rivals immediately we might become vulnerable”.
This is why the nuclear control treaties strongly prohibited the sorts of missile defence systems that the USA has been burning money on since Reagan (in blatant defiance of said treaties). As soon as a nuclear power has a reliable anti-ICBM defence, MAD stops working.
3 Likes
Theodore Roosevelt was a science-fiction (Or was it scientifiction then?) fan. I read somewhere that he had H. G. Welles as a guest at the White House. What if he started a low-level nuclear research program before leaving office?
Another uranium enrichment process tried and dropped was liquid diffusion through porous ceramic blocks in series. The lighter isotopes would go through more quickly than the heavier ones.
I have also read that one intended payload for the V-2 was short-lived radioisotopes. However, the rockets were never reliable enough. That is, a large fraction blew up over German-held territory.
My understanding is that wasn’t so much the possibility of invasion and occupation by the Soviets that figured in the decision to surrender as it was the lack of the Soviets as a diplomatic channel to negotiate better terms of surrender. There is some thought that part of the reason that they didn’t surrender after one bomb is that they knew enough from their research to believe that the US probably only had one. Even one or two a month would probably be responsible for fewer square miles of urban area destroyed than the firebombing program was achieving.
I use Google Play Books as my ebookmonger, mostly because they allow me to upload my DRM free books to a syncing library. I would like to give BoingBoing referral candy, but I cannot do that without a referral link.
Sounds like you should write a book.
I think I’m sold. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a new Benford solo effort.
1 Like
Dr. Benford (Gregory) is a delight to read. I love these plot teasers and will buy the book. Thanks for continuing to expand our minds and foster the creative spirit, Gregory.
2 Likes
This does not match up with any of the primary or secondary sources I’ve read in Japanese. Do you have a source for this?
I don’t for the life of me remember where I read it. So much of the deliberative process in the surrender has been covered up and changed in an attempt by both the Japanese and the Americans to minimize the emperor’s role in the conduct of the war that I don’t think that we will EVER know how those deliberations went down.
yes, I included Italy since was thought to be powerful; war proved otherwise.
1 Like
In my novel Dresden’s not bombed at all. War over in 1944.
Yes! I saw the original with Toshiro Mifune. Now my interest is piqued to find the remake. Thanks for the recommend!
There is a chapter devoted to it in Eric Durschmeid’s book “The Blood of Revolution”.
