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
    0·
    1 month ago

    There’s no other way to use a nuke, they cover too wide an area.

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

    Like, if the nukes on Japan wouldn’t have been dropped, it would have had to be more firebombing and then a ground invasion.

    The nuclear strikes on Japan represented a political decision taken by the United States, aimed squarely at the Soviet Union; it was the first strike in the Cold War.

    In August 1945, the USSR was preparing to invade Japan to overthrow its ruling fascist regime, which had been allied with Nazi Germany – which the Soviet Red Army had also just defeated in the European theater of the war.

    Washington was concerned that, if the Soviets defeated Japanese fascism and liberated Tokyo like they had in Berlin, then Japan’s post-fascist government could become an ally of the Soviet Union and could adopt a socialist government.

    The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, therefore, were not so much aimed at the Japanese fascists as they were aimed at the Soviet communists.

    https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/08/07/atomic-bombing-japan-not-necessary/

    • couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      Ah yes the Soviets were right about to checks notes start building an invasion fleet and beat the US in the race to Tokyo, thus checks notes again singlehandedly defeat fascism around the globe

      That’s some interesting alternative history you’re reading there

      • Ferrous@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        1 month 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
          0·
          1 month 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
            0·
            1 month 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
                0·
                1 month 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
                  0·
                  1 month ago

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

                  edit: to be more precise, it read like you’re choking on 1945 USSR dick so much that it’s hampering you from correctly understanding the equation for the 1945 US. It’s gone so far that it’s tickling your brain