I guess your plan could work though it would cost billions to constantly hold the blockade on the other side of the world. You also have the problem of revolts. The Soviet Union is quite close and could smuggle in weapons. They could easily do what Vietnam and Philippines did. Constant guerrilla attacks that would cost the US billions as well thousands of men power to police the country. Afghan has already bankrupt the nation enough. You want to police a country on the other side of the world.

sleepingzzz

You seem to be confusing the present with the past. Of course you couldn't do it now, but it could have been done back in 1945. Do you know what a hypothetical question is?

You're proposing they have a diet of 500 calories a day...

sleepingzzz

Furthermore, this thread is a hypothetical question about what would people do if they were Harry Truman, in 1945, and not about current policy. I certainly hope that you can tell the difference.

You're proposing they have a diet of 500 calories a day...

sleepingzzz

I guess you didn't read the follow up posts. I actually proposed that Truman should have scuttled their entire fishing fleet and set up a blockade to stop all imports into Japan...on top of nuking the empire of Japan and demanding that the entire royal family be turned over to US forces for immediate execution. The 500 calories was a guess.

Proposing genocide on the Japanese because their leaders sent a sneak attack on the US is bit too much don't you think?

sleepingzzz

No one here has proposed genocide or anything like it.

Victory conditions that impose permanent poverty are not genocide.

And would've left the United States deprived of what has become one of its most valuable trading partners in the entire world. . .

MetroidPrimePwn

My issue with this point is that the trade appears to be a one way street, with the Japanese government actively blocking US exports to their country in order to protect their own business interests. I think that we would have been better off without such an ally.

Umm yes. But by correct logic. The US only wanted to protect its own colonial empire.

Tokugawa77

Everyone can see it now. This individual claims that the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese sans declaration of war or prior notice of hostilites was justified.

This attitude is EXACTLY why the atomic bombings were not only justified, but necessary.

Why don't you learn history before you judge it.

Tokugawa77

Are you claiming that the unprovoked and cowardly attack on Pearl Harbor was justified by some nebulous tortured logic?

And what good would crippling their entire country do? It's just revenge for the sake of revenge. If we instituted any of your completely insane and barbaric ideas Japan wouldn't be anything like the economic powerhouse it is today. What good did that do for Europe after crippling Germany with WW1 reparations? I don't know what else to say except that I find your ideas on exerting revenge on the Japanese people to be morally reprehensible. We've seen how it works, and it ends with terrible results. HoolaHoopMan

I seem to recall that Carthage stopped being a problem for Rome after the Romans pretty much devasted their country beyond repair. You act as if bringing a country down to the point of absolute ruin can't win a war against said country. There are countless examples in history of countries ruined beyond repair no longer posing a threat to their neighbors.

As an example, I point to the Spanish Reconquista, with a particular emphasis on the conquest of the Duero and Ebro valleys, which were vitally important to the Moorish kingdoms of Al Andalus. It wasn't the territorial loss of those valleys that did them in, because of the fact that the Christians lacked the population with which to actually colonize and maintain control of the valleys for a very long time. What did the Moors in was the Christian-Spanish penchant for stripping entire provinces of all of their agricultural infrastructure and causing famine in the cities that depended on it.

Bringing a country to absolute ruin can, in fact, defeat said country on a very long-term basis.

I'm sorry, but are you really saying that you would approve of limiting the entire Japanese population to a mere 500 calories a day? HoolaHoopMan

Not de jure, just de facto. Squashing all of their imports and scuttling their fishing fleet would accomplish something like that without having to place any limits.

What you propose would have condemed the nation to economic backwardness and it could never have recovered from the war to become one of the worlds strongest economies.

Tokugawa77

Which would have been an appropriate punishment for the cowardly attack on Pearl Harbor.