Soviet and U.S liberations

[Parenti]

I was just watching a documentary on PBS abou the little known Soviet invasion of Manchuria at the end of the Second World War. They liberated that part of Manchuria from the Japanese, and they really were greeted as liberators by the people, just like Cheney said we would be in Iraq. The Soviets did not attempt to set up a puppet government like we did in Iraq and they left about a year after the war ended.

[Moses]

I'm trying to remember how our dropping the atomic bombs on Japan figured into this-- perhaps those who believe it was unnecesary contend that the Japanese would have surrendered to us due to Russian threat?

[karpomrx]

My redneck old man was of the opinion that the reds jumped on Manchuria because they knew Japan was defeated after the a-bomb.
When I got old enough to check this out, I discovered that Russia had promised at Yalta that they would enter the war against Japan three months after the defeat of Germany.
It is no small thing to build up a modern army in the Russian far east. Vladivostock sits at the end of a very long double track railroad that can supply a very small number of divisions over any length of time, so the Russian army had to have 90% of their logistical support in place when they attacked.
Admiral Leahy advised Truman that the Japanese would starve by the end of the winter of 1945, so that blockade alone would force them to surrender.
The chief of staff of the army, Marshall, wasn"t so sure, and in any case, the ground had to be held by troops to guarantee victory. Some studies projected a million casualties to invade and defeat the Empire.
The US had made a massive investment in nuclear weapons development, mostly out of fear that the Germans were doing the same thing. When Germany collapsed, there we were with a weapon that represented a huge percentage of the development costs of weaponry, all dressed up and no place to go?
One of the happy political effects that might be produced would be to intimidate the commies, who had bled themselves white fighting the nazis, and weren't at all grateful for the help given to them by the west. (That aid never amounted to more than 10% of the soviet effort).
Stalin was giving lip service to freeing the areas that had been liberated by the Russian army, but no one really expected him to give up what he regarded as a buffer zone against western invasion.
So the US bright flashed Japan, and a costly,mad nuclear arms race became the legacy of the bloodiest war yet fought.

[Moses]

The US had made a massive investment in nuclear weapons development, mostly out of fear that the Germans were doing the same thing. When Germany collapsed, there we were with a weapon that represented a huge percentage of the development costs of weaponry, all dressed up and no place to go?

This is the danger we again face: Bush has shot trillions of cash into the weapons and defense contractor industry, (who probably got him selected) including restarting nuclear weapons development, bioweapons development, and we have absolutely nothing to defend ourselves against -- this is for aggression.

That is, the very existance of this beefed up military probably caused this war of aggression. If they had to gear up to defend the country, it would be better, because then we would be living up to the covenant of having a military only for defense.