Did the US ever considered peace with the Japanese?

[Marcelo Jenisch]

Hello,

I was wondering if apart from the actual Japanese conditions of surrender, during the war, specially in 1942 and 1943, the US ever considered to make a compromised peace with the Japanese. Or at least if this was considered by Washington as a hypothesis had for instance, the Soviets were defeated on the Eastern Front. Is there any records about this?

[steverodgers801]

The attack on Pearl ensured that the mere rumor of such a considering would have resulted in a impeachment of Roosevelt.

[aghart]

This only needs a one word answer. No!

[LineDoggie]

Hello,

I was wondering if apart from the actual Japanese conditions of surrender, during the war, specially in 1942 and 1943, the US ever considered to make a compromised peace with the Japanese. Or at least if this was considered by Washington as a hypothesis had for instance, the Soviets were defeated on the Eastern Front. Is there any records about this?

From January 1943 it was US Policy set by FDR that the Axis powers would have to surrender Unconditionally

[CharlesRollinsWare]

Peace with Japan - Yep - in August 1945 -- prior to that the US attitude can be summed up this way: "When this war is over the Japanese language will only be spoken in hell." Bonus points if you know who's quote this is

Mark

[mikegriffith1]

There were some in FDR's administration who wanted peace with Japan, but too many key players in the White House did not, including FDR. Japan made some reasonable peace offers, but FDR rejected them all. The most comprehensive and balanced treatment I've seen of Japan's peace efforts is John Toland's treatment in The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire.

[paulrward]

Hello All :

It might have been possible for the Japanese to negotiate a peace treaty with the United States had they been victorious at Midway, and then taken the Hawaiian Islands before the end of 1942, as they had planned after the Doolittle Raid. In effect, they would have been negotiating from a position of strength, with a victorious army and navy, and might have forced the United States to accept that the de facto shift in the balance of power in the Pacific could become a de jure reality.

However, after Midway, and then the Solomons Campaign, it was obvious to the leadership of the United States that Japan not only could be defeated, but with the growth of U.S. Military power due to the overwhelming mass of the U.S. Industrial Complex, Japan inevitably would be beaten.

At that point, there was no reason for the United States to negotiate with Japan. Japan had attacked the United States without warning or provocation, killed thousands of American citizens, destroyed billions of dollars worth of U.S. Property, and had also attacked without provocation several U.S. Allies. The Japanese could not be trusted to ' play nice ' , and giving them a peace treaty without inflicting on them such a brutal defeat and the results of such a defeat ( Occupation, disarmament, replacement of the Imperial Government, and total replacement of their societal structures and ethos ) would only mean that the Japanese could, after a period of rebuilding and re-arming, attempt to militarily destroy the United States a second time, almost certainly with a similarly premeditated sneak attack that would once again kill U.S. citzens and plunge the United States back into a war.

When two nations are negotiating, if they are of equal strength, they negotiate as equals. When one nation is weaker than the other, it must accept that fact, negotiate as the lesser party, and be willing to accept the crumbs granted to it by the stronger nation. Japan refused to accept this concept, and attempted to change the equation militarily. They failed. Then, they refused to accept their failure, and fought on in a desperate attempt to regain some sort of equality with the United States. Had Japan won the Battle for the Philippines, or Okinawa, or Iwo Jima, they might have had a chance to do this. Unfortunately for Japan, they failed, again and again, each battle leaving them militarily weaker, and, with a gathering strength of the U,S. Bombing campaign against the Home Islands, industrially weaker as well.

Eventually, Japan, like a losing chess player, simply ran out of pieces on the board. Now, an adult player, recognizing his defeat, simply reaches out, topples his king, and concedes defeat. Japan, like a stubborn four year old child, refused to do that. Instead, they threw tantrum after tantrum, refusing to surrender, refusing to accept occupation, refusing the agree to the dissolution of their government.

In dealing with such a child, eventually an adult will grab the kid by the shirt, bend him over a chair, and use a leather belt on his bare buttocks until the child's screams turn to sobbing moans. At that point, the child is sent to bed with no supper and the promise that if he EVER behaves like that again, he will get TWICE the whipping.

This is how you raise polite, intelligent children who are capable of accepting society's norms of behavior. Those children who are not taught in this manner, or who are in some way mentally incapable of understanding that misbehavior has consequences, generally end up in the prison system, where they find similar forms of education are applied to them.

In the five decades from 1894 onward, the Japanese had attacked China without a Declaration of War, occupied Korea, attacked Russia without a Declaration of War, occupied numerous Pacific islands, occupied Manchuria, attacked China again without a Declaration of War, occupied French IndoChina, and then attacked the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, and invaded their territories, without Declarations of War.

So the United States simply refused to listen to the blustering and tantrums, gave Japan the whipping they deserved, and told them to act nice or the next time it would be MUCH worse for them.

In the seven decades since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan has NOT ONCE attacked a single one of it's neighbors, and has not gone to war with anyone.

And the United States got the exactly the kind of ' Peace ' they wanted from Japan.


Respectfully :

Paul R. Ward


Oh yeah. Did I mention that the United States STILL has that belt....

[Rob Stuart]

Peace with Japan - Yep - in August 1945 -- prior to that the US attitude can be summed up this way: "When this war is over the Japanese language will only be spoken in hell." Bonus points if you know who's quote this is

Mark

Halsey, 8 December 1941

[OpanaPointer]

There were some in FDR's administration who wanted peace with Japan, but too many key players in the White House did not, including FDR. Japan made some reasonable peace offers, but FDR rejected them all. The most comprehensive and balanced treatment I've seen of Japan's peace efforts is John Toland's treatment in The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire.

The best "offer" Japan made was "give us everything we want, everything we need, and stop helping China!"

[OpanaPointer]

Peace with Japan - Yep - in August 1945 -- prior to that the US attitude can be summed up this way: "When this war is over the Japanese language will only be spoken in hell." Bonus points if you know who's quote this is

Mark

Halsey, 8 December 1941

Upon entering Pearl Harbor aboard his flagship, USS Enterprise.

[Mori]

Eventually, Japan, like a losing chess player, simply ran out of pieces on the board. Now, an adult player, recognizing his defeat, simply reaches out, topples his king, and concedes defeat. Japan, like a stubborn four year old child, refused to do that. Instead, they threw tantrum after tantrum, refusing to surrender, refusing to accept occupation, refusing the agree to the dissolution of their government.

In dealing with such a child, eventually an adult will grab the kid by the shirt, bend him over a chair, and use a leather belt on his bare buttocks until the child's screams turn to sobbing moans. At that point, the child is sent to bed with no supper and the promise that if he EVER behaves like that again, he will get TWICE the whipping.

This is how you raise polite, intelligent children who are capable of accepting society's norms of behavior. Those children who are not taught in this manner, or who are in some way mentally incapable of understanding that misbehavior has consequences, generally end up in the prison system, where they find similar forms of education are applied to them.

This whole part is an interesting piece because of how much it shows of the "hierarchy between races" approach, even today. It actually sounds a lot like Japanese mindset of the time: all Asian people are a family, Japan being the father and the other countries/races the children. In your case, the US are the father and the Japanese a child.

The words on Japanese being "mentally incapable" etc. are especially revealing.

And shocking.

[DrG]

Mori, I don't think racism has anything to do with this attitude. It is more a matter of denial of reality, i.e. the idea that Japan really signed an unconditional surrender just because that piece of paper had this name. Names and facts are quite different things: Japan kept its Emperor, its industrial complex (renamed keiretsu in place of zaibatsu: what a revolution!) and was allowed to become a prosperous country, far from the stone-age wasteland that US extremists would have wished it to be.

With regards to the last point, it is obvious that the first aim of Japanese foreign policy in the late Thirties and in WW2 was the creation of an economic area in which Japan would be the leading economy (the so-called Asian coprosperity sphere), but it should also be clear that, once this target became clearly unattainable, the second best objective, i.e. the full participation of Japan to the soon-to-be established American system of free trade, was taken into serious consideration by Japanese leaders, who where not all warmongers or narrow-minded imperialists.

After the surrender, the Japanese were allowed several weeks to destroy and/or hide whatever documents and weapons they wished before the tiny American occupation force (practically a hostage of the Japanese people, given the huge disparity of numbers) landed. This is not exactly the kind of treatment applied to a country that has surrendered really without the slightest condition. But, of course, US public opinion would not have accepted anything less than full revenge, and this is what it was (and still is!) made to believe.

[DrG]

Returning to the opening question of this topic, we should bear in mind that peace is signed with the enemy. It is obvious, at first glance, but when propaganda demonizes the enemy, turning it into a criminal (if not a full monster), the admission that the same enemy has managed to negotiate something, instead of accepting its crime and punishment, is very difficult to accept by public opinion.

Therefore, I have never read that top US politicians were willing to sign an armistice with Japan on the latter's conditions, and I would be very surprised if this idea ever surfaced in the minds of the US Government, but an armistice that allowed the US Armed Forces to avoid the invasion of Japanese mainland was certainly taken into account, even if this would have meant accepting some Japanese conditions (if possible without admitting it openly). And, as I have written above, this is a matter of historical fact, not a hypothesis, given the outcome of WW2, if we analyze it just going a little under the surface of mere words.

[CharlesRollinsWare]

Peace with Japan - Yep - in August 1945 -- prior to that the US attitude can be summed up this way: "When this war is over the Japanese language will only be spoken in hell." Bonus points if you know who's quote this is

Mark

Halsey, 8 December 1941

Rob;

Always knew you were a smart and well read gentleman! According to several USN aviators that flew at Midway that had been on the ship since that day, when that was circulated around the ship consensus was that Halsey had expressed their intentions to a tee

Mark

[paulrward]

Hello All :

Mr. Mori Stated ;

This whole part is an interesting piece because of how much it shows of the "hierarchy between races" approach, even today. It actually sounds a lot like Japanese mindset of the time: all Asian people are a family, Japan being the father and the other countries/races the children. In your case, the US are the father and the Japanese a child.

The words on Japanese being "mentally incapable" etc. are especially revealing.

And shocking.

Mr. Mori, this has nothing to do with race. It has to do with culture, education, and mindset. The Citizens of the Roman Empire were mentally incapable of accepting that non-Romans were anything other than ' Barbarians ' to be exploited as slaves, with their lands to be conquered Provinces. The medieval Christians were mentally incapable of accepting any other religious faiths as anything but ' Heresy ', to be expunged by torture and burning at the stake. The European settlers of the American Frontiers were mentally incapable of understanding that the natives of North America were anything but ' Savages ' to be extermnated or left to starve on uninhabitable ' Reservations '. Lyndon Johnson, in his dealings with North VietNam, demonstrated again and again, that he was mentally incapable of grasping the fact that Ho Chi Minh could NOT be bribed with a little foreign aid into accepting the bifurcation of his country. And, as I write this, it appears that large numbers of individuals who make up the American Media are mentally incapable of accepting the fact the Donald Trump won the election for President ! It has NOTHING to do with race !


Prior to WW2, the average U.S. citizen considered himself a well educated, spiritually moral and intellectually open minded individual. The fact that overwhelming numbers of Americans were ( and in my opinion, to some extent still are ) racists, either openly or covertly, shows that this idea could be open to debate..... ( As a side note, I am forced to consider myself well within the Standard Deviation Curve of Average Americans )

Prior to WW2, the average Japanese was convinced that Japan was the leading nation on earth in terms of cultural and intellectual development, and that the citizens of other nations were ' Gaijin '. In fact, a Japanese General, during WW2, was relieved of his command and transferred to a lesser post because, during a speech, he made reference to the people of Singapore as being "citizens of the Empire of Japan". This was considered embarrassing to the Imperial Government, which intended to set up a system whereby the inhabitants of the territories that Japan had conquered were NOT to be considered as Japanese Citizens, but rather as a form of second class persons.



Some of this sentiment still persists, 70 years after the end of the WW2. In fact, in 2015, a Pew Research Poll found that while Japan and the U.S. mutually respect each other, they tend to see each other's societal traits very differently. The survey found that 68% of Americans say that Japanese are greatly trustworthy, and 75% of Japanese say they feel the same toward the United States. However, while 94% of Americans view Japanese as hardworking, only 25% of Japanese reciprocate that view. And while only 19% of Americans view Japanese as selfish, 47% of Japanese say Americans are selfish.

75% of Americans view Japanese as honest, compared with only 37% of Japanese who have that view about Americans.

Professor Jennifer Lind of Dartmouth College and a 2014 Sasakawa Peace Foundation Fellow in Tokyo, expressed surprise at some of the findings, including the fact that nearly 25% of Japanese polled think Americans are not inventive or hardworking. "That's pretty shocking given that America leads the world in innovation, and also given data on how many working hours and how few vacations Americans log every year," ( figures from Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development show that the average Japanese employee worked 1,735 hours in 2013, less than the 1,788 hours worked by the average American.)


In conclusion, Mr. Mori, you placed some words in my mouth that I strongly disagree with. You state:

In your case, the US are the father and the Japanese a child.

I must strongly disagree. I have NEVER felt that Japan was childish or immature. Japan, at the start of WW2 had a history of over 2000 years as a nation, with strong political, economic, cultural, and religious traditions that far pre-dated those of the United States.

When the United States was bombing Japan, it wasn't like a Father spanking a Child, it was instead very similar to an unusually viscious and sadistic Prison Guard using a lead pipe to inflict a cruel, savage, and crippling beating on a defenceless , handcuffed Convict....



The appropriate quotation for this sort of activity is, " What we have here is a..... FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE ! You're gonna get your mind right now, Luke.... "



Respectfully :

Paul R. Ward