In the documentary Fog of War, Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara talks about how, as a lieutenant colonel advising Colonel Curtis LeMay during World War II, he helped plan the firebombing of Tokyo. As McNamara’s eyes fill with tears, he talks about the final days of the war: “In a single night we burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo—men, women and children.” The documentary shows the US audience the level of decimation through a comparison of Japanese and US cities.
For those of you who haven’t seen the documentary, I invite you to see this abridged clip:
McNamara talks about the event to advocate proportionality in war.
“Killing 50-90% of the people in 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve.”
But as I see the film, McNamara unintentionally undermines the legitimacy of war crimes jurisprudence as the scene comes to a close.
“What makes it immoral if you lose but not if you win?”
McNamara never comes to grip with the answer: nothing—war is war. Victors judge right and wrong, decide who is a war criminal, and write the history books (mentioned here and here; or see Marmot on the subject here and here). As horrible as the firebombing was, as horrible as Japan’s war in East Asia was, when it comes to war, the victors must fight total war until surrender. Ceasefires and conditional surrenders frequently perpetuate conflict. That is the result of war between great powers.
Which gets to my problem with war crimes. McNamara admits that “[Lemay], and I’d say I, were behaving as war criminals.” But the two never went before court to answer for their actions—they were treated as heros when they returned home victorious. In fact, the threat of war crimes trials could even encourage violence, or a stubborn refusal to surrender, if the leaders know they will be tried, executed, and relegated to perpetual historical infamy if they lose.
McNamara anticipates LeMay’s defense of the firebombing; that it saved the lives of US soldiers and possibly more Japanese people by encouraging Tokyo to surrender. Most of us agree. But would we if the US lost the war?
Get the RSS
Comments to this entry
Gabriel Mihalache
October 31, 2005
4:58 pm
The role of the rules some people try to impose, and their traditional function, was that they make continuous co-existence between the combatants possible after the issue is settle, with minimum loss of capital.
Regarding civil law, much of its value comes from the attenuation of a conflict, giving all parties a sense of fairness (preventing blood-feuds and other forms of perpetual conflicts between social groups).
If a country suffers aggression from an "uncivilized" enemy, the sole aim of its state should be to protect its citizen's property and lives. If that means that an entire country or race has to be wiped-out in an afternoon, that should be actively required of that state.
Rules can help us, even in international situations, to restrict the loss of life and capital incurred while settling a specific dispute, between civilized men/nations.
When the aggression envisages our "way of life" (trite but true), there is no redeeming value in pussyfooting around the issue and not obliterating those that fail to restrain from aggression.
All aggressors should know, and be shown as often as necessary, that any act of aggression on their part we take to mean a forfeit of their "membership" in civilized society, and that total destruction is the only future for such regimes. Only with such a doctrine we can hope in a totalitarianism-free future.
Re: "war crimes", I fail to see the merit of this notion. As far as I'm concerned, there is only aggression against a non-aggressor, which ought to be punished and deterred, and aggression against an aggressor which should be undertaken as soon as possible, with as much vigor as possible and regarded as a virtue of all free men.
Civilians are de facto capital for their regimes, therefore they are as fair game as are that regime's tanks or factories. Sad, but true. This should motivate individuals to think twice before letting murderers take hold of their government. Their failure to prevent madmen from coming to power doesn't impose any restraints of the victims of subsequent aggression.
Dan tdaxp
October 31, 2005
5:06 pm
Apparently, the comment page ate my post. I will try again:
Of course. Victory is a teachable moment.
Mammals learn best through reinforcement of random magnitude over random intervals. Lessons learned this way become deeply imprinted and hard to shake off. This can be behavioral (the reinforcement is given directly to the learner) or socially cognitive (the reinforcement is given to someone the learner observes).
The absurdist tendences of international criminal justice help this immensely. In Yugoslavia, there have been long sentences to low-level thugs while Milosevic is strung on for years. In Rwanda the courts prohibited the death penatly for the masterminds, but allowed it for grunts. Some countries get the full works, others like South Africa have a "Truth and Reconcilliation" commission.
It's the same principle in the lottery: the more unfair you make it, the more it rearranges people's minds.
Similarly, the one-off prosecutions at Nuremburg and Tokyo didn't do much good. Learners recognize one-time reinforcement for what it is: one-time. But make it a lottery, and it gets inside everyone's head.
And we are not just doing this out of some moral obligation: by criminalizing those in the Gap who cause trouble, add to the Core's stand-off capacity against them. It's just good strategy.
Sadly, not all prosecutions are so effective. Spain and Chile in particular have been very harmful. By punishing those who cooperated, it prevents future subversion of dictatorships into democracies: it teaches dictators never to give up control.
While ICJY (in Yugoslavia) and ICJR (in Rwanda) have been very helpful in punshing bad actors, and Nuremberg and Tokyo at least didn't do harm, Spain, Chile and the ICC could be disasterous. They should be recognized for the anti-peace anti-democracy actions they are.
ElamBend
October 31, 2005
5:42 pm
Thus, war my half-measures, can in many ways look more morally corupt because then the goal becomes unclear. Why prosecute a war and kill people, unless victory is the goal? If victory is not the goal, then why are we killing people and getting ours killed.
Unfortunately, the definition of victory is not always so clear, but in 1945 it most certainly was.
Although it is a cute anecdote and thus no great indicator of truth, victory over Japan was very clear to my grandfather on an LST headed for Honshu; and that victory was welcomed. As much as we destroyed Japan from the air, what greater evils might an invasion have wrecked.
mark safranski
October 31, 2005
5:43 pm
Secondly, in terms of civilian " collateral damage" which is not the same thing as " war crimes" - illegal atrocities under the standard of the customary Laws of War and the Geneva Convention - I know of know way to shield civilians from the results of policies of their duly constituted governments, either de jure or de facto.
The moral responsibility of protecting civilians there lies with their own government to conduct policies that do not bring war down on the heads of the people. So long as a belligerent power is following Geneva rules, they are fulfilling their international obligations. That the U.S. goes far above and beyond Geneva to protect enemy civilians is admirable but is really a product of technology few nations can effectively field and political concerns, it is not a legal requirement ( nor is it much appreciated or credited. Instead, the world has unrealistically high expectations that America can fight casualty-free wars if we choose).
Third, war crimes and crimes against humanity are not the same thing. Genocide may or may not be the former but it is always the latter. Humiliating a POW by parading them nude or forcing them to make propaganda broadcasts is a war crime but it is not morally on par with organizing the massacre of 100,000 Kurds, 800,000 Tutsis or 60,000 Fur. Kim Jong Il has committed crimes against humanity but he is not a war criminal.
LeMay was not a war criminal. Tojo was. Both for reasons that Robert McNamara, "Mr. Systems Analysis" is unlikely to ever grasp.
sun bin
October 31, 2005
5:47 pm
1. the crime to start an aggressive war. e.g. pearl harbor
2. the crime commited against civilians during a war. (deliberate massacre vs collateral damage)
The results of the war only determines whether the crime got punished or not. therefore, McNamara's raised a good question but also an irrelevant question.
Tojo should be tried, also colonel calley in My Lai.
From a pragmatist POV, the 2 A-bomb saved millions of lives, but the tokyo/dresden raid didn't. But this is said with the hindsight.
Therefore, Enola Gay is still a hero plane.
Without the hindsight of A-bomb being more effective tool to end the war, bombing tokyo is a mistake and arguably considered as war atrocity, you could argue it is probably cirminal (i guess we learned not to bomb civilian targets now), but it is different from my lai or nanking.
Dan tdaxp
October 31, 2005
6:01 pm
BillyBob
October 31, 2005
7:47 pm
The Hiroshima and nagazaki bombings were more war crimes than the bombings of Tokyo because they were for nothing more than spite. japan was already beaten.
Solomon
October 31, 2005
8:22 pm
I can't even grasp what is meant by "proportionality" in the clip. Proportional of what compared to what? Win the war. Defeat an *evil* enemy. That's proportional.
We firebombed Tokyo because *that's what it took to win the war*, not because we were trying to be cruel for no reason, as though the war took place in a vacuum. The city equivalencies shown in the film are really something...nothing good, though.
What would the history of the last 60 years have looked like had we fought a different war? What if we had fought merely to an armistace? How many more people in Asia would have suffered? How many more Americans? What would Japan be like as a world player today? Fortunately, we will never know.
Making equivalencies like those shown, worrying that we fight a war by the most scrupulously strict standards of abstract ethics...these are concerns that could only come from a strategist in a suit. No one in the trenches was thinking that way.
I admit I don't know that much of McNamara's history. I certainly don't know what makes him tick, so someone else can feel free to tell me if this is unfair or not, but it strikes me listening to this that he seems to feel he didn't get enough Americans killed fighting a diplomatic war in Vietnam, he wishes he could turn the clock back and do the same thing to WW2. No thanks.
War is bad for children and other living things. Starting a war and then getting ready to fight to the bitter end is bad for your people and your cities. A little more sorrow for the victims of the Japanese and a little less for the perpetrators thank you very much.
Remember that after all those bombings, *they were ready to fight on.* This was a country that went from a feudal nothing to a world power in record time. We weren't about to go away, let them rebuild and have to do it all over again, nor should we have. It would have been irresponsible of *us* to do so both with respect to our own future and the world's.
As to war crimes in general: I agree there should be standards, and that the winner sets them. Of course! Imagine what the standards would have been had the Imperial Japanese or Nazis won! So the first thing you have to do is win.
Under ordinary Marquis of Queensbury rules, it's not sporting to kick your opponent in the nuts. It would and should make you feel bad winning a fight that way. But if the guy you're fighting is coming at you with a kife and the intent to kill and you're in a circumstance where your first mistake will be your last...get out the steel toes and CRUSH THOSE BOYS. Win and survive to feel badly about it later.
I know this doesn't quite answer the question concerning the efficacy and consequences of the war crimes issue generally, I have to think about that more and I'm not sure I have an answer. The premise is so loaded it's tough getting by it.
sun bin
October 31, 2005
9:23 pm
let's first agree on what we could agree, that the objective is the minimum suffering/toll on civilian for an unconditional surrender of the 'war criminals' in Japan.
1. what is the decisive reason for the surrender?
a. island hopping
b. russian entering
c. city bombing
d. 2 nukes
i said it was the 2 nukes. you said it was the fire-bombing of tokyo and other cities. different opinions, no definite proof.
(you further claimed the nukes were showcase for the russian. that is the first time i heard of such theory)
My evidence is based on time correlation. although (b) is also highly correlated to the surrender, tokyo defnitely is not. otherwise, japan would have surrendered before august, or persist for many more months.
2. casualty count (i don't have the exact numbers, so you are welcome to challenge the data here).
a) hiroshima+nagasaki death toll less than 150k together
2) tokyo+other cities raid must be larger than 200k?
Dan tdaxp
October 31, 2005
11:17 pm
While I am not Billy Bob, I would also optimize for American lives as well as optimize for a minimal amount of area being surrendered to Stalinist tyranny.
Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace
October 31, 2005
11:28 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Travers_Harris
sun bin
November 1, 2005
1:36 am
yes, that too:)...... from US perspective.
phil
November 1, 2005
1:37 am
McNamara was a unique political figure: he was actually deeply troubled by the consequences of his decisions. But he allowed his self-flagelation to extend to whatever role he played in WW2 and thus interpreted WW2 through the lense of Vietnam and his sense of guilt.
The Germans and Japanese were brutal enemies and we had to become brutal to defeat them. But then we extended to them a generosity that is unprecedented in human history. That combination is a unique characteristic of the United States.
GI Korea
November 1, 2005
1:47 am
If an armastice was signed instead of total victory then Japan would of followed in the same pattern as Germany after World War I. After World War I Germany was not completely defeated and years later Hitler was able to use nationalism to rally his people to avenge the perceived injustices of World War I against Germany because the people in Germany after World War I never felt defeated.
After World War II the Japanese felt completely and utterly defeated which led to the change in Japanese society away from militarism and more towards economic success which as history has proven has been a much more effective way in building national power and security for Japan than just military conquest.
Curzon
November 1, 2005
3:00 am
Solomon is correct -- we prosecuted war criminals, but had the Nazis, Italians, or Japanese won, LeMay et al would have been shot without trial. We were the good guys in WWII and we are the good guys today.
I don't think McNamara is haunted by the fact that they killed -- he is worried that they killed far and beyond what was necessary, or what was proportional.
Sun Bin sums up the four causes of surrender perfectly. I disagree with GI Korea that Japan's surrender was a direct result of the impending Soviet invasion (and also with BillyBob and Sun Bin). It was a result of a combination of factors, with no one cause responsible.
Gabriel's chilling statement that civilians are "capital" to enemy regimes is scary, but may be true. The residential and commercial areas of Tokyo were devastated by the bombing. The Parliament and the Imperial Palace weren't even singed. LeMay deliberately targeted the civilians
LeMay, Sherman, and Patton... while these men were fighting on the right side, may have used not just excessive force, but vastly excessive force that resulted in the death of thousands of more civilians than was necessary. LeMay didn't bomb Japan -- he brougt his bombers down to such a low altitude they could firebomb Japan.
The death toll from the firebombing was markedly larger. 200,000 died in the atomic bombings; 900,000 were killed in the firebombings of 67 cities, with more than 1.3 million injured.
Mark: McNamara said they were behaving like war criminals, not that they were war criminals.
In the end, I'm not really sure what I think. I believe what I wrote -- and believe that everyone writing here is basically correct. It's a complex issue.
Dan
November 1, 2005
3:18 am
Perhaps, if "aggressor" is applied broadly enough. Core states must have the ability to attack states that cannot defend themselves against terrorism or export diseases even if the Gap state targeted is not an "aggressor" in the traditional sense.
Chief Wiggum
November 1, 2005
3:24 am
Hitler had victory or death mentality, which even survived his death. The Nazis did not surrender until Germany was in ruins and had literally been flooded with allied soldiers.
The bombing of Tokyo and later Hiroshima and Nagasaki need to be seen in the context of their times. There was no public objection to LeMay destroying the industrial and residential center of the Japanese empire. The American public had heard too many stories of Japanese attrocities toward subjugated people and prisoners of war. People don't show up for work to produce war materiel when there was no work to show up for. Most people felt the Japanese got what was coming to them. That does not mean the whole thing was not a horrible human tragedy.
Dan
November 1, 2005
3:31 am
Of course, it didn't work ;)
Which goes to show that the lesson-plan of the legal formalism is not as important as its implementation (it doesn't matter what you call it when it's MacArthur running the show).
sun bin
November 1, 2005
5:54 am
I just list the timing to make my argument objective enough.
The fact that the Japanese collapsed in front of the Russian was because the battle was on China's oil. Many Chinese welcome the Russians.
Had it been on Honshu, it would have been very difficult. Tojo knew that.
Gabriel Mihalache
November 1, 2005
6:46 am
In a modern, highly connected economy it is almost impossible to tell how many supply chains were disrupted. We are told of the number of civilians dead in the firebombings, but we are not told how much the output of tanks, rifles or supplies dropped.
Was it excessive? Maybe. There is such a thing as an excessive reaction against an aggressor, but I can't give you a workable criteria here.
Dan, I highly disapprove of that kind of geopolitics. We live in a civilized world were weaker states can voluntarily ask and receive help in various forms of partnership. An aggressor is an aggressor, and I can give the criteria: the threat of force (coercion) or the use of force.
Some aggressions are not punishable or preventable. That is regretable but it doesn't detract the generic principle.
sun bin
November 1, 2005
7:05 am
Given what happened in iwo jima, saipan, okinawa and those other islands, i.e., almost all civilians became fighters some point into the island-hopping exercise, it was not just the tanks and rifles that were taken out of the battle, it was also (potential) fighters in this equation.
it makes the hind-sight analysis even more complicated, and bombing tokyo could not be compared with bombing dresden?
---
again, i also said this in great respect to the bravery of japanese citizens.
Kushibo
November 1, 2005
7:09 am
Did the bombing of London weaken the resolve of the British?
Did the bombing of Tokyo weaken the resolve of the Japanese?
Did the bombing of the World Trade Center weaken the resolve of the Americans?
Alexander Karatis
November 1, 2005
12:27 pm
With regard to aggressive action being used as a demoralizer, I believe degree is the key word.
If you slap me in the face and knock a tooth out, I'd be all over your kicking and punching until I overcame my rage.
If you struck me breaking both of my legs I'd think twice before trying to strike back. First because of reduced ability, and second because I'd correlate what hapenned (you breaking my legs) and what could happen if I got up again (you dealing even more serious damage).
Demoralization is proportional to the degree of violence one uses, and the level of its success.
That forces one to consider his enemy's capabilities and whether or not he can survive aggressive action by him or survive it long enough to enact adequate aggressive action on his part.
So to answer at least one of your (rhetorica,l I presume) questions:
Did the bombing of Dresden weaken the resolve of the Germans?
No because they really believed they could win. Those that didn't DID have their resolve weakened.
The real question is-who's resolve are we talking about? The governments? The military hierarchy's? The general population's? The Armed Forces at large?
Resolve is largely dependant on what one is about to lose. So, when Hitler would absolutely lose everything had he surrendered or negotiated any truce, the German Volk could even make the case that they would win or be better off, by such actions.
Dan
November 1, 2005
1:18 pm
Yes.
From Patterns of Conflict:
The Marmot's Hole
November 1, 2005
2:00 pm
Curzon over at Coming Anarchy has another great post on the question of war crimes, citing former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s role in the fire bombing of Tokyo. Thought provoking as always, with an outstanding discussion in the com...
Mark
November 1, 2005
3:44 pm
Curzon
November 1, 2005
4:05 pm
Paul H.
November 1, 2005
7:31 pm
Don't lose sight of the practical realities of the military capabilities of the time, and also what the enemy was still capable of doing.
I don't think LeMay decided on this tactic simply as a more effective way of deliberately killing more Japanese. Even with the improved capability of the B29 as compared to previous heavy bomber models, the attempt at high level bombing of Japan was producing limited results due to:
1) extreme long range of the missions (meaning fuel load vs bomb load had to be carefully weighed). For the fire bombing LeMay had the bombers go to night missions so they could leave their defensive guns (50 cal) and the associated ammo behind.
2) Bad weather and jet stream over Japan meant significant loss of accuracy from high level. (Also a big factor over N. Vietnam 20 years later, why do civilians always seem to implicitly assume that bad weather is not a major factor?) This was another reason for going to low level (it was never done by the American heavy bombers over Germany due to the much better odds this would have afforded the extremely potent and numerous heavy German AA guns, aided by German radar abilities also superior to those of Japan).
3) After earlier being rather ineffectual, Japanese fighter opposition was getting significantly better at shooting down B29's, to include kamikaze ramming tactics. One can imagine the effect on US aircrew morale; during the war, Allied combat personnel in the Pacific theater were very much aware of the probable difference in their treatment if captured by the Japanese (as compared to being captured by the Germans).
4) dispersed nature of Japanese war production (small shops dispersed throughout the population centers).
Even after Okinawa was secured, there was still plenty of fighting going on elsewhere and throughout June and July 1945 we were still losing HUNDREDS OF MEN EACH WEEK (to include British and Australians). Significant fighting was still going on in the interior of Luzon where organized Japanese forces held out until the final surrender. And the Chinese (remember them anyone?) were suffering even worse as the Japanese retained their ground forces superiority over the corrupt Nationalist generals to the very end.
The Indianapolis was sunk on 16 July 45 with the loss of over a thousand men; that Japanese sub captain was still very effective (of course, maybe McNamara now thinks they got what they deserved...)
I wish I could wave my magic wand and send McNamara back in time, to explain to the aircrews, the sailors, and the ground troops (and their families) why they had to go on dying week after week while the arrogant Japanese high command took their time trying to decide whether they were beaten or not. For crying out loud, he was THERE and should remember this stuff better than me.
You can't separate yourself from the times in which moral decisions have to be made. It's only the capabilities of modern technology that give us, in this current time, the "luxury" of being able to agonize over such choices.
ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive » On War Crimes Part II; or “The Americans have you on their list!”
November 1, 2005
8:00 pm
Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Japan: War Crimes
November 2, 2005
3:18 am
lirelou
November 2, 2005
10:52 am
tdaxp
January 9, 2006
11:10 am
I just finished The Fog of War, which had been recommended to my by Curzon of Coming Anarchy. A brilliant documentary of Robert Strange McNamara which puts Vietnam in the context of his early career. Highly recommended. The parallels in mannerism to ...