The Terrible Magic of Atomic Weapons | George Friedman Interview

[cspdx]

my family still has the letter written by my grandfather who had already fought in Iwo Jima and told our grandmother that he would not be back as they were preparing to invade Japan and there would be little chance of living

[robertcece]

George Friedman GIVE MORE SPEECHES. I check YT every week looking for new speeches (the longer 1 hour ones) please do more.

[dennisdonovan]

I'm not a historian and would never purport to know what the true determinants were in the decision making process that led to the selection of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the way to demonstrate the "Terrible Magic" of an atomic bomb blast on a civilian population center to bring about unequivocal cessation of hostilities between Japan and the US but... It gave Japan a seemingly unambiguous message to unconditionally surrender. Please believe me when I say "If I could alter the past in such a way as to avoid the use of those atomic bombs and produce the same result - I would."

More importantly for us that are living today and hoping to be alive tomorrow is: "How can we avoid the use of "Terrible Magic" when trying to convince others of who's right and who's wrong". That said, I believe the Genie is definitely out of the bottle and my fear is that he will be performing some very "Terrible Magic".

[alexp.]

Friedman is a good spin-master of counterfactual history; you got to give him credit for that.

[cspdx]

Friedman is extremely accurate throughout this entire interview

[antskilu]

mao was mad but didint use it, , but he gave it to the pakistanis, how he cud be sure thet pakistan wont use or sell it further.. hrushev gave nukes to china but then realized what they have done and halt operation, but it was too late and first test happend at hruchev birthday..soutafrica, kazahstan, ukraine gave up their arsenal and syria with some help from abroad.

[draganstanic]

Message from this speech you could get from " Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" movie, and be much better entertained as well.

[stevepax]

We've had to "take a bet on the sanity of one guy" right here in America.

[alexp.]

The most fascinating part is that George never mentions that the Soviet Army had crushed the entire 2 million Japanese Army in Manchuko and deprived Japan of its Chinese Manchuria literally weeks before the dropping of the bomb. George you are a poor historian.

[xborzi]

My bet is that it will be either North Korea or Pakistan to start WW III.

[faithvirtue]

Truman dropped the bombs as a cynical show of force to intimidate Stalin. Japan had already surrendered. Nuclear bombing both cities were two of numerous American genocides – beginning with a conquering the new world from sea to shining sea, ravaging and destroying one country after another ever since, endless wars of aggression continuing today.

Japan was defeated ready to surrender when Truman authorized testing America’s new toy in real time – twice, not once. Not to win a war already won. To show Soviet Russia America’s new might, what its leadership already knew, what might follow against its cities if Washington decided to attack its wartime ally.

US leaders always considered human lives expendable. Many thousands of Japanese victims were considered a small price to pay.