Hiroshima

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by Letum

"Primeminister, I have a plan to end the war a hour earlier! All we need to do is drop 150 nukes on the 150 cities that Angela Merkel could be in, then she will be dead and Mr P. Oppermann can declare the surrender a hour early!"

The priminister replies:
"but Mr Vogel! this will result in the killing of millions, the pollution of land for years to come and the total destruction of thousands of years of heritage!"

"don't worry about that" replies Mr Vogel "the only reason to be worried by that would be a sense of morality, but as I persuaded you earlier, morality is irrelevant in a time of war"

Again, the priminister replies:
"but what would we gain? our troops are not dieing in combat anymore and Germany is no longer a threat, they will surrender in a hour anyway"

To which Mr Vogel says:
"speeding up the war is a good thing, it is the objective of war, and there is no down side because we don't need the nukes anyway and it will cost far more to de-arm them then it will to launch them. All other considerations are moral ones and as I explained, moral considerations are unimportant when we have our eyes on military success."

So SB, the question remains exactly the same, but with a picture painted for you.

Surely you can not condone such a plan as Mr Vogel proposes, but if you consider morality to be absent from warfare, on what grounds do you discredit his plan?

Despite the ridiculousness of this scenario, its very ridiculousness makes it easy to counter. Practical advantages to not nuking:
1) More of Germany to provide reparations when this is over.
2) More of Germany to trade with (prosperity) once the occupation is over.

Well, two reasons are more than enough, considering the horribly marginal advantage of the nuking in your ridiculous scenario. Further, it is actually rather dubious that Mr. O will still be in the line of succession after being imprisoned by you, or even if he officially is will be recognized as such after you nuke Germany.

In fact, the most likely result of your ridiculous idea is that official surrender will be further delayed as what's left of Germany tries to find out who's the senior surviving leader, that the cloud of radioactive dust engulfs another country, including England itself, which creates definitie losses for England. In fact, your nuking may also serve as the catalyst that causes the remaining Germans to fight you even if they only have a pitchfork left (Germans apparently were much more enthusiastic in fighting the Soviets than fighting the Americans in WWII). When all that is considered, one hardly needs "morality" to accept that throwing away a sure thing 1 hour from now for a risk fraught thing one hour earlier is definitely a bad decision.