All the targets you described are legitimate targets and can be addressed using conventional precision weapons.
There have been lots of debate about our use of nuclear weapons on Japan - and I have gone back and forth on that subject myself at different times of my life - but the moment we decided that the mass murder of innocents was justified, we lost part of our soul, losing our claim of being a Christian country.
If we take the “moral” route, defer using nukes in the Japanese theater, and decide on a good, ol’ fashioned invasion of the country, how many people, military and civilian, would have died?
Under this scenario, what does the Japanese country look like after the war?
How does the Japanese psyche develop after this?
At the conclusion of the war, given what the Japanese had done to it's neighbors, do we still worry about the “moral high ground”?
Use of nukes dramatically shortened the war, and saved casualties, a large number of them, especially on the allied side.
I make no apologies for that.
This argument about deciding to become mass murders by using nukes is a classic straw man argument. Yes, it did kill many civilians. But the effect was psychological. It showed the Japanese that they could not possibly win the war, and that it's continuance was both futile and catastrophic to the Japanese nation.
In a word, it ended it.
Today, in the Korean theater, tac nukes have limited applicability and value, so their use is not likely. Yes, I agree conventional forces, of which we have ample amounts, are the way to go, as long as the conflict remains localized.
The deeper question remains, however - what if Kim loses it, and starts delivering nukes, in whatever manner? What shall the Allied response be? Because, trust me, if nukes are indeed introduced there WILL be a response.
CA....
The B-61 earth penetrating gravity bomb is a thermonuclear weapon, of variable yield. It's minimum yield is 0.3 kT. No typo.
All the targets you described are legitimate targets
Good. We're on the same page, there. And they're examples of "countervalue" targets regardless of whether we intend to destroy them with Tritonal or Tritium ...
and can be addressed using conventional precision weapons.
Not necessarily. That may depend very much on where geographically they're located, and how well they're hardened. Remember the German U-boat pens in WWII? We never did manage to defeat them. Their Me262 factory was similarly hardened. Maybe our current "Massive Ordnance Penetrator" would manage the job ... Certainly a W-88 would do the trick.
There have been lots of debate about our use of nuclear weapons on Japan - and I have gone back and forth on that subject myself at different times of my life
AS have I. I have no use for the deliberate killing of civilians for the sake of killing civilians. Arthur Harris was a monster. OTOH, both Nagasaki and Hiroshima contained legitimate targets, and the whole business of ending the war RIGHT NOW is not to be discounted. On the third hand, the death toll for the attacks on H & N were of medium size compared to contemporaneous firebomb raids. If H&N were atrocities, so were the firebomb raids on other cities.
but the moment we decided that the mass murder of innocents was justified, we lost part of our soul, losing our claim of being a Christian country.
I think that happened in 1865. The residents of Atlanta (or of the Shenandoan Valley) would probably agree.