The End of WWII - Sixty Years Ago This Month

"Carthago Delenda Est."

The Romans were so angry at the long resistance of their enemies that they slew many of the men, made all the women captives, pillaged the town, and then set fire to it. Next the mighty walls were razed, and Carthage, the proud city which had rivaled Rome for more than a hundred years, was entirely destroyed.

Thus ended the third and last Punic War, and the heroic defense of the city which the Romans had always feared, and which they would not allow to stand lest it should some day become powerful enough to rule them.

The dropping of the atom bombs on Japan has dominated remembrance of the end of the war. But there was really nothing remarkable about using the atomic weapons - to any American alive at the time, the the idea that we would have had such a destructive weapon and not have used it against our mortal foes would have been unthinkable. The obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki followed logicallly from the complete destruction wrought on Tokyo, Dresden, and other Axis cities by fire-bombing and the annhilation perpetrated by the Red Army in its invasion from the east. We had committed ourselves to seeking unconditional surrender and, given the ferocity of our enemies, that required unconditional destruction.
In the end it worked out pretty good. The destruction of the far east and Europe, combined with our good fortune in having a rival whose system of government was the most economically incompetent ever devised by man, assured America's great prosperity after the war. The afterglow of our great victory has worn off, and it is now up to us to continue to be the world's great power. Our preference for growing our population via immigration from third world countries and growing our economy via the service sector doesn't leave me particularly optimistic.