Atomic bombings of Japan Necessary?

It saved 4,000,000 Japanese lives not American lives Japanese lives

Germans could not make that argument because killing 12 million people did not aid the war effort

by that logic getting a amputation is aggravated assault

Well after reading all of your posts, I'm going to completely disregard them all and give my opinion on the original question.

By August 1945, Japan was in dire straits. They were being firebombed to the point where entire sections of their cities would burn to the ground. Their navy had been destroyed through constant battles with the USN and their air forces losses dwarfed production rate. Famine was hitting the populace and most food supplies were diverted to the military and factory workers. Clearly Japan was struggling to function.

Militarily, the Japanese were preparing for an invasion. They faced a hopeless strategic situation however. The IJN was nonexistant, the Allies had air superiority if not air supremacy. In fact, the Allied navies were operating unopposed off the coast. I believe some of you are overestimating the effectiveness of civilian fighters and the army at this stage. If the Japanese remained inland and then moved to stop any landings, allied air support would devastate them before they even got to the beaches. If they assembled at the beaches, the US navy would just tear them up before the marines landed.

In conclusion, Japan would be fucked even if the bombs weren't used and the US army wouldn't suffer huge amounts of casualties, Japan would from the sustained war. Even the Emperor would be smart enough by this point to urge an unconditional surrender.

Japan would have fought to the death if we would have invaded, however i wonder if the Soviet union would have tried a direct invasion as well? Maybe there would have been a Tokyo wall?

No to both, even crazy and radical societies have their breaking point. As for the Soviets, no they weren't really capable of launching a Naval invasion.

But they where going crazy Inland, they where getting Asian territory occupied by the Japanese imperial army in a matter of months, they made Japan there bitch in a lot of battles. Stalin also relocated a good portion of the Navy to the pacific (I think he would have tried it)

But the invasion we had planned for Japan is uhh interesting (Nuke the beach with 9 nukes before hand then have us march across)

The question would have been 1. How long would the Japanese people hold out. 2. how long until the american public got sick of the war. 3. how far could the soviet union get into Japanese territory.

1. It would have depended on what the Emperor at the time had said. If he went with FIGHT UNTILL DEATH, well then litterly Japan would be in that situation. Tough Japan was still going to lose be it in 45,46,47,or 48
2. This was a main fear of the united states miltary at the time that the population would lose intrest in the war, at the end of the war there was all ready a lot of people getting a little sick of it (tough not Vietnam sick)
3. Agreed, tough i wonder how history would play out if we had Soviet Korea or Soviet Japan.

The bombing was legal because it was merely total war and total war is not illegal.

How come the leaders of IJN, IJA and the imperial Diet were not hanged. I don't see you ranting about the 30 million the Japanese killed

PS Japanese warcrimes are but not limmted to

• The massacre of 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians, Burmese and Chinese
• Widespread and unpunished looting
• Use of some 200,000 Comfort women(sex slaves)
• Forced labor some 200,000 died in Japanese work projects
• Widespread cannibalism committed by whole squads under the order of officers
• Torture of prisoners of war was used often
• Mass Use of chemical weapons
• Many of Japan's medical projects involved Human experimentation

Could you please enlighten us as to why this is nonsense

yes you could, let say the Nazis are able to defeat the USSR so there are only two ways to defeat the Nazis.

1. conventional land invasion which would cost millions of lives on both side
2. A nuclear strike on Berlin which would kill all of the German high command forcing their surrender

You would option no. 1 but wouldn't that mean you would hang yourself after all is said and done because you killed millions because you refused to commit"mass murder"