And arguably, nuclear weapons are keeping the world at peace. Sure, everyone has them pointed at each other, but it’s that threat that keeps us honest and peaceful. Just like how drivers in Chicago are courteous and never honk their horn - you’ll get shot if you drive like a dick.
This was a popular myth that Truman started. In fact, if we’d told the Japanese we would let them keep their emperor, they almost certainly would have surrendered. The Soviets had just entered the war in the Pacific and we wanted to end it before they captured much territory. Ironic since the Japanese had no intention to risk a Soviet occupation either.
The Empire also planned to resist a speculated US and Soviet invasion as leverage to negotiate better peace terms. The expected Japanese casualties (that is, the Japanese military's own estimates) of this planned defense numbered in the tens of millions. The Japanese high command deemed this an acceptable number of casualties and went forward with the planned defense.
Er, no.
The nuclear bombs were dropped on August 6 and August 9. The USSR announced it's declaration of war at 11pm Trans-Baikal time August 8, and began invasion at 12:01am August 9. So, at the commencement of the atomic bombing, the Soviets had not just entered the war.
> and we wanted to end it before they captured much territory.
So, what you are saying is that he Soviet entry into the war, absent the nuclear bombings, would put pressure on the US to grant Japan more lenient peace terms. Maybe that's true, but I'm not sure how that's an argument against the bombings.
We are just 70 years out but these crimes against humanity will haunt for generations to come.
This is a deliberate calculated war crime. Hundreds of thousands of people were burned, suffocated and boiled to death in seconds let alone the radiation for no good reason. No educated person is unaware of the horror of launching a nuclear bomb on a civilian population. This is an act of evil.
How many countries have used nuclear weapons? Why do you think nuclear weapons are controlled and treated as a separate class of weapons under strict control?
between armies
Again, there were more Japanese civilian deaths by conventional bombing than by both atomic bombs combined.