this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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People tend to forget that carpet bombing cities with millions of pounds of traditional and/or incendiary bombs was the status quo for all sides. Not even factoring in the troops that were soon to land on Japan, many more likely would have died from the continued bombing campaigns.
The common debate is that the bombs didn’t exactly force Japan to surrender, and that it was the threat of the imminent USSR participation in the war that did.
I believe the reason for this is that there are transcripts as well as timelines of the Japanese government’s upper echelons that sort of demonstrate the bombs didn’t have as big of an impact on them as a potential USSR participation.
But the whole thing is a bit hazy, and I have no doubts the bombs at the very least put a big amount of pressure on the Japanese government at the time.
From what I know there was a big "they only got one" mentality that pushes them to surrender when they realised they were wrong.
I'm lead to understand that using them on Japan wasn't really about Japan either. US officials knew that following the war, things were going to go south with the USSR, and so used the bombs as a show of force to the Russians.