As an island nation that relied heavily on other regions throughout the Pacific Rim for natural resources, Japan was basically incapable of sustaining itself once the U.S. had occupied islands within flying distance of Japan by our heavy bombers.
Ok then. Tell me what you would have done. Japan was beaten militarily and economically, this is true. But their morale most certainly was not beaten. When they realized that their air force was no match for us, they started purposely flying their planes into ships - surely you heard of the kamikazes. They were as fanatical an enemy as you could have imgained and viewed their emperor as a god. The only way they would have stopped fighting was if their god/emperor would have told them to - and the only way to do that was to show him just what kind of destruction we could bring down. Remember, we warned the emperor what would happen if he didn't do the sane thing and accept defeat, he didn't listen.
So the choice was end the war with bloodshed quickly, or end the war with even more bloodshed slowly.
There is much debate over if Japan was about to surrender before the nuclear attacks, such as contacting the Soviet Union. Similar to the American Civil War and if slavery would have ended naturally without the fighting.
you need to go research Japan's biological weapon it developed --- and used --- on China.
Japan was months away from bombing San Fransico with cholera and plauge (clay bomblets with infected fleas) when we nuked them.
Bred the diseases to be antibiotic resistent, in fact.
Parts of China are still uninhabitable.
Things were very close to total disaster. We don't like to think that, though.
Generally ditto to most of your comment that Japan was practically defeated as a threat to the United States and allies after many of their sources of raw materials was taken from them. Also, Japan started their expansion into Southeast Asia and their war against the United States AFTER the United States stopped giving them resources such as oil and iron ore (the United States was hardly neutral before the attack on Pearl Harbor).
That statement is a perfect example of why liberal teachers are going to destroy the future.
In 1945 the World didn't have to depend on history teachers to tell them what would happen if you allowed an aggressive nation to not surrender. The Japanese will was not broken and they continued to develop new weapons and they had massive oil reserves even after they surrendered. Try getting your history from books written by someone who was there, not from someone who thinks his service to this country was spitting on US Soldiers.
Oh, so poor little Japan couldn't sustain itself because the U.S. had occupied surrounding after Japan itself had bombed Pearl Harbor and started the fight in the first place?!!
Japan's emperor was starving his own people because he was putting all he had into weapons and the war. HE was the cause of their woes - not the U.S. Hirohito sent his invading armies to surrounding islands and forcing Filipino men into military service in the Japanese army while forcing the women into becoming sex slaves for Japanese soldiers. My dad's battalion was among the first to set foot on the Japanese mainland after the surrender. You know what? The Japanese people were SO GLAD our army was there! THEY were victimized by their own government! Several of the guys who served with my dad said that the Japanese civilian police even put guards around our soldiers (as if they needed guards) to protect them from any remaining Japanese soldiers who would try to kill them!
American soldier were not even allowed to take home souvenirs - only a sword and a flag. They did not plunder and rape and take advantage of Japanese citizens.
Come to think of it, shouldn't you be asking why Japan isn't being held responsible for bombing Pearl Harbor? We were not at war with them, and weren't innocent civilians killed there as well?
Whether or not there is any modern anlaysis on its necessity, the invasions were going to happen.
Operation Olympic was slated for November of 1945. Operation Coronet was a go for the following spring. These two were the largest parts of the overall Operation Downfall.
Our WWII losses, though not the worst of all participants, were bad enough. But we may have lost an entire generation of men had Truman not made his choice.
This kind of hindsight analyis is, IMHO, mental masturbation designed to sow contoversy and, in the end, sell books.