Well, I've heard[from whom?] speculation that the Japanese were on the verge of surrender anyway, and that dropping an atomic bomb was more about the US showing off their new toy and flexing their muscles than anything else. Basically kicking someone when they were down to show how hard they could kick.
Thus, instead of potentially losing the lives of soldiers on either side, or possibly losing not that many lives thanks to surrender, they caused massive civilian casualties (a total of up to 240,000 deaths according to Wikipedia), plus plans for seven more after they saw how great the first two were.
Thus, even if you argue that the atomic bombs did save soldiers' lives, they killed far more civilians, and could be argued to be war crimes which did less to encourage a Japanese surrender than Moscow's entrance into the war against Japan.
Well that's a good question you ask yourself, since speculation is just that.
There were certainly elements within the Japanese government that had wished to surrender for a long time, but the government was not in power: The military was. And the military leadership was not going to surrender.
Even after the news came of the Nagasaki bombing (when the Japanese leadership had finally got around to meeting to discuss Hiroshima), the question of whether to surrender (after 2 bombings) came to a 3-3 tie. Emperor Hirohito himself broke the tie in favor for peace.
After recording his surrender announcement for broadcast the next day, elements of the Imperial Japanese Army rebelled, killed the Prime Minister, and invaded the Imperial Palace looking for the recording (which was kept safe by one of Hirohito's advisers at great personal risk). You simply can't try to evaluate 1945 Japan in 2014 Western terms, you have no clue what the thinking was like.
> Thus, even if you argue that the atomic bombs did save soldiers' lives
I'm arguing that they saved Japanese civilian lives. Again, you have no baseline for what WWII was like if you think soldiers were the only ones to die in land combat. Look at the Battle of Okinawa for an example of what the Japanese Army did to the civilians of Okinawa.
And if you want to remove "speculation" from your vocabulary, I recommend Michael Kort's "The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb".
I honestly don't know much about this topic but i was curious and found an article (http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html) that seems to indicate that japan was willing to surrender for months prior to the bombs, but not unconditionally, but the united states and the UK refused anything but an unconditional surrender.
It also discusses how conventional bombs were doing a fine job of systematically destroying the country (and population), waiting would have likely produced the same effect as japan was blockaded and staving, as a show of force a military base would have been just as effective and how "Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population."
It finishes with "General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of US Army forces in the Pacific, stated on numerous occasions before his death that the atomic bomb was completely unnecessary from a military point of view: "My staff was unanimous in believing that Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender.""
It doesn't seem like there is much to speculate on. However this is a random internet article and could be rather biased.
>elements of the Imperial Japanese Army rebelled, killed the Prime Minister
> It also discusses how conventional bombs were doing a fine job of systematically destroying the country (and population), waiting would have likely produced the same effect as japan was blockaded and staving
So now ask yourself:
Is it ethically better to use conventional weaponry to kill more people over a longer time? Conventional weaponry was used to firebomb Tokyo in March 1945; more people died in that one series of day/night raids than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
And they're saying this was better.
They're also claiming that having a Japan "blockaded and starving" while we waited them out is ethically better.
However difficult it is to precisely target an atom bomb, starvation is even more difficult to use as a weapon (as they're proposing): it doesn't obey rules of engagement, you can't direct at military objectives... hell, it would actually preferentially kill civilians, starting with the weakest, since the military would ensure they received higher rations.
And this is always how this argument devolves: People suggesting things which are actually even more cruel since they find it axiomatic that there is no worse thing you can do to someone than to use a single very big bomb to kill them instead of a million tiny little cumulative cuts.
(Edited to correct the subject proposing the bomb-'em-all argument).
As far as MacArthur, he and his staff were certainly not alone in their estimate of the political situation in Japan. FDR's military aide, Adm. Leahy, also thought that the bomb was unnecessary, as did Adm. Nimitz in Honolulu.
On the other hand, Leahy also thought the bomb would never work (he even used his "expertise in explosives" to support that argument).
And both FDR and Truman had been briefed regarding the two proposed upcoming invasions (of Kyushu and then Honshu) that the American and Japanese casualties would be monumental.
MacArthur was always thought he was the politician as much as he was the general; it's the reason he was fired from his service in the Korean War despite his absolutely brilliant orchestration of the Incheon landings to save the war effort for the U.N.
He's not even wrong in this regard though: Using the atom bomb was not absolutely militarily essential. As your article mentions, we could simply haved starved them all to death instead, like the ethical and noble creatures that we are.
Thus, instead of potentially losing the lives of soldiers on either side, or possibly losing not that many lives thanks to surrender, they caused massive civilian casualties (a total of up to 240,000 deaths according to Wikipedia), plus plans for seven more after they saw how great the first two were.
Thus, even if you argue that the atomic bombs did save soldiers' lives, they killed far more civilians, and could be argued to be war crimes which did less to encourage a Japanese surrender than Moscow's entrance into the war against Japan.