See also: people who claim that the atomic bombings of Japan saved lives, and the people who claim that white people deserve credit for being the people who ended slavery in the United States.
1) Japanese military leaders were planning to continue fighting until no citizens were left: "even if the Japanese people die, their spirit will live on."
Surrender rates in previous island battles were on the order of 1% (ie. 99% killed or seriously injured.)
2) the Japanese people were facing starvation had the war continued. The early surrender helped with the rebuilding effort and prevented the nation from literally starving to death.
3) American leaders chose to bomb secondary cities, rather than completely destroy Tokyo, a capital city
4) had Russia invaded Japan, they typically would de-industrialize the enemy by transporting power plants and other facilities back to Russia
5) Japan actually refused to surrender to the USA. The emperor's broadcast never used the word, and the leader who signed the surrender document was approx. #10 in the leadership hierarchy.
The emperor was a serious amateur microbiologist and realized what an atomic bomb was, so did not need convincing that the war was lost.
(He was against starting the war with China and the USA and said so, but faced assassination and constitutional issues if he made a serious effort to change sentiment.)
The civilian massacre could have been prevented by merely demonstrating the bomb. However they chose to experiment by dropping it on an city.
Even after the second bomb, just before announcing the surrender, there was an attempted coup d'etat by high ranking officers to prevent the surrender. So its not like surrender was a given after seeing a nuclear bomb.
It is only in retrospect it seems obvious that the nuclear bomb would lead to surrender. Even taking about "the decision to drop the bomb" as it was some unique moral dilemma is kind of anachronistic. Of course they were going to drop the bomb, just like they used any other weapon at their disposal.
Best nip any grand ambitions in the bud.
(The Soviet Union was still some years away from having nuclear bombs.)
But the big question is if Japan was close to surrendering anyway is why didn't Japan surrender after the first one, why did it take a second one?
> At the May 31 meeting, Lawrence suggested that a demonstration of the atomic bomb might possibly convince the Japanese to surrender. This was rejected, however, out of fear that the bomb might be a dud, that the Japanese might put American prisoners of war in the area, or that they might manage to shoot down the plane. The shock value of the new weapon could also be lost.
https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Event...
They didn't stop at one, they did it twice.
Stupid Japanese for not surrendering immediately...
The USA knew all of this, because they had cracked the Japanese codes and read their messages.
So yes, dropping the bombs was a straightforward attrocity.