People that pretend Japan was going to surrender without the nukes (they barely surrendered with the nukes), are either liar apologists (America bad) or extraordinarily ignorant of what actually happened (they should read a book rather than regurgitating Reddit propaganda).
Comment above quotes Eisenhower giving that opinion. I don’t think he was either of those things.
An odd thing to say, given that he was assigned to the General Staff to assist in long-range planning for both theaters immediately after Pearl Harbor. And it wasn't like being a Supreme Allied Commander kept him in an information bubble in regard to matters outside of Europe.
Eisenhower was neither a Japanese cabinet official,
Did we hear you correctly? Is that even an argument?
Their opinions / conclusion of the situation was wrong.
Just because they executed well in one area, does not mean they assessment in another area was as good. No one's perfect.
If something has no value, why shouldn't it be dismissed / disposed of?
They were outvoted or simply not listened to, you mean.
Otherwise, the argument becomes circular: "Clearly there was no significant possibility that the Japanese Cabinet would have agreed to surrender had not the first two bombs been dropped. As evidenced by the fact that the bombs were dropped, and they did, after all, surrender."
Two atomic bombs being dropped on them was not decisive in getting the Cabinet to decide to surrender. It took the Emperor's involvement to break the deadlock and even then there was a coup attempt to stop the surrender:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyūjō_incident
What action(s) with less weight/influence than two atomic bombs and the Emperor could have swayed the Japanese Cabinet? And even those things were only barely over the line:
> When word of the emperor’s decision reached General Toroshiro Kawabe, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Imperial Army, he noted in his diary that he concurred with another senior general in doubting that the overseas commanders would comply with the emperor’s order. That these officers correctly doubted even an order from the emperor would secure compliance with key parts of the armed forces, was swiftly confirmed by messages from the commanders in China and the Southern Area, declaring they would not comply with the surrender. Their commands mustered between a quarter and a third of all Japanese servicemen. It took Hirohito’s personal emissaries to persuade these commands to surrender.
* https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japans-surren...
I write about a conditional surrender as though it would not be accepted by the general public, especially in that time.
Truman would have found his head at the top of a pike if he accepted such terms from any Axis power.
Even so, a military group attempted a coup to stop the surrender the night before - after the emperor's surrender message had been recorded but before it was broadcast.
After the invasion of Okinawa but before the atomic bombs, Japan was a country that was clearly militarily defeated, but not close to surrender.
The Japanese themselves knew that they could not win the war in 1944:
> Rear Adm. Soichi Takagi, who was attached to the ministerial secretariat of the Naval General Staff, made a study between 20 September 1943 and February 1944, of the war's battle lesson up to that time. He conclude that Japan could not win and verbally presented his findings in March 1944 to Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai and Vice Adm. Seibi Inouye. Takagi's study, interestingly enough, was undertaken at the end of the second year of the war--the time beyond which, the Japanese Navy's top command had estimated before hostilities, Japan could not fight a successful war. Takagi's estimate was based on an analysis of fleet, air, and merchant ship losses suffered to date, the serious difficulties in acquiring essential imported materials, the internal confusion in Japan, and a growing feeling among the "intelligentsia" that Tojo should be let out. It seemed clear to Takagi that potential long-range air attacks on the home islands and Japan's inability to import essential materials for production had created a situation which dictated that Japan should seek a compromise peace. In Takagi's view Japan at this time should have envisaged withdrawing from China and giving up both Korea and Formosa as part of the peace terms. His study in any case documented the fears Yonai and others held before the war and lent support to the increasing but still carefully guarded concern of their fellow Jushin that all was not well with Tojo's prosecution of the war.
* https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading...
Yet they continued to fight in the hopes of grinding down the US' will to fight and get better terms.
* “It would have been a politically unpopular move domestically”
* “there was no alternative to end the war”
They are both true.
Well, there was another "option". It was for the US to invade the Home Islands and fight against the Japanese:
> In addition, the Japanese had organized the Volunteer Fighting Corps, which included all healthy men aged 15 to 60 and women 17 to 40 for a total of 28 million people, for combat support and, later, combat jobs. Weapons, training and uniforms were generally lacking: many were armed with nothing better than antiquated firearms, molotov cocktails, longbows, swords, knives, bamboo or wooden spears, and even clubs and truncheons: they were expected to make do with what they had.[63][64] One mobilized high school girl, Yukiko Kasai, found herself issued an awl and told, "Even killing one American soldier will do. ... You must aim for the abdomen."[65] They were expected to serve as a "second defense line" during the Allied invasion, and to conduct guerrilla warfare in urban areas and mountains.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Ground_forc...
Having the Japanese throw themselves against the US invasion and American troops slaughter them to defend themselves is not a viable "option" in my mind. Perhaps you feel differently.
As to Japanese preparations… I’d you haven’t surrendered and invasion is imminent, then you’re going to do whatever is needed to prepare for said invasion.
> These differences continued to be examined and hope of favorable word from Russia had been all but abandoned when very early in the morning of 9 August the news arrived that Russia had declared war. Although considerable pessimism had prevailed regarding the outcome of the negotiations, the Government was not prepared for war with the Soviets, nor the military capable of any effective counter-plan. Suzuki calculated that he had a choice of resigning or taking immediate positive action, which could be either declaring war on Russia and continuing until the whole Nation was destroyed or accepting the Potsdam Declaration.
* https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading...
The Japanese were willing to declare war on the Soviets even though they knew they could not win.
Further, they new they could not win in 1944:
> Rear Adm. Soichi Takagi, who was attached to the ministerial secretariat of the Naval General Staff, made a study between 20 September 1943 and February 1944, of the war's battle lesson up to that time. He conclude that Japan could not win and verbally presented his findings in March 1944 to Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai and Vice Adm. Seibi Inouye. Takagi's study, interestingly enough, was undertaken at the end of the second year of the war--the time beyond which, the Japanese Navy's top command had estimated before hostilities, Japan could not fight a successful war. Takagi's estimate was based on an analysis of fleet, air, and merchant ship losses suffered to date, the serious difficulties in acquiring essential imported materials, the internal confusion in Japan, and a growing feeling among the "intelligentsia" that Tojo should be let out. It seemed clear to Takagi that potential long-range air attacks on the home islands and Japan's inability to import essential materials for production had created a situation which dictated that Japan should seek a compromise peace. In Takagi's view Japan at this time should have envisaged withdrawing from China and giving up both Korea and Formosa as part of the peace terms. His study in any case documented the fears Yonai and others held before the war and lent support to the increasing but still carefully guarded concern of their fellow Jushin that all was not well with Tojo's prosecution of the war.
* Ibid
Yet they continued to fight in the hopes of grinding down the US' / Allies' will to fight and get better terms.
There are no sets of facts that support the hypothesis that the Japanese would be willing to surrender without first being beaten down mercilessly. That beating could have been done in the 'traditional' way with troops, or with the atomic bomb. The estimates on the land invasion:
> The U.S. Sixth Army, which would invade and occupy Kyushu, estimated 124,935 U.S. battle casualties, including 25,000 dead, plus 269,000 non-battle casualties (disease, accident, etc.) for Kyushu alone. The JCS came up with an estimate that a 90-day campaign on Kyushu would cost 156-175,000 battle casualties, with 38,000 killed in action. By late July, the JCS was forecasting 500,000 casualties at the high end and 100,000 at the low end. In late July 1945, the War Department provided an estimate that the entire Downfall operations would cause between 1.7 to 4 million U.S. casualties, including 400-800,000 U.S. dead, and 5 to 10 million Japanese dead. (Given that the initial Downfall plan called for 1,792,700 troops to go ashore in Japan, this estimate is indeed most sobering, and suggests many more troops than planned would need to be fed into a meat grinder).
* https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/di...
The US (Truman and others) concluded that they were not willing to have Allied troops suffer just the Japanese refused to accept the reality that they were beaten. And while the deaths of a few hundred thousand Japanese from the atomic bombs is regrettable, the lives of several more million Japanese were spared.
Those people would be wrong as the historical record shows:
> The Japanese Army and Navy had their own independent atomic-bomb programs and therefore the Japanese understood enough to know how very difficult building it would be. Therefore, many Japanese and in particular the military members of the government refused to believe the United States had built an atomic bomb, and the Japanese military ordered their own independent tests to determine the cause of Hiroshima's destruction.[84] Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, argued that even if the United States had made one, they could not have many more.[85] American strategists, having anticipated a reaction like Toyoda's, planned to drop a second bomb shortly after the first, to convince the Japanese that the U.S. had a large supply.[61][86]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan#Hiroshima,_...
Even after the second bomb there was still some disagreement:
> In the middle of the meeting, shortly after 11:00, news arrived that Nagasaki, on the west coast of Kyūshū, had been hit by a second atomic bomb (called "Fat Man" by the United States). By the time the meeting ended, the Big Six had split 3–3. Suzuki, Tōgō, and Admiral Yonai favored Tōgō's one additional condition to Potsdam, while General Anami, General Umezu, and Admiral Toyoda insisted on three further terms that modified Potsdam: that Japan handle their own disarmament, that Japan deal with any Japanese war criminals, and that there be no occupation of Japan.[96]
* Ibid
The Japanese government were still split on how to proceed after two atomic bombs were dropped. They were willing to stop fighting but only under their terms.
If Germany was willing to stop fighting, but only if Hitler and the Nazis were allowed to stay in power (and keep a bunch of territory, etc), would that have been acceptable? Because that's basically what the Japanese were asking for.