Why did the americans drop the atomic bombs?

>26 million civilian and military deaths
>140,000 civilian and military deaths

Wow! Such a hard choice!

>>3135113
>Did they fear invading a highly populated nation full of highly motivated and suicidal Nips?
>Did they fear the potential death 100,000 Americans and 10x as many Japanese?

Probably, OP.

>>3135123
>100,000 americans

You heavily underestimate the power of the nip

>>3135113
Should have dropped more to be honest. In fact they should have immediately nuked moscow after WW2 and avoided the cold war entirely.

>>3135144
Truman cared to much about his legacy to do that

>>3135113
memes aside, lets get some serious discussion going here.
https://youtu.be/Y3QXK2iUJn0

>>3135151
I understand why, and of course hindsight is 20-20 but I think that I can honestly say that alot of /his/torians, or even just regular people in general, were they in that position at the time, would have at least considered it. After all the shit that the USSR pulled up until the end of the war and the fact that their ideaology was basically just "world domination, the end justifies the means" I certainly wouldn't chance it if I had the authority. After 2 fuckhuge world wars against authoritarians, I'd just try to nip the 3rd one in the bud at that moment by nuking any remaining authoritarians on earth that were a credible threat to peace.

>>3135123
The atomic bombings probably also saved Soviet lives as well. Skip to the 9 minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjygZML_X-o&list=ELlzBS5WrPu4s&index=18&t=169s

LET ME TELL YOU
ABOUT DOWNFALL
>at least 15 nuclear weapons would be ready for X-Day to soften the invasion
>the entirety of Japan would be made a free-fire zone for chemical and biological weapons
>if they made the horrible mistake of not laying down and taking their nerve gas like a bitch Stalin would have to get involved
>and Churchill
>did I mention Churchill has enough anthrax to render that entire mistake of a civilization unfit for human habitation
Really we were pretty soft on them.

File: 1496184748756.jpg (27KB, 445x445px) Image search: [Google]

27KB, 445x445px

>>3135123
>thinking about how the nips might have chimped out if the emperor was harmed

>>3135956
Fucking this, Operation Downfall would have been an absolutely savage attack, why do you think the Japanese casualty estimate were so high? It wasn't because we were afraid of their tenacity, it was because we would have fucking SLAUGHTERED them. There's a very good reason they tried using a couple of nukes to force surrender; while Truman's statement about annihilating Japan with nukes was a bluff at the time, if they didn't surrender it was very much on the table.

Reminder that more people died at Okinawa than at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined

>>3135181
If you cut off one head two more spring up

>>3135113
currently "no" has as many votes as "they like bukkake". Good job, /his/, I'm proud of you.

>>3136199
alright who the fuck just voted no