this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2025
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The US only dropped the A-Bombs on Japan because they didn't want the Soviets to gain even more post-war leverage, they killed civilians in the many tens of thousands just for political leverage.
Ok, I assumed it was in retaliation for Pearl harbour?
No. The firebombings of Tokyo more than made up for that.
You mean the military target? As opposed to the civilian targets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
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... and to avoid a boots-on-ground invasion of the main landmass of Japan, which would have cost probably a million soldiers lives, and who knows how many Japanese civilians.
Not quite. That's the line they gave for justifying murdering a hundred thousand civilians, the reason was to stop the Soviets from gaining further influence, as they had just declared war on Japan and stood to gain even more post-war cred after defeating the Nazis.
Japan had been holding out for a positive response from Soviet Union. The delusional high command thought they could craft aj alliance against the US. After the USSR invaded, the leadership went into a tail spin. It would have been a matter of days before they would have surrendered.
The US did not want the USSR to push deeper into Manchuria and Korea, so they dropped the a-bombs.
An invasion wasnt necessary. A blockade and a week of fighting on the continent by the USSR would have sufficed.