It Wasn't Necessary to Nuke Japan

Too many people are under the delusion that the atomic bombings of Japan, a war crime perpetrated against innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were necessary to force Japan to surrender at the end of World War II, otherwise the United States would have had to invade Japan at the cost of hundreds of thousands or even over a million American lives.

Of course these figures are vastly and ridiculously inflated, as historian Ralph Raico tells us:

Thus, the rationale for the atomic bombings has come to rest on a single colossal fabrication, which has gained surprising currency: that they were necessary in order to save a half-million or more American lives. These, supposedly, are the lives that would have been lost in the planned invasion of Kyushu in December, then in the all-out invasion of Honshu the next year, if that was needed. But the worst-case scenario for a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands was forty-six thousand American lives lost.

However, the truth is that even an invasion of Japan by U.S. troops was completely unnecessary, as Japan was reaching out to the Soviet Union, prior to their declaring war on Japan and entering the Pacific theater, to act as mediator and surrender. In a cable to Japanese Ambassador to the U.S.S.R., Naotake Satō, dated July 12, 1945, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Empire of Japan, Shigenori Tōgō ordered Satō to take this message to the Soviet Foreign Minister.

We consider the maintenance of peace in East Asia to be one aspect of the maintenance of world peace. Accordingly, Japan—as a proposal for ending the war and because of her concern for the establishment and maintenance of lasting peace—has absolutely no idea of annexing or holding the territories which she occupied during the war.

This message was intercepted by the U.S. government under a program called "Magic." In other words, the U.S. government knew that the Japanese wanted peace, that they were willing to give up the territory that they had conquered during the course of the war, and that the only condition they were truly adamant on was the maintenance of the Emperor. This proves, considering that the United States ultimately allowed the Emperor to remain in power, that neither the potential invasion of Japan or the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to end the war. All the U.S. had to do was clarify beforehand that the Emperor would remain unmolested and they could have ended the war without any further loss of life.

The only reason then for the U.S. to drop the bombs on two civilian cities was to demonstrate that they had the capability to do so, and to send a message to the Soviet Union. This was a purely evil act for no other reason than to show the strength of the United States and to threaten Stalin.