If war broke out tomorrow....

[A Black Falcon]

The ONLY REASON the Japanese surrendered was because we nuked them. The leaders of their military forced the men of Japan to fight by threatening to kill their families. They were all prepared to literally fight to the last man. Yes, the number of human casualties was high, but they killed 75% of the POWs they captured, military and civilian. What we did was better for their country anyway, if almost all the men of Japan died in conflict, there would be very few true Japanese living today. And if we didn't use the bombs and invaded Japan like intended, then alot of Japan's natural history would have been destroyed, and there would be no guarantee they we would have won. The Allied soldiers of the pacific theatre where used to open-terrain fighting, not close-quarters city fighting. Japan and German cities where very different in the fact that Japan's cities are large and cramped, easily hiding millions of troops in buildings with civilians.

The ONLY REASON? And you know this how? You do know that not the ENTIRE Japanese goverment was all for fighting to the death, right? By late in the war there was a side wanting peace. The Emperor didn't really come around until Okinawa was lost, but at that point he did start moving towards peace. As I detailed before (and as you say) the problem was that the militarists were in control. And as I said before, the question was how much it would take to get them out and let the Emperor move for peace... was the nuke needed or would have some diplomacy, late in the war (ie before the nukes), have done the trick? A "test" near Japan? With how badly they were doing the peace group was gaining strength for sure...