This might be naive, because I do not know which governments knew about the bomb, could have accessed the technology, etc.
BUT, what if the U.S. had dropped a single bomb off the coast of Tokyo and let the Japanese know that without surrender that same bomb would be dropped on one of their cities. You don't think that would've caused quite the stir?
EDIT: Japan DID have a nuclear weapons program, but it does not seem to have gotten out of the laboratory stage.
Was there a drawback to Japan knowing the U.S. had the bomb? In much the same way MAD worked, couldn't there have been a policy of one-way assured destruction from the U.S. against Japan?
Either way, the fact that this was a civilian target is insanely unsettling, and I can't imagine what the response would be today if, for say, Iran got a hold of an ICBM and decided to hit Boston.
If I remember correctly the council was at tie even after the second bombing and the Emperor had to break it in favor of surrender. I don't think a show like that would have convinced them to surrender. And an invasion would have probably meant far more civilians dying since the gov't was arming them and training them to turn every hut into a pitched battle with the Allies should and invasion come. It would have been like Vietnam but on a far grander scale and with ten times as many casaulties just among the Armed forces involved.
This is probably correct. A mainland invasion of Japan would've been a massacre up there with the Eastern Front. Can't vote for that.
I probably would've targeted strictly military targets; but at the same time, I'm just a 21st Century civilian with hindsight. I trust that the President, a very good one at that, probably made the right call when it came to targeting Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I mean, if they were REALLY trying to just kill as many Japanese as possible... why not Tokyo? I'm sure mass slaughter was not the goal.
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