system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: I think the US was totally justified in bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
gpt
I think arguing that the US would have had to either invade the home islands or drop the nukes is a false dichotomy.

At that point of the war, they had already lost most of their Navy, their Troops were being crushed in Manchuria by the Red Army, that  was in '45 the strongest armed force in the world. Their cities were firebombed on a regular basis already for some time.

Kamikaze attacks and other new tactics had already proven themselves to not be effective enough to change the outcome of the war. The Japanese were finished and they knew it.

They offered a surrender, but with conditions. Now the US wanted an unconditional surrender. What were the conditions? Pretty benign ones imho.

To understand them, we have to look at japanese culture a little. For 2,600 years by traditional accounts, japan was (officially at least) ruled by an Emperor, all of which come from a single, unbroken line. They are traditionally thought to be descendants of the gods, indeed tenno means "heavenly sovereign".

Now some of the imperial family was involved in war crimes against the chinese. Hirohito, the Emperor himself was not directly involved , but there were still fears he might be held responsible.

For the Japanese, the idea of their divine Emperor and his relatives to be tried and hanged like common criminals was unacceptable. For military hardliners, it was better to die for the Emperor then to let that happen. To us it sounds unreasonable, and to be sure many japanese also didn't think it was so important as to die over it, but that was the culture, especially at that time.

So they asked to surrender under the condition that the Emperor and his family were granted immunity.

Now you may be thinking why should the Americans be forced to let war criminals of the hook, no matter what their supposed decent. Except they did anyway. Hirohito reigned for the rest of his life, and was succeeded by his eldest son, akihito who "rules" to this day. No one of the imperial family was ever tried or convicted for war crimes or crimes against humanity.

TLDR: Instead of giving the japanese assurances that things they were about to do anyway would happen, they at best disregarded japanese culture, and at worst looked for an excuse for a test.