Their only condition was that they wanted to keep the Emperor. It was ridiculous of the Allies to demand a wholly conditional surrender. All those people got blown up just to win the argument about that one point. They could have ran a conventional air bombing campaign against tactical targets, but they decided to drop nukes on a “tactical” target in the middle of a huge city! And then they did it again! That’s not tactical, that’s strategic. If you’re going to use nukes, at least use them on a military base far away from cities.
Comment on AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations
KingGimpicus@sh.itjust.works 21 hours agoIt was willing to accept a conditional surrender, which was not an offer on the table. The options were unconditional surrender or invasion and pacification. The projected cost in lives of that operation was in the millions. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined didn’t even kill 1/10th of those projections.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 13 hours ago
lorty@lemmy.ml 1 hour ago
What made the Japanese surrender was the Soviet Union declaring war. They held out hope until the very end that the soviets would mediate a peace, even after the nukes.