[John21]

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You'll have to atone for making me waste my time on something as useless as this exercise. I'll think of something.

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Mickey,
The post you cited was a response to MidGe's claim that Japan was going to surrender and the U.S. dropped the bombs anyway.

Quote from MidGe:
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Just to make things even clearer, Japan government had already accepted the need for surrender, they were in discussions about the terms of such surrender, well before the nuclear attack by the USA. The USA government knew it and acted in haste to ensure they could "test" their weapons of mass destruction, "show" their might, seemingly for a "reasonable" cause.

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As to the Soviet issue, I'm not contending that the bombs had no influence on the decision to surrender, just that it was the unwillingness of the Soviet's to accept anything but an unconditional surrender from Japan, that forced their hand.

Throughout the summer, Japan had been trying to reach an agreement with the Soviet's that would allow them to maintain their sovereignty. When the Soviet's broke the neutrality pact they had with Japan since 1941 and launched operation August Storm, Japan was left with no other options. That's checkmate. Along with the U.S. the USSR wouldn't accept anything but unconditional surrender. Japan could have surrendered to Soviet's and there wouldn't have been too much the Allies could have done about it, just like there wasn't too much Stalin could do with the way it ultimately played out.