> I am one of those that think that the dropping of the bombs was unnecessary.
I have never been able to credit the idea that, after decades of the very liveliest and most systematically institutional brutality, the Empire of Japan was suddenly seized by a new dovish spirit of peace and cooperation, one second before the initiation of the Hiroshima device killed a quarter million people, or one second before the Nagasaki device killed a hundred thousand or so more.
I have never even understood where in that dream lies its appeal.
Your use of the term "peace" instead of "surrender". As a result of this unconditional surrender Japan was reformed in a way that's very beneficial to the rest of the world (and, you could say, itself). A different way could have left an adversary with grudge just waiting to rebuild, but how things turned out completely took the fighting spirit out of Japan.
Oh, I see. I misread your earlier comment as asking what I thought you advocated, rather than why I thought so. Let me try here to answer your actual question there.
I consider generally that to have left the Imperial flower intact through a negotiated surrender - even if achievable which I seriously doubt - would have led in about a generation to a dangerously resurgent sense of revanchism, as actually occurred in the 1960s, but was a matter largely of fringe comedy because the 1960s in Japan were not really such as to make anyone other than cranks wish for the return of the empire. In a future drawn with the gentler hand you describe, I think that time would not have been funny at all; that would, historically speaking including in my own earlier reference to Versailles, in fact be just the sort of movement to prompt yet another Pacific war - which if prevented would only be so because if not occupied by the United States, Japan would have faced Soviet conquest (remember Tsushima!), which famously left no flowers of any kind intact within its reach: they would surely have had a constant and enormous problem with civilian "misbehavior," no doubt resulting in collective punishment, but would succeed in keeping the victim off the world stage.
The idea of Soviet occupation as preferable is heterodox to say the least, but I'm still also very confused as to what sort of terms you think could have been achieved by either Truman or Hirohito, in the absence of the demonstration strikes whose necessity you discount, when even in their aftermath there was a somewhat credible military coup attempt, the so-called "Kyūjō incident," with the aim of continuing the war. That attempt failed because attack orders, sent under the name of a murdered major general, were ignored. They did not have to be. And you don't seem more interested in considering Stalin's extremely compelling reasons to spoil any multilateral peace negotiations that might occur, and the again potentially war-starting impact of an attempt at unilateral negotiations which it is hard to imagine even (the admittedly somewhat bellicose in comparison with his predecessor) Truman seriously contemplating.
You say peace is the goal, and no one disagrees. The problem that remains is to explain how peace is a consequence of the course of action you would prefer had been taken. It isn't so much that I disagree with your historical analysis as that I am asking you to present it.
> I consider generally that to have left the Imperial flower intact through a negotiated surrender - even if achievable which I seriously doubt - would have led in about a generation to a dangerously resurgent sense of revanchism, as actually occurred in the 1960s […]
See also Germany post-World War One: the other side (as a collective/society) not only has to be defeated they have to accept the fact they were defeated.
This was one of the hindsight things that I've heard said about Japan post-WW2: it may have been 'fine' to allow Hirohito to stay on as Emperor in 1945 and for a few years afterwards, but at some point the Japanese leadership should have been tried, and this includes Hirohito: he should have had to abdicate and then be tried.
The instrument concluding Germany's surrender and nominally ending the First World War, and for which my prior use of the name is metonymous, is known to history as the Treaty of Versailles [1]. Its terms were notoriously punitive largely at the insistence of the French, who regarded themselves with some justification as having paid the majority of the victory's cost, and Germany was denied any participation in the negotiations which determined the surrender terms to be imposed.
Combined with the Dolchstosslüge ("'stab in the back' lie") serviceably excusing the military failure and logistical collapse which made further hostilities impractical for Germany to pursue, thus leaving no options but to sign or be occupied, so were the conditions laid for "World War 2: The Sequel," as of course eventuated in practice. The actions taken with respect to the defeated powers thirty years later were designed with enormous and successful care to avoid a second, nuclear-armed, repeat. In this connection and as minimally an example of earnest intent, consider the so-called "Marshall Plan." [2] (Therein also see 'Aid to Asia' within 'Areas excluded'.)
> Your use of the term "peace" instead of "surrender". As a result of this unconditional surrender Japan was reformed in a way that's very beneficial to the rest of the world (and, you could say, itself).
In the novel The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick it is argued that Japan and Germany lost WW2 by winning it. IRL, they won WW2 by losing it.
