A) Truman couldn't accept the Treaty.  Stalin and Churchill demanded an unconditional surrender as agreed to by Roosevelt.

B) Hirohito could not promise a surrender.  He was offering one and talking about one.  However his word wasn't final.  A ceasefire could only be agreed opon if the entire Japanese cabinent agreed.  Which, they in fact didn't.  Horihito actually didn't have supreme power.

In general, the Japanese believed that if they fought hard enough, and mounted a strong enough fighting force, including actually everyone of military age, the Americans would instead somehow be forced to accept a conditional surrender.

The Terms of that surrender.

1) The preservation of the Military dictatorship.

2) Nobody gets tried for warcrimes.

3) No Troops in Japan

4) They get to Keep Korea and Taiwan.

Even those who wanted to surrender right away all agreed with number 1, until the bombs dropped.

The hardliners... still didn't want to surrender actually, even after the second bomb dropped, it still took time, argueing and horihito himself to go out of his way to break the deadlock.  He convinced enough people to get the surrender going, buuuuut also caused 3-4 revolts.

To suggest that there could of been a negotation to produce surrender terms that would of been acceptabe before the dropping of the atomic bombs is very farfetched when you consider that.

I mean, one actual quote from a cabinent member of the peace process is that the atomic bombs were " "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war."

Would you call the deaths of 200,000 of your own people a golden oppurtunity if you thought a peaceful surrender could be reached?  I mean, the sheer absurdity of that statement i think shows how dire and improbable actual surrender was.

I never said 20mil Japanese were killed, i said they killed 20mil Civilians.  Regarding the other number thats the possible 20mil killed by the full on invasion of Japan which is further support by the post kasz made.

And the post by Kasz talks about much of what i was going to post.  Regarding the "Patriotic Citizens Fighting Corps".  And i already posted in this thread before that Japan refused to surrender just one week before the bombs were dropped.  Japan was not going to surrender and was being lead by the military for the most part.

Lets look at the bombing of Tokyo for comparison.

The figure of roughly 100,000 deaths, provided by Japanese and American authorities, both of whom may have had reasons of their own for minimizing the death toll, seems to me arguably low in light of population density, wind conditions, and survivors' accounts. With an average of 103,000 inhabitants per square mile (396 people per Hectare) and peak levels as high as 135,000 per square mile (521 people per hectare), the highest density of any industrial city in the world, and with firefighting measures ludicrously inadequate to the task, 15.8 square miles (41 km²) of Tokyo were destroyed on a night when fierce winds whipped the flames and walls of fire blocked tens of thousands fleeing for their lives. An estimated 1.5 million people lived in the burned out areas

The surreder of Japanese forces was also not common.  Lets look at some numbers

Battle for Tinian.  8,010 killed 313 captured.

Battle for Guam. 18,040+ killed, 485POW's.

Battle for Iwo Jima. 21,844 killed , 216 captured.

Battle for Saipan. 24,000 killed, 5,000 suicides, 921 prisoners,  22,000 civilians dead (mostly suicides)

Now we can look at this the Emperor himself ordering his people to kill themselves.  "At the end of June, Hirohito sent out an imperial order encouraging the civilians of Saipan to commit suicide"

I still stand by my post and everything i said.   The using of the atomic weapons was the right thing to do.

I thought that had conquered  more territories than that.

Based on the discussion between Griffin and brendude13 I conclude this:

The next nuclear bomb will be dropped "when it's the right thing to do", let's see which country is the first to think so and when it's time.

The use of nuclear weapon in relatively near future is quite possible even in local conflicts as long as at least one nuclear state involved. It won't lead to any armageddon situation as many people seem to think. One of the scenarios that I see possible here is to launch preemptive TNW attack on some sparsely populated military or civil area as an act of intimidation of opposing party in military conflict. Many military doctrines don't see such scenario as smth exceptional or decisive, but rather operational. In fact, many military objects such as CVBG could be effectively destroyed only with massive launch of TNW-armed missiles. In the case of attack on CVBG radiation pollution caused by such explosion is rather insignificant partly due to small size of the warhead and low altitude of final approach stage of majority of ASMs. Say, single Fukushima is worth almost a hundred of such explosions.

Traditional nuclear weapon won't be launch anytime soon, they are not fitted for warfare.

Tensions in the world actually arise and will arise mostly for land and their ressources (raw material, gas, water...), the problem with nuke weapon is that they don't allow you to occupy the land you just nuke because you turn it desert. Still, they could only be use at last ressort to avoid people to benefit from the land they just take/occupy. But such invasion will be likely condemmed by the UN and could be sorted before go to such extrem.

And don't think terrorist group can take and use one, they are so complex and traced that it will be complicate to first get one and second plant it where you want to, even more on foreign countries. Terrorist groups are less to be fear for the nuclear weapon they can get than for the "dirty bombs". It will be more easy for them to get the material for these ones and are likely to make much more damage because of the radioactive pollution they could create.

They did.  They knew they wouldn't be able to keep them all.

Well, in that case their request wasn't THAT outrageous.

It wasn't outrageous to let they took in a proactive war, which they were losing, and killed and raped millions and forced people to work in labor camps?

That's like saying it wouldn't of been outrageous for Nazi Germany to ask to keep Poland and the concentration camps and avoid war crimes trials and be allowed to stay in power.

It was a joke Kasz. I was not being serious.