I personally subscribe to the theory that nuking Japan (at least once) probably stopped the need for an invasion. Almost all of the archives that were sifted through pretty much answers the fact that the Japanese were never going to negotiate a peace that removed its militant aspects otherwise. There would likely have been another war and Japan wouldn't have become democratic.
The 2nd bomb? I can be convinced either way. Japan needed to know they had more than one, but it probably didn't have to be a city. That being said, this is a lot of presentism (looking at the past with modern ethics). World War Two was a brutal, total war and the long term effects of nuclear weapons were not fully understood. Remember that there was carpet bombing with incendiary bombs happening against Japan's wooden cities for the year leading up to this. A non-nuclear end the the war would almost certainly have involved a land invasion and many, many more deaths on all sides.
Japan (as a country) was also not innocent in all this. They started the war - both with China and the USA. The Japanese military IN COLD BLOOD slaughtered more civilians than the Allies did in all their strategic bombings, let alone just nuclear. Even the nuclear bombs had military targets in mind...
The 2nd bomb? I can be convinced either way. Japan needed to know they had more than one, but it probably didn't have to be a city. That being said, this is a lot of presentism (looking at the past with modern ethics). World War Two was a brutal, total war and the long term effects of nuclear weapons were not fully understood. Remember that there was carpet bombing with incendiary bombs happening against Japan's wooden cities for the year leading up to this. A non-nuclear end the the war would almost certainly have involved a land invasion and many, many more deaths on all sides.
Japan (as a country) was also not innocent in all this. They started the war - both with China and the USA. The Japanese military IN COLD BLOOD slaughtered more civilians than the Allies did in all their strategic bombings, let alone just nuclear. Even the nuclear bombs had military targets in mind...