[joegrundman]

People focus too much on the atom bombs. I'd say the entire allied conventional bombing campaign of Japan and Germany is something we still daren't fully face up to.

By the time of the atom bombs, it is well documented that the Japanese were looking for an 'out' from the war, and strange as it may seem, the atom bombs may have provided a 'face-saving' exit, in a land where saving face is very important. Since what nation could continue in the face of such a technological disadvantage, nevermind that they couldn't really continue anyway? This also meant that the question of poor decision making and strategy that had led to Japan's current plight, and the blame for it, need not be so directly faced by the Japanese leadership, since in the end it was an unforeseeable technological breakthrough that defeated them.

It's also worth considering the effect of the Soviet declaration of war and the overwhelming Manchurian offensive on the two main factions in the Japanese government, the 'peace party' and the 'war party'.

The Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the impending collapse of the position in China had eliminated the reason for the pacific war in the first place. The imminent loss of most of the army on the mainland (which throughout the war constituted the majority of Japanese ground forces) also severely damaged the hopes of the 'war party' whose plan was that a slow fighting retreat across Japan and a willingness to expend vast reserves of manpower to inflict casualties would drain allied resolve to fight for unconditional surrender and that a negotiated settlement would be attained as war weariness grew in the USA (Britain was already fully war-weary, and i understand it was growing in the US).

Furthermore the 'peace party' who had been pinning their hopes on a negotiated settlement with Stalin as mediator, had those hopes dashed by the Soviet attack.

So, in short the hopes for an outcome short of unconditional surrender had been severely blunted throughout the Japanese political establishment by the Soviet invasion.

The atom bombs provided the face-saving exit, so the argument goes, which for one reason and another was an agreeable interpretation of events for all parties except Russia, since already the cold war was developing.