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Originally Posted by U-96
Was the U.S's back against a wall? Were the Japanese close to setting foot on mainland U.S.A? Where they short of weapons and ammo? Where they suffering defeat? No, they were quite the opposite, in the strongest position of the war in the Pacific. Yes the bomb was dropped anyways. Trying to justify this is simply impossible.
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Three words: Operational strategic considerations. Truman's responsibility was, ultimately, to his own Americans. So is every other President. it is amazing how the West always seems to forget this fact.
Given that the choices were b/w:
Seige: Somehow, the deaths of a million Japanese by slow seige doesn't look brilliantly better than that million by A-bombs. Plus you lose that shock effect. If seige was effective, the Japanese will have surrendered long ago.
Storming: The estimates say a bunch of Americans and even more Japanese. not exactly a real go by any measure.
Nukes: Shock effect at very low risk to American lives (effectively only a couple of bomber crews).
Truman's only responsible choice was arguably to accept the armistice on Japanese terms, which will make it an conditional surrender, or drop the nuke.