[hapanin]

A lot of people are talking about Germany's and Japan's nuke programs being failed wastes of resources. In retrospect this is certainly true, but the massive benefit of a working bomb outweighed the slight chance of success. By late 1944 it was fairly clear that both countries were going to lose the war. Had they devoted the same resources to conventional weapons as they did the bomb, they would have lost anyway. But they didn't know how hard it was to build a bomb, and if it had worked, either country probably could have negotiated a ceasefire immediately. Furthermore, Japan could have theoretically held out a lot longer than August 1945 due to its extremely defensible position. The only reason the Pacific War ended when it did and not after a protracted siege or invasion of Japanese home islands was, of course, that the US built a bomb first.

[caf]

"of course" is a bit too pat. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa has used Japanese sources to argue that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the threat of Soviet occupation was at least as influential in the surrender decision.