[nelox]

Horrific, yes. However, estimates for the total number of people killed by Imperial Japan during World War II (primarily 1937–1945) range from roughly 20 to 30 million or higher across the Asia-Pacific theater, and they refused unconditional surrender until 2 atomic bombs stopped them killing who knows how many more.

[wat10000]

And most importantly, they still controlled vast swathes of territory and thousands were dying every day under the brutal occupation. Bringing that to an end quickly was very important.

[TacticalCoder]

It also prevented Russia, after having annihilated the nazis (from the east), from spanking Japan's ass and conquering Japan.

The US killed two birds with two nukes: they prevented Japan from continuing their rampage and they prevented Russia from taking Japan.

[throw0101a]

> The US killed two birds with two nukes: they prevented Japan from continuing their rampage and they prevented Russia from taking Japan.

While this is coïncidentally true, and a benefit given the later situation with the Cold War, it should be noted that there is no documentation from that time period where the 'Russian threat' was taken into account when the decision to drop the bomb has made.

There was, in later years, speculation that this was one of the reasons, but there's no memos, telegraphs, or other documents to show it was the case.

[gonzalohm]

Do you really think any European country was in shape to face Japan? Russia experienced a famine right after Germany capitulated, they almost lost Moscow, they received billions of dollars from the US to be able to finish the war. I think just trying to mobilize their troops to the east would have been unimaginable

[chasil]

Russia invaded and occupied the Sakhalin islands near the end of World War II. Native Japanese were allowed to leave, as I understand it.

"Japan invaded the northern parts of Sakhalin, and ruled the entire island from 1918 to 1925. Russia has held all of the island since seizing the Japanese portion in the final days of World War II in 1945, as well as all of the Kurils."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakhalin

[gonzalohm]

That was literally in August 1945. Basically using the confusion after the bombs were dropped to gain territory

[chasil]

Interesting, I did not know that the Soviets declared war against Japan between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki detonations.