J.K. Baltzersen wrote:

Dear Sir:

With the 80th anniversary, the apologists for the uranium (Hiroshima) and plutonium (Nagasaki) bombs will be at it again. Same procedure as last year. Same procedure as every year.

While Japan was ready to surrender, they were dragging their feet, and they were preparing massive troops for defense of the homeland.

But who would be surprised at that? The Allies were basically saying that they would reshape Japan in their image. Why would not the Japanese, a regime fearing extinction, drag its feet and fight desperately for its life?

Without the unconditional-surrender concept in the first place, we might not have had an American redesign of the Japanese state. Japan might have kept a monarchy in a more real sense. While not a Western monarchy, that might not have been such a bad thing. And a better balance in the region might have given another outcome of the Chinese civil war.