LogFAQs > #914051886

Yes, because at the time we believed the chinese civil war would go far better for the Kuomintang than it did, and we believed they represented a positive future for a much higher number of Chinese civilians than those Japanese civilians that died in the bombings. Korea also hung in the balance.

August Storm was far more successful than the US imagined it would be; the soviet invasion essentially took all of Manchuria in a matter of weeks. It was to be handed off to Mao's forces.

Primary source documents from the discussions within the Japanese high command indicate August storm had essentially no impact in the Japanese decision to surrender under terms that would be acceptable to the allies (specifically, forced disarmament and trial of war criminals), so the west could either watch all of southeast asia fall to communism, or act. Their available actions were a full-scale invasion--which would've killed far more civilians--or the bombs.

The bombs, thankfully, motivated the emperor to issue a very rapid Go-Seidan. And the army still attempted a coup to stop this.
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And when the hourglass has run out, eternity asks you about only one thing: whether you have lived in despair or not.