You have to include the amount of Japanese lives saved as well, the USA were not going to be the only side with people dying.
I mean do you think Japanese people were not already dying in the conventional bombing and the fire bombing? If that bombing campaign went for another 12 months how many would have died.
Also look at the death toll of the soviets, do you think the Japanese fighting to the death over 12 months would not have taken large losses in battle?
So you have to include all the Japanese that would have died in the continued conventional bombing campaign + those Japanese that would have died in continued sea and land battles + the Soviet, USA, Australian etc troops that would have died.
It would add up to a large number, who knows how long things would have dragged out, if any one is to blame for the deaths it's the Japanese for starting the war, and not surrendering sooner.
Come on man, not even the Japanese warlords care for their Japanese civilians. And as that map showing the firebombing and extensive damages illustrate, neither did the Allied care for Japanese civilians.
Is there a difference whether the civilians are killed with firebombs or got killed with a nuke?
So it's absurd to think that the Allied calculate how two nukes, killing over 200,000 civilians immediately, is better for the civilians they don't have to kill later. That's just warped logic.
And it's a false choice between either nukes or street fighting.
The Allied does not need to destroy Japan city by city, well they were already doing that... but like I said, Japan is surrounded by sea and there's no canoe.
So Japan would starve, if they haven't already by that time... and will eventually fall onto itself.
Yes, it'll take time and I'm not saying that that's a nice way either. But it is a heck of a lot nicer than nuking them to speed up their surrender.
So if we accept all the rationale that's given as true, it still does not make sense as being the lesser of two evils. Heck, there are other lesser evils to do without losing any more American lives... like bombing raids over cities with no airforce and a few guns without any ammo.
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So there was never a need to send the troops into Japan's mainland anymore. That will have save any lives from street combat. Solved.
MacArthur might, though I doubt it, but he might copy Eisenhower in Europe and let the Soviets fight their way to Berlin. Sacrificing Soviet troops my tens of thousands for the honor of taking Berlin.
Though to be fair, his ego asides, MacArthur and US command might have learnt from Berlin that if the Soviets get to Tokyo, they'll also demand half the booties and grab whatever technologies and scientists they could too. And their master plan is to have Japan as a complete, unsinkable carrier for US confrontation of a future China [in case Generalissimo Chiang fail].
Anyway, there is a lot more to the nukes than the saving lives business.
Fact that it's the main, if not only, reason we're told tells you something. Fact that the Soviets play no role in possibly forcing Imperial Japan to surrender tells you the Cold War demand the Soviets to be useless, no-good, godless commies who played no part in getting rid of Hitler and Imperial Japan.
It's propaganda... a dangerous one at that.
Dangerous because it give us precedent that now and again, we got to nuke some folks... Like Obama says, we tortured some folks, ain't that normal?