They dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan to make the Soviet Union's invasion of Hokkaido unnecessary and as a performative act to horrify the world in to subjugation.
The whole 'saved more lives than it cost' is a bad argument unless the plan was to slaughter a hundred thousand civilians on landing. Note the Nazi invasion of France cost 60,000 lives in civilian resistance...this was at the beginning of the war.
Japan would have surrendered on the first day of invasion.
"The choice" did not boil down to Emperor--not-Emperor. You sidestep the most substantive parts of Japan's early 'peace-feelers': supervising their own disarmament and persecuting their own criminals---absolutely, utterly unacceptable terms. Not to mention their absurd notion of keeping colonial possessions.
Further, the fact that the Emperor and his office remained after the fact has no bearing on whether the condition of keeping him was unacceptable. This is the head of state, an active member of a government responsible for countless atrocities---personally responsible in many cases. Hirohito should've eaten lead and MacArthur too for saving him (and other reasons, fuck MacArthur).
deleted by creator
Not even arguing lives, you can't put your hindsight away for 5 minutes and consider the motives here and why Japan's terms for surrender were unacceptable. Amnesty up front for members of the fascist regimes is fucking insane. How would you feel about similar terms for senior Nazis? Both the WAllies and Soviets ended up letting nazis live after the war, but it was pretty essential they had full license to execute & persecute whoever.
deleted by creator
The terms they surrendered with were and had to be unconditional. Whether the nuclear bombs were necessary ** for that goal** is arguable, not the unconditional surrender. This is the only goddamn point I'm trying to make to you. My argument can be true and the nukes can still be wrong, these are not incompatible.