Reply #22: Two reasons (at least): One official, one geopolitical [View All]

[BurtWorm]

The official reason was, as you suggest, to shorten the war because the Japanese government allegedly was not constituted to surrender. That would be "losing face," as ethnologists (to put it politely) might say, and as every "ethnologist" "knows" "the Japanese" cannot abide losing face. I'm not a military historian, but a WWII vet who defended these weapons via this talking point told me Hiroshima and Nagasaki were selected as targets because they were militarily significant industrial centers and ports. I don't know if that's true. In any case, the US decided that employing the bomb that they had gone through such trouble to create for use against the Germans, but which the German surrender obviated for use against its intended target, would shock and awe the Japanese into sensing the futility of resisting American technological might.

The geopolitical reason was that the US wanted to send a message to Stalin not to try anything funny after the war.