Personally I think that dropping the bomb was much less about winning the war and far more about winning the post-war.
They already knew that they could take Japan, it would be nasty, but they could do it. So from that point of view, the bomb was unnecessary. But from a post-war perspective, the West was facing the prospect of a strong aggressive Soviet front. The A-bomb put an instant chill on all post-war aggression and helped encourage the worlds armies to stand down just a little bit.
I think in hindsight it's also worth pointing out that people in general are pretty terrible at judging the consequences of things of that scale. ie. You can describe just how big an explosion a nuclear bomb is going to make, but until one is actually dropped and the casualties start coming in, you don't really comprehend it fully. If those bombs hadn't been dropped, the aversion to destruction might not have been fully ingrained in the minds of every commander and it could well have meant that the Cold War would have turned "Hot".
Yeah, from what I've read on the subject, it seems that it's pretty well understood now that the Soviet Union was as much (or more) the intended "audience" for the A-bombs as Japan....
Pretty scary stuff considering that the main brunt was born by civilians.... oO;
They already knew that they could take Japan, it would be nasty, but they could do it. So from that point of view, the bomb was unnecessary. But from a post-war perspective, the West was facing the prospect of a strong aggressive Soviet front. The A-bomb put an instant chill on all post-war aggression and helped encourage the worlds armies to stand down just a little bit.
I think in hindsight it's also worth pointing out that people in general are pretty terrible at judging the consequences of things of that scale. ie. You can describe just how big an explosion a nuclear bomb is going to make, but until one is actually dropped and the casualties start coming in, you don't really comprehend it fully. If those bombs hadn't been dropped, the aversion to destruction might not have been fully ingrained in the minds of every commander and it could well have meant that the Cold War would have turned "Hot".