Genuine question: before today, had you ever heard of the take that the US didnt need to nuke Japan - given Soviet advancements and Japan’s military crumbling?

They could be dialed down lower, but even a “small” tactical nuke is bigger than what got dropped on Japan.

It’s not about size, it’s how you use it. For example, a tactical nuke could potentially be used at sea to destroy a fleet. Depending on where the fleet is, this could potentially be done with no direct civilian casualties.

And I have no idea what you’re second rambling source is trying to say.

Really? It’s pretty clear cut: the Americans dropped the nuke to primarily rule out Soviet influence as opposed to being a decisive means to end the war. This isn’t even a fringe opinion among historians these days - I’m surprised you haven’t heard this take.

https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/atomic-bomb-hiroshima-nagasaki-justified-us-debate-bombs-death-toll-japan-how-many-died-nuclear/

Militarily Japan was finished (as the Soviet invasion of Manchuria that August showed). Further blockade and urban destruction would have produced a surrender in August or September at the latest, without the need for the costly anticipated invasion or the atomic bomb. As for the second bomb on Nagasaki, that was just as unnecessary as the first one. It was deemed to be needed, partly because it was a different design, and the military (and many civilian scientists) were keen to see if they both worked the same way. There was, in other words, a cynical scientific imperative at work as well.

I should also add that there was a fine line between the atomic bomb and conventional bombing – indeed descriptions of Hamburg or Tokyo after conventional bombing echo the aftermath of Hiroshima. To regard Hiroshima as a moral violation is also to condemn the firebombing campaign, which was deliberately aimed at city centres and completely indiscriminate.

There’s no other way to use a nuke, they cover too wide an area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon

Like, if the nukes on Japan wouldn’t have been dropped, it would have had to be more firebombing and then a ground invasion.

The nuclear strikes on Japan represented a political decision taken by the United States, aimed squarely at the Soviet Union; it was the first strike in the Cold War.

In August 1945, the USSR was preparing to invade Japan to overthrow its ruling fascist regime, which had been allied with Nazi Germany – which the Soviet Red Army had also just defeated in the European theater of the war.

Washington was concerned that, if the Soviets defeated Japanese fascism and liberated Tokyo like they had in Berlin, then Japan’s post-fascist government could become an ally of the Soviet Union and could adopt a socialist government.

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, therefore, were not so much aimed at the Japanese fascists as they were aimed at the Soviet communists.

https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/08/07/atomic-bombing-japan-not-necessary/

Blumaga: “American meddling in the Middle East is a new phenomenon that was invented solely by Republicans”