Horrific, yes. However, estimates for the total number of people killed by Imperial Japan during World War II (primarily 1937–1945) range from roughly 20 to 30 million or higher across the Asia-Pacific theater, and they refused unconditional surrender until 2 atomic bombs stopped them killing who knows how many more.

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wat10000 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And most importantly, they still controlled vast swathes of territory and thousands were dying every day under the brutal occupation. Bringing that to an end quickly was very important.

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TacticalCoder 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It also prevented Russia, after having annihilated the nazis (from the east), from spanking Japan's ass and conquering Japan.

The US killed two birds with two nukes: they prevented Japan from continuing their rampage and they prevented Russia from taking Japan.

	▲	gonzalohm 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Do you really think any European country was in shape to face Japan? Russia experienced a famine right after Germany capitulated, they almost lost Moscow, they received billions of dollars from the US to be able to finish the war. I think just trying to mobilize their troops to the east would have been unimaginable