Did the US/USSR really believe it could win a nuclear war?

Generally true, but they realized that America wouldn't stopping hitting military and industrial targets, with severe effects and civilian casualties, until Japan surrendered. I think the nuanced difference is important for two reasons:
1) Intent -- The US wasn't really trying to kill civilians, they were hitting military/industrial targets (regardless of proximity to civilians).
2) Japanese focus -- Japanese leadership wasn't too concerned with civilians getting killing, they were far more concerned about impacts on their ability to fight.

Is this the thread for this argument?

The US absolutely was trying to kill civilians, specifically to force Japan to surrender. And it worked. I consider the houses of industrial workers to be civilian targets, even if they are in some sense providing to the war effort. This was certainly the opinion when the Luftwaffe was dropping bombs on Britain. The strategic bombing didn't work to force Germany or Britain to surrender, it did hurt the German war effort more than it did Britain's. The ability of the Japanese to fight the USA in the Pacific was gone by '44 (or never really existed), their communication with forces in China was cut off (and they were never likely to hold it solidly, even without WWII), they didn't surrender at that time.

All else being equal, I think they'd likely have surrendered in about a year without Hiroshima or Nagasaki. However, the plan was to start the invasion before that year would be up. In any case, more Japanese would have died in that year, whether from famine, disease, conventional bombing, etc than were killed with the two atomic bombs.

Yes.

Though I'm not certain they would have definitely gone ahead with Olympic.
 
I honestly think they could in the long run, as long as they don't resort to the nuclear genie early on in a third world war; I mean why else would they bother to have conventional stuff around if everyone thinks nukes are going to be used immediately? while it's not unreasonable to believe that an error in satellite programming ala that Petrov incident can result in a nukefest, outside of that it's very naïve thinking for a WWIII in general to start off that way.
 
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