Without nukes, would Japan's strategy have worked

Surely "the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest." was a reference to the Soviet entry?

And the blockade, and the constant bombing, and the lack of a navy, and a lack of an air force, and the Allies sitting on Japan's doorstep, and the atom bombs, and virtually all countries going the Allies.
 
And the blockade, and the constant bombing, and the lack of a navy, and a lack of an air force, and the Allies sitting on Japan's doorstep, and the atom bombs, and virtually all countries going the Allies.

All those factors were at hand by the time of the Potsdam declaration with the exception of the atomic bombs which were also explicitly mentioned. Whilst Japan's situation was dire they had hope in the fact that the Soviets hadn't signed the declaration and nominally still had a non-aggression pact with Japan. In a reverse version of the final delusions of Goebbels, Togo also overstated the divisions between the Americans and the Soviets and hoped that the latter could see a potential ally in Japan in the future Cold War. With all of the world against Japan's interest the hope for a Soviet mediation not only went out the window, the situation itself became hopeless.
 
All those factors were at hand by the time of the Potsdam declaration with the exception of the atomic bombs which were also explicitly mentioned. Whilst Japan's situation was dire they had hope in the fact that the Soviets hadn't signed the declaration and nominally still had a non-aggression pact with Japan. In a reverse version of the final delusions of Goebbels, Togo also overstated the divisions between the Americans and the Soviets and hoped that the latter could see a potential ally in Japan in the future Cold War. With all of the world against Japan's interest the hope for a Soviet mediation not only went out the window, the situation itself became hopeless.

The point is that things were piling up. The Soviet DoW was the straw, or skyscraper, that broke the camel's back.
 

jahenders

Banned
And the blockade, and the constant bombing, and the lack of a navy, and a lack of an air force, and the Allies sitting on Japan's doorstep, and the atom bombs, and virtually all countries going the Allies.

Absolutely. The Russian declaration of war and attacks were a nail in the coffin, but the situation was already hopeless before that. I suspect it was the combination of blows on 6 (Hiroshima), 8 (Soviet declaration), and 9 (Nagasaki) that shocked the Japanese enough that the Emperor directed surrender. If there had only been two blows, or the blows had been farther apart, the Japanese might have fought on longer (to their further destruction).
 
Absolutely. The Russian declaration of war and attacks were a nail in the coffin, but the situation was already hopeless before that. I suspect it was the combination of blows on 6 (Hiroshima), 8 (Soviet declaration), and 9 (Nagasaki) that shocked the Japanese enough that the Emperor directed surrender. If there had only been two blows, or the blows had been farther apart, the Japanese might have fought on longer (to their further destruction).

3rd Bomb Core was held on Truman's order on the West Coast, could have been delivered to Tinian by the 19th
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
There was also the risk that Tokyo would be nuked in a decapitation strike if the Japanese leadership did not come to some kind of terms and was being seen as openly unreasonable. I don't know what the fallout of that would be, but having no Emperor and no General Staff or leadership might fuck things up entirely, as without the Emperor's unprecedented speech, as unclear as it was, the surrender of Japanese troops en masse that followed would not have happened. There were of course hold outs anyways, but without that speech, things could have gotten really hairy.

And of course, I wonder who takes command afterwards. Japan might fall apart into warlordism, or someone would step up and agree to peace.
 
Supposing nuclear research was delayed for some reason (got started later for example), how would the Japanese strategy of inflicting huge enough losses on Iwo Jima and Okinawa through fighting from prepared positions and the use of kamikazes to deter the US from invading Japan and negotiating a more favorable agreement have worked?

That wasn't the Japanese "strategy".

First, of course, nuclear weapons had no effect on the battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima, and the Japanese didn't "inflict... huge enough losses" there.

Second, kamikazes had failed to stop the invasion of Okinawa. They were not expected to stop the invasion of Japan, just make it very costly.

Third, this was the actual Japanese "plan": let the Americans land on the Home Islands. Then hit them with mass banzai charges by millions of people, causing hundreds of thousands of American deaths. Such losses would shock and demoralize the weak Americans, and they would give up trying to make Japan surrender. (Whereas the indomitable Japanese people would withstand their enormously greater losses, of course.)
 
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