So I was reading about Japan's economy and I was struck by the strength of their economic relationship with the United States. Did the United States have an implicit (if not explicit) priority to Japanese capital markets? Are there any rough estimates we can make of the wealth this relationship generated?
In particular, my idea (and I'm very surprised this wasn't on the wiki for the debate over the bombings) is that the United States likely would have been able to predict the benefit of establishing such an exclusive economic relationship with Japan. Could it be possible that the desire for this economic relationship (and for Soviet Russia to be excluded) motivated them to drop the atomic bombs?
(I certainly don't think it was justifiable at all, but I am curious about Washington's motives.)
the United States likely would have been able to predict the benefit of establishing such an exclusive economic relationship with Japan.
Sure, but how do the bombs lead to that exclusive economic relationship? I don't know where you are getting the connection- why would dropping atomic bombs necessarily lead to such a relationship? The US would have tried to implement such a system, including the exclusion of the Soviets, after any unconditional surrender by the Japanese, no matter how that unconditional surrender was obtained. Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding your question/argument, but you seem to be asking more about the economic incentives for unconditional surrender rather than about the economic incentives for the use of nuclear weapons.
As for American motives for using the atomic bombs, there are several possible ones. One was just the natural continuation of large-scale bombing of Japan with nuclear weapons. Another was the desire to avoid the political consequences of loosing thousands of American soldiers in a land invasion (in what was a very racial war against a sub-human enemy) when these new nuclear weapons could do the job for you. Another (although nowadays disputed) possible motive was a show of force aimed at the Soviets. I do know that "Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb" by Ronald Takaki pushes the last point, but I haven't read the book and can't really say much about his argument or about the larger-scale geopolitical history.