Why did the US decide to drop the bombs on Japan?

by [deleted]

[deleted]

WARitter

Not to discourage further replies, but /u/restricteddata, has answered similar questions in the past and has recently recommended these threads:

*What are historians' opinions on Alperovitz and Hasegawa?

*What happened to the Japanese political/military landscape between August 6th, 1945 (the day that Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima) and August 15th, 1945 (the day they surrendered). How did they come to the decision that surrender was the best option, and was there much disagreement?

If you have follow-up questions, since those threads are archived now, just post here & tag the user to notify them.

Edit: this collection and intro was originally compiled by u/searocksandtrees [here] (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8bmks6/in_oliver_stones_the_untold_history_of_the_united/).