From the transcript in your link: >…The Soviet Union’s declaration of war, on the other hand, fundamentally altered the strategic situation. Adding another gre

From the transcript in your link: >…The Soviet Union’s declaration of war, on the other hand, fundamentally altered the strategic situation. Adding another great power to the war created insoluble military problems for Japan’s leaders. It might be possible to fight against one great power attacking from one direction, but anyone could see that Japan couldn’t defend against two great powers attacking from two different directions at once. Trying to call the Soviet Union at the end of WW II, a great power that could attack from a different direction is bizarre. The few navy vessels that the USSR had that would be useful in an amphibious landing were ones given to it by the USA as part of Project Hula. The Soviet Union was not a threat to Japan at the end of WW II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hula Compare that to what the rest of the allies were planning on: >...Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyūshū, was to begin on "X-Day", which was scheduled for 1 November 1945. The combined Allied naval armada would have been the largest ever assembled, including 42 aircraft carriers, 24 battleships, and 400 destroyers and destroyer escorts. Fourteen U.S. "division-equivalents" (13 divisions and two regimental combat teams)[28] were scheduled to take part in the initial landings. and if that armada wasn't enough: >...Ken Nichols, the District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District, wrote that at the beginning of August 1945, "[p]lanning for the invasion of the main Japanese home islands had reached its final stages, and if the landings actually took place, we might supply about fifteen atomic bombs to support the troops. The invasion of Honshu would have been even more devastating: >…Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu at the Kantō Plain south of the capital, was to begin on "Y-Day", which was tentatively scheduled for 1 March 1946.[33] Coronet would have been even larger than Olympic, with up to 40 divisions earmarked for both the initial landing and follow-up.[34] (The Overlord invasion of Normandy, by comparison, deployed 12 divisions in the initial landings.) In the initial stage, the First Army would have invaded at Kujūkuri Beach, on the Bōsō Peninsula, while Eighth Army invaded at Hiratsuka, on Sagami Bay.[35] Later, a follow-up force of up to 12 additional divisions of the Tenth Army and British Commonwealth Corps would be landed as reinforcements.[36] The Allied forces would then have driven north and inland, meeting at Tokyo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall There is really no comparison.