From what I’ve read I think the japanese strategy, from the very beginning was to bleed the americans. They new they couldn’t compete with the US industrial str

From what I’ve read I think the japanese strategy, from the very beginning was to bleed the americans. They new they couldn’t compete with the US industrial strength, even before perl harbor. The idea was that if they killed enough soldiers and “showed horrors” to enough of them, then the US public would falter and withdraw. Because you know democracies are weak and monarchies are strong kinda thing. There was a real feel of “we’ll be a 110M martyrs, before japan surrenders its land”. And as vietnam war later showed us, a strategy like this can potentially work. The bombs I think showed that the US appears to have the ability kill those 110M people without setting foot on the island. Nobody can predict what would have happened without the bombs, it was a very complex situation, but after listening to dan carlin’s Hardcore History account of the pacific war, I’d say I’m convinced they played a major role for sure.