Another major reason that we sought an end to the war as soon as possible, was because the Soviets had just joined in, and would have invaded Japan, if we had not invaded, ourselves, or ended the war with nuclear weapons, first. The end result would have been a Soviet Japan, which would have destabilized the entire Pacific rim. That would have changed history dramatically for the worst, as far as the free world was concerned, not to mention for the Japanese.
The Soviets were
supposed to join in. We asked them to.
Prior to that they asked us to join in in Europe, and we dithered in Africa.
I am aware of that, but we knew that we had to defeat Japan before the Soviets could invade her.
That doesn't add up. The Soviet advance was
part of defeating Japan. It was faced with nukes from afar
plus Russians up close. Simultaneous, not serial.
I don't understand what I am saying that does not add up.
The Soviets agreed to declare war on Japan after Germany was defeated. That agreement predates the atomic bomb by years. The soviets kept that agreement, and started advancing toward Japan from the West. We were not in a position to but Japan under a siege to starve them into giving up, because the Soviets would have continued their advance from the west, and even invade the islands. If we had not invaded the islands, or if we had not ended the war before they could do that, the Soviets would have done the same thing they did in Germany. If we had not used the atomic bomb, we would have been forced to invade Japan to beat the soviets to it, which would have resulted in a million casualties. If we allowed the Soviets to invade Japan, Japan would have ended up as another East Germany.
That's projecting far too much speculation. The original statement was that "we had to defeat Japan before the Soviets could invade". That's simply not the case. The goal at that time and place, of both the US and the USSR, was Japanese surrender. Invasions by either country are not mutually exclusive.
Along the same lines:
If we had not nuked or invaded Japan, the Soviet Union would have, with the end result of Japan and South Korea having been lost to communism, just like Eastern Europe.
"Communism" was not a player in this war.
Imperialism was. They're not even related. Again, the mutual goal, of the US, the USSR, China, Vietnam, Malaysia and all the other related countries on the receiving end of that imperialism, was
repelling Japan, not any kind of economic system.
This later fear-fantasy about "commies invading" was a comic book fantasy cooked up by the Dulles Brothers and Jimmy Byrnes and their ilk, for the purpose of keeping this country in a state of war if possible or at the least war mentality. All these places fighting for their own independence from colonial chains, like Ho in Vietnam (who was also our ally against Japan) were fighting for themselves and their own
independence; they were not fighting to be delivered into the hands of one controlling power over another.
The fuel of
Imperialism cannot be understated here. Japan wanted an empire. Britain had an established empire; France had an empire beginning to decline; Spain and Portugal had fading empires already in decline. And the US, seeing some of those empires decline, particularly of Spain and later Britain, wanted in on the action too, beginning with McKinley and the Philippines and Cuba. None of that was for a purpose of "communism" or "capitalism"; all of it was for the purpose of exploitation and getting the controlling entity fat off the resources of the vanquished.
Although an unrelated war, that's the same thing that was going on in Europe. "Old-Empire" Britain and France in heated competition with "New-Empire" upstarts Germany and Italy, neither of which existed as unified countries until the second half of the 19th century. They got a late start onto the road Spain, Portugal, Britain, France and Holland had already gone down since the 16th century especially with the discovery of the Americas. Again, for the same purpose: exploitation of other people's resources, especially at that time in Africa, the last available colonizable continent that Spain, England, France, Portugal and Holland, all of which were much older entities than Germany and Italy, hadn't already grabbed and swapped around.
Again, nothing to do with "communism". It's high time to recognize that Emmanuel Goldstein tactic for the polarization propaganda it was. As noted above, it was cooked up expressly to keep this country in an
imperialist state of mind.