re: #222 Belafon

It’s a counterfactual now, but the barricade around the entire country? Wait until the entire country starves to death or becomes self sustaining? Had the bombs not ended it, we were preparing an invasion, and they we’re preparing to go down quietly.

We’ve barricaded entire countries before. The Confederacy was under a full-time blockade for four years, with a far longer coastline to patrol than Japan.

We were preparing an invasion (Operation Downfall). It likely would not have been necessary, and even if it was, while Japan might have resisted, their industrial capacity and resources were destroyed. They could no longer make things such as ammunition. The idea that “millions would have died” was post WW2 propaganda by our own military to justify nuking cities.