the end, regardless of material damage to Japan. In the Samurai tradition, a part of the honor code is that “hopelessness in a battle is no reason to surrender” (Long), so the Japanese were not concerned about surrendering merely because the situation looked hopeless. The major concern for the Japanese military was the loss of honor; they had a code of “death before dishonor” (Long). So therefore, a Japanese soldier would prefer death to surrendering, for to surrender is to give up one’s honor. Apart from the fact that the Japanese had long wanted a peaceful end to the war, there were a number of alternatives that the Americans could have taken, as opposed to dropping the atomic bomb. The Americans had a superior air force, a superior navy, and a superior army. Along with the superiority of the American forces, Japan was decimated; the American forces had defeated Japan’s air force, navy, and army. The Japanese were completely cut off from the rest of the world, as Robert Butow said, “…the scales of the war had been tipped so steeply against the Japanese that no counterweight at their disposal could have balanced them. Germany, which for the Japanese had been a seemingly invincible first line of defense, was facing inevitable destruction; the defense perimeter that the Japanese had created far out beyond their island base had been cracked and deeply penetrated; worst of all, Japan’s military potential was dropping rapidly with her industrial capacity, as American submarines and planes cut the last of her economic lifelines to the outside world and great aerial armadas began the methodical destruction of her cities” (Alperovitz 17). The simplest alternative that the Americans could have taken would have been to sustain the blockade that had already been in place. While being bombarded from the sky, a naval blockade strangled Japan’s ability to import oil and other vital mi...
