Still, you’d have to be quite an idiot to wait for the third time to listen eh?
Besides, the winners get to decide what’s a war crime or not.
And when the US started mass firebombing civilian Tokyo, it’s not like they were going to be able to just ‘meh, we’re good’ on that front. Compared to that hell, being nuked was humane.
By that point, Japan was already on its way out and resorted to flying manned bombs and airplanes into american warships. Nuking Japan wasn't for Japan, it was a show of force for the soviets who were developing their own nukes.
Neutralizing Japan the rest of the way would have cost millions of additional American lives, at a minimum. Japan was never going to surrender unless they saw the axe swinging for their neck, and knew they couldn’t dodge. They didn’t care about their own civilians.
As made quite apparent by, as you note, kamikaze tactics and more.
The Bomb was a cleaner, sharper, and faster Axe than invading the main island.
That it also sent a message to the rest of the world was a bonus. But do you think they would have not used it, if for example the USSR wasn’t waiting?
Of course not, they’d still have nuked the hell out of the Japanese.
