After years of war, US military leaders came to believe that the Japanese military would literally fight to the last man. Although Axis forces were already defeated in Europe and Japan was losing on their front, many US officials believed that bringing an absolute end to the war with Japan was going to be a long and bloody ordeal.

When presented with the new Atomic option they reasoned that the loss of 2-300,000 people in Japanese cities would be measurably fewer lives lost than the continuation of the War. (We must remember that this was prior to the advent of smart weaponry, and that entire cities would be fire-bombed prior to invasion and hand to hand combat in trenches. War was hell.)
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