Originally Posted by
BANANASBANANAS
It was a horrible calculation that had to be made but the figures at the time suggested 150k dead against probably 1 million more dead if the war continued. In that regard, it is semantics what you choose to call it but it certainly put a full stop to the war and has acted as a deterrence against further use of nuclear weapons to this day. So, maybe tactically it was an attack but strategically it was very defensive. Wise heads prevailed then though. Nowadays I worry about what is going to happen tomorrow or even later today.
The very interesting thing I read somewhere recently (I will try to find the reference) was that the Japanese were secretly attempting to open back channel war ending negotiations with the US immediately prior to the bombs being dropped. And the US knew that - having decrypted cypher messages. There was an implication (I think it might have been in the Oppenheimer biography) that atom bombing Japan would be proof of the technology working.