46,000? Are you serious? Are you seriously going to ignore estimates from military commanders at the time?
Deaths at Iwo Jima: 23,000 (Rounded down minded you)
Deaths at Okinawa: 97,000
And these were relatively minor islands with limited importance to Japan other than their location. If nearly a hundred-thousand died just for the small island of Okinawa, are you really as naive to think it would only take 46,000 to conquer mainland Japan? Are you seriously going to argue against most of the military commanders at the time? Oh of course you will, you need to serve your state or you'll go to hell.
Japanese soldiers on Okinawa and Iwo Jima had enough supplies to fight the US, and had no place to retreat to (Japan being far larger would provide places to retreat to), leaving officers with no choice but to keep fighting on instead of retreating, which raised casualties extremely.
Once the U.S attacked Japan proper the resistance would have only gotten fiercer. The Japanese government would conscript its remaining citizens and send them off to fight with the same "Death before surrender" zeal that Japanese forces had in previous battles. Millions of people were homeless, no oil was coming into Japan and the majority of their other imports were destroyed. The Japanese government was already considering surrender at that point too, do you think they'd just conscript everyone and charge them out?
US War Department-
The conviction and strength of the peace party was increased by the continuing Japanese military defeats, and by Japan's helplessness in defending itself against the ever-growing weight of air attack on the home islands. On 7 April 1945, less than a week after United States landings on Okinawa, Koiso was removed and Marquis Kido installed Admiral Suzuki as premier. Kido testified to the Survey that, in his opinion, Suzuki alone had the deep conviction and personal courage to stand up to the military and bring the war to an end.
Early in May 1945, the Supreme War Direction Council began active discussion of ways and means to end the war, and talks were initiated with Soviet Russia seeking her intercession as mediator.
The talks by the Japanese ambassador in Moscow and with the Soviet ambassador in Tokyo did not make progress. On 20 June the Emperor, on his own initiative, called the six members of the Supreme War Direction Council to a conference and said it was necessary to have a plan to close the war at once, as well as a plan to defend the home islands. The timing of the Potsdam Conference interfered with a plan to send Prince Konoye to Moscow as a special emissary with instructions from the cabinet to negotiate for peace on terms less than unconditional surrender, but with private instructions from the Emperor to secure peace at any price. Although the Supreme War Direction Council, in its deliberations on the Potsdam Declaration, was agreed on the advisability of ending the war, three of its members, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister and the Navy Minister, were prepared to accept unconditional surrender, while the other three, the Army Minister, and the Chiefs of Staff of both services, favored continued resistance unless certain mitigating conditions were obtained.
On 6 August the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and on 9 August Russia entered the war. In the succeeding meetings of the Supreme War Direction Council, the differences of opinion previously existing as to the Potsdam terms persisted exactly as before. By using the urgency brought about through fear of further atomic bombing attacks, the Prime Minister found it possible to bring the Emperor directly into the discussions of the Potsdam terms. Hirohito, acting as arbiter, resolved the conflict in favor of unconditional surrender.
The public admission of defeat by the responsible Japanese leaders, which constituted the political objective of the United States offensive begun in 1943, was thus secured prior to invasion and while Japan was still possessed of some 2,000,000 troops and over 9,000 planes in the home islands. Military defeats in the air, at sea and on the land, destruction of shipping by submarines and by air, and direct air attack with conventional as well as atomic bombs, all contributed to this accomplishment.
There is little point in attempting precisely to impute Japan's unconditional surrender to any one of the numerous causes which jointly and cumulatively were responsible for Japan's disaster. The time lapse between military impotence and political acceptance of the inevitable might have been shorter had the political structure of Japan permitted a more rapid and decisive determination of national policies. Nevertheless, it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion.
Edited 7/22/2016 18:03:50
