If Truman refused to use the atomic bomb on Japan, what should he have done instead?

[Hekate]

107. Seriously, that war was Hell on Earth. Ask the Chinese what they thought of the Rape of Nanking...

... or the Filipinos about the occupation and the Bataan Death March. Japan started what they referred to as the Greater East Asia War before they ever attacked Pearl Harbor. Uncounted millions of civilians died in Asia, and not by our hands.

The US military had fought the Japanese military from one Pacific island to another -- hard and bloody battles against an unyielding enemy. Civilian Japanese at home had been propagandized to believe they should similarly resist any attempt to invade Japan, without military weapons, with sharpened bamboo stakes if necessary. Any invasion would have been a bloodbath of civilians, as well as of our own military men. Japan would not surrender.

In the following table, please note the disparity of civilian deaths in Japan versus, say, China. Under half a million, versus 18 million.

Civilian deaths:

Japan 393,400
China 18,000,000
Netherlands East Indies 4,000,000
Philippines 1,000,000

http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/C/a/Casualties.htm