First, don't mix apples and oranges. The US involvement in the European theatre and the US war with Japan were two completely separate conflicts, with a few overlaps. In fact, we came very close to going to war *only* with The Empire of Japan. While I do not disagree with your basic premise, you said it yourself: > Japs attacked a military target > We fire-bomed and nuked civilian populations Actions have consequences. And war is a horrible thing. In modern, industrialized conflict, there is no difference between the military deployed in direct combat, and the civilian population that works in the factories that support them. It is all one. There's no way the Japanese could have known that they would get nuked in the end. But at the same time, they should have assumed *something* was going to happen. If you read their writing on the subject from that period, they assumed that the US was weak and degenerate and would simply take our spanking and quit. They made the classic error of viewing the US through a Japanese cultural lens. In Japanese culture, if you're beaten once, then you are defeated, period. You're supposed to accept your defeat, and your shame, and that's the end of it. The attack on Pearl Harbor was supposed to be a fight-stopping samurai master-stroke. Off with your head. Fight's over, you lose. In the American philosophy, if you are physically capable of getting back up, then the fight will continue until you can't. Yamamoto tried to warn them.