The end of WWII aside: had the bomb not been dropped on Japan, nuclear weapons would almost certainly have been used later in the context of the Cold War. WWII had normalized area bombing of cities. Nuclear weapons would have been viewed, at least up until first use, as a natural progression. It was the shock of seeing what actually happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki that changed the perception.
Good assessment. It reduced 1000 bomber raids to a single plane.
Richard Rhodes, who wrote “Making of the Atomic Bomb”, said in a book signing I attended for a later work that Curtis LeMay had the worst job of the Cold War. Essentially to make sure that NO bombers got through. LeMay, based on his experience in Europe and Japan knew that bombers always got through.