For those of us without any military experience maybe someone can enlighten me. Had we not developed the atomic bomb, wouldn’t it have been less costly in Allied lives just to clamp a blockade around the islands and just starve them out? If memory serves Japan was not self-sufficient even in food much less raw materials. Cutting them off from China and Korea would have soon led to even worse shortages.
At the time there was no talk about "saving allied lives" there was only talk of absolute unconditional surrender, which everyone knew the Japs would never agree to do.
The Japanese are pretty resourceful. They have that whole group think going. A blockade would likely have taken years to work.
Would have been less costly in Allied lives, but it would have killed every occupant of the islands of Japan, to the last man, woman and child.