[American Constitutionalist]

" We could have simply blockaded them and deprived them of all outside resources if we were so worried about really losing up to a million men. "

There you go again, making the case, that it's more moral to slowly starve a whole nation to death than it is then to drop 2 a-bombs in just 2 cities, yeah, slowly starving people to death including children is somehow more the " Christian " thing to do then dropping a-bombs.

[magisterium]

It is "more moral," at least in the sense that you're giving 80 million people a fighting chance to end this thing themselves against a militarily depleted government, when they've decided they've had enough. It is not optimal from a moral standpoint, but it is a "lesser of two evils" choice that might be all you're left with when all sides in the conflict have long-since painted themselves into a morally bankrupt corner anyway. The US and its allies were under no constraint to prosecute the war on the Japanese home islands if they really thought casualties would be on the order of a million men. So, yes, I believe a blockade is at least "less immoral" when it can empower the besieged to take matters into their own hands, when compared with the alternative: to firebomb and nuke whole cities that cannot defend themselves, and which are populated by non-combatant women and children.