Short answer: no. Long answer: also no, but in more detail (see below).
Let's review the situation in August 1945, just before Little Boy and Fat Man were dropped:
* Japan's navy and air force have both been destroyed
* Japan has no capacity to project military power beyond her borders
* Japan is blockaded
* Japan's supply lines are completely cut off
* Japan has run out of resources
* Japan has run out of money
* Japan's allies have been defeated
* Japan has lost all the territory she captured during the war
* Japan's air defences have been completely wiped out; she has no way to defend herself against air raids
* Japan has suffered 20 months of bombing by the Americans, who dropped 157,000 tons of bombs during that time
* Tokyo has been decimated by a massive firebomb run, which killed 100,000 and made 1 million homeless in a single night (the most destructive bombing raid in human history)
In short: Japan is utterly defeated. Invasion is unnecessary; the Allies can simply wait for her surrender. They have all the time in the world. Japan is no longer a threat. The only thing required at this point is to negotiate terms.
Now let's wind the clock back a little further.
In mid July, Japan approached the Russians with an offer of surrender, and a request for the Russian government to act as mediator.
The Soviets did not mention this to the Allies, and stalled the Japanese while continuing to build up troops in Manchuria. Their goal was to invade Hokkaido and take over Japan before the Allies could intervene. This plan was devised by Admiral Ivan Yumashev,
and you can read it here. Soviet submarines were already in place, and the Russians expected to commence operations on the 24th of August.
The Russians would have got away with the invasion a few months earlier, when the US War Department conceded that it could be wise to let the Soviets occupy Hokkaido and part of Honshu.
But by August, the atom bombs were ready, and Truman knew the Russians could not stop him. Deeply concerned by the implications of Soviet dominance in the region, he decided the bombs would serve as an appropriate warning about what could happen if the USA's geopolitical goals were thwarted. Some historians now believe this was a miscalculation:
(
Source).
Truman sent a message to Stalin, insisting that the US must retain air base rights on some of the central islands, and that a partial Soviet occupation would be permitted at the discretion of MacArthur (
you can read it here).
Stalin deliberated until the 22nd of August (just two days before the planned invasion) when he cancelled the Yumashev operation via a message relayed by Marshall Aleksandr Vasilevsky (
you can read it here).
I have provided this backstory to prove a critical point: the Russians had already assessed Japan's capacity for resistance, and deemed it inadequate. Stalin was satisfied that the Russians could invade successfully, without unacceptable losses on either side. Stalin's view was also held by most US military officials at the time, a fact that did not emerge publicly until after the war was over.
In short, the Soviets and the American high command both knew:
* Japan was beaten
* Japan was prepared to surrender
* Invasion was unnecessary
* Invasion was nevertheless a viable option
This flatly refutes the claims initially presented by America as justification for dropping the atom bombs.
To this day, you will hear nonsense about the 'need' to invade; that invasion would have resulted in cataclysmic losses; that the bombs were a humane alternative which prevented huge loss of life, and ended a war that could not otherwise have been stopped.
None of this is true.
Finally, we have the testimony of US government officials and military personnel.
Norman Cousins was consultant to MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan:
John McCloy was Assistant Secretary of War:
Ralph Baird was Under Secretary of the Navy:
Lewis Strauss was Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy:
Paul Nitze was Vice Chairman of the US Strategic Bombing Survey:
Leo Szilard was the nuclear scientist responsible for the technology behind the atom bomb:
Elias Zecharias was Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence:
Examples could be multiplied. The bottom line is that all of the top US military leaders involved in the dropping of the atom bombs subsequently stated that the bombs were unnecessary from a military perspective.
Even the lunatics at the Mises Institute are smart enough to know this.