As the Americans made gains in the Pacific, fighting the Japanese, the American casualty rate was calculated to be around 35 percent—or 1 in 3 soldiers. The Japanese showed no desire to surrender even as Americans began a brutal campaign on the main island. American military strategists anticipated that if the casualty rate remained the same and the Japanese continued to resist, it could cost 1 million American lives to win the war in the Pacific.
What action did this calculation, of the rate of Americans' lives lost, help motivate?
a) dropping the nuclear bomb on Japan
b) American withdrawal from Iwo Jima
c) entering into World War II in Europe
d) forming an alliance with China
