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Originally Posted by Darren
Those in contact with reality were aware that they were already defeated. Japan was effectively defeated, except for the admission of a few. How long could those few have held out against reality?
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I don't know much about the Japanese case, but in general the answer seems to be: Right to the bitter end.
Look at the German case.
Lots of people knew that Germany was already defeated months before the surrender. Only a very few people in power were that out of touch with reality. But the ones out of touch were in charge, and the ones with no illusions were, strangely but undeniably, ready to fight and die anyhow.
I'm not saying this had to happen in the Japanese case as well -- just that there's very little a priori grounds for imposing rational decision theory on a militarized and propagandized people facing apocalyptic circumstances.