Common theory holds that Dresden wasn't a military target and there were few or no military industrials targets there at all. And from the history I learned, it was an attempt to show the Reich that with our air superiority, we could level any town at will, hoping this would lead Hitler to end the war on a faster time table.
Historical facts show otherwise. Dresden was an industrial city that manufactured weapons for the war effort. Dresden was also a large transportation center for men and materials. It was also one of the few cities left untouched by allied bombing. Later, more accurate estimates of people killed were downgraded from 240,000 to 24,000, the former being propaganda-inspired reports by Goebels. As history tells us, Hitler and his men cared more about winning the war than they did Dresden.
As for Japan, I'm not sure we would have had to suffer a lot of casualties in our attack on Japan. At that point in time, the Japanese Navy and Air Force were helpless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_in_World_War_II
This is an entry about Tokyo bombings from Wiki:
".....The first raid using low-flying B-29s carrying incendiaries to drop on Tokyo was on the night of February 24-25 1945 when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (3 kmē) of the city.
Changing their tactics to expand the coverage and increase the damage, 279 B-29s raided on the night of March 9–10, dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Approximately 16 square miles (41 kmē) of the city were destroyed and some
100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting firestorm, more than the immediate deaths of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.[1][2] The US Strategic Bombing Survey later estimated that nearly
88,000 people died in this one raid, 41,000 were injured, and over a million residents lost their homes. The Tokyo Fire Department estimated a higher toll: 97,000 killed and 125,000 wounded. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department established a figure of 124,711 casualties including both killed and wounded and 286,358 buildings and homes destroyed. Richard Rhodes, historian, put deaths at over 100,000, injuries at a million and homeless residents at a million. "
This seems to suggest that the atom bomb was used more for effect than results since conventional bombing, as shown in the Tokyo bombing statistics, inflicted about the same number of intended casualties. And perhaps Truman tired after 6 months of continuous heavy firebombing w/o any indication of Japan calling it quits.
In hindsight, this Wiki article seems to say the same thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#United_State s_strategic_bombing_of_Japan
"A year after the war, the United States Army Air Forces's Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific War) reported that they had underestimated the power of strategic bombing combined with naval blockade and previous military defeats to bring Japan to unconditional surrender without invasion."
It's still a controversy as to whether it was the correct thing to do, but when you read the accounts of its affects, the US and any country should heavily weigh the short and long term consequences of its use.
Sherwood