Could the us of theoritically conquered the world after ww2?

[Independent voter]

Soviets didn't really need one. You can't invade Soviet mainland by floating in the seas. The only thing it would have done, is to allow them to pick a point of invasion by sea. Which would have been not so great idea to do on far east Russia anyway, and any other points would have been too well defended.

Gahmuret is right. For example we gave the Russians 2,000 locomotive engines. The WWII Soviet war machine ran on US dollars.

[Raptor With a Saber]

Take out russia and bam though it wouldnt have lasted least not without many countries nuked.

[Xar226]

It depends on your definition of conquered, I suppose.

Could we have nuked everything until the planet died? Perhaps. I'm not sure what the stockpile of weapons was at that point in history or how long it would have taken to produce that many bombs.

Could we have occupied every country on Earth? Extremely doubtful; it would spread us way too thin, and WW2 was already made up primarily of drafted soldiers.

Could we have held a world's worth of territory if we somehow did take it? Not a chance.

[Azadina]

Gahmuret is right. For example we gave the Russians 2,000 locomotive engines. The WWII Soviet war machine ran on US dollars.

Only one problem: the stuff was already given to them by 1945. Going against them afterwards is not going to make the given things vanish. The vehicles would also not get to decide whether to be used against the giver or not, they would.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Conquer? Maybe.
Hold? No chance.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

lul no.

Look what happened in vietnam......now tell me the US could have taken over the world.......

Yes, do look at it.

Hint: It wasn't an invasion or an attempt to conquer.

[Logwyn]

lul no.

Look what happened in vietnam......now tell me the US could have taken over the world.......

Though I still don't think that the US could have or would have. US escalation and troops in Vietnam was 20ish years after WW2. The world was totally different then.

[Vargrik]

Israel rules the world. Just watch how the US acts like their lap dog. Republicans or Democrats... Every presidential candidate need their seal of approval. Congressmen drool over Netanyahu's balls.

[Theodarzna]

Americans prefer to not think of themselves as an Empire, so outright physical conquest would likely be a no as well as practically impossible.

America is more creative in its global imperial projects.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Israel rules the world. Just watch how the US acts like their lap dog. Republicans or Democrats... Every presidential candidate need their seal of approval. Congressmen drool over Netanyahu's balls.

Considering Israel, as we know it today, wasn't even a thing until 1948...that's not really relevant to the discussion.

[Ozyorkbourne]

lul no.

Look what happened in vietnam......now tell me the US could have taken over the world.......

They could probably have 'taken' quite a lot of Europe and Asia. But holding it would have been the impossible, unrewarding and impractical task.

[ringpriest]

I was thinking about this the other day, right after world war 2, the US was the only nation to possess the atomic bomb, could we of conquered the entire planet putting side any moral or ethical reasons why not to?

Practically? Absolutely, although I don't know if the public would have stood for it, no matter what the justification, nor do I know how well such an Pax Americana Ultima would have held. (There were plans on the books for going after Stalin immediately after WWII, including using a re-armed Wehrmacht as allies; they never came to anything, but the potential was certainly there.)

[Deleted]

Soviets didn't really need one. You can't invade Soviet mainland by floating in the seas. The only thing it would have done, is to allow them to pick a point of invasion by sea. Which would have been not so great idea to do on far east Russia anyway, and any other points would have been too well defended.

Well, they did it with Germany.

And with the whole Western Europe and Scandinavia as their beach-head, attacking the Soviets would have been easy.

[Mormolyce]

You mean you didn't?

[kneehidude]

The word you are looking for is "have."

"Could we of conquered the world?" No. No to the question and no due to the fact that the word does not belong there.

"Could we have conquered the world?" Still no, in terms of the question itself, but at least the proper word was used.

[Deleted]

Only one problem: the stuff was already given to them by 1945. Going against them afterwards is not going to make the given things vanish. The vehicles would also not get to decide whether to be used against the giver or not, they would.

Vehicles need fuel, maintenance and spare parts to keep running. The Soviet industry would have been unable to provide any of them; certainly not spare parts of American-made quality. They had fuel, but compared to American fuel it was crude, unclean and inefficient. Soviet soldiers were in fact amazed by how much high-quality American fuel improved the performance of their own vehicles.

[yetgdhfgh]

Its well known Patton wanted to push on to the soviet union but he died if the conspiracy theory's are true in suspicious circumstances.

The US didnt have enough material to make many bombs after Nagasaki but once they knew how to mass produce plutonium they couldve taken over by 1947 just before the soviets detonated there first bomb.

[Santti]

Of course not, with or without nukes. You still need to occupy the countries you conquer. Occupy every single country in the world... with what? Cardboard cutouts of US soldiers?

[Elim Garak]

so much silliness in this thread... usa only had 2 nukes, they have wasted them on japan. the only reason they could nuke japan was air superiority over japan. ussr were hard at work producing their own nukes. usa had no air superiority over ussr. usa had no rocket science, ussr were the first in that area anyway. so the only reason nukes did not fly was MAD.

[Azadina]

Well, they did it with Germany.

And with the whole Western Europe and Scandinavia as their beach-head, attacking the Soviets would have been easy.

Attacking is easy, sure. Surviving is another matter. Allied troops in Europe at 1945 seems to have been roughly 3 million or under. Soviets still had 10 million, give or take some.