“Germans and Japanese were inherently evil. Once they were eliminated peace would reign.”
Nonsense.
One could say the Hitler was evil for the Holocaust and some other things, but they, Germany and Japan simply had bad leaders and their leaders tried to be nationalist-imperialists at a point in time in world affairs when the age of imperialism and the acquiring of colonies was reaching a point of (a) not securing peace but creating & increasing international tensions and (b) sustaining control of colonies was reaching diminishing returns.
The Soviets kept & expanded their land-based colony system from Eastern Europe, across Central Asia and to the shores of the Pacific, but as much as it helped “mother Russia” in some ways, it was an economic basket case. They were not the future, they were mimicking a time that has passed.
There is not much moral difference between the Soviet Union’s hold on Eastern Europe and what would have been fascist Nazi Germany’s hold on much of Europe if they had prevailed against Russia. And the idea that having imperial Japan left holding much of its Asian occupied lands would have been some morally superior outcome than what actually happened is ludicrous.
Lastly, in the long term, Germany and imperial Japan were, during the war, posing more of threat globally to western interests than was believed to be true of Russia. The west made choices that they believed were expedient, not ideal, but the least of possible bad choices. The west could not help Germany against Russia and at the same time fight Germany from marching across western Europe. The west could not help Japan against the Soviets in Asia and fight Japan everywhere else in Asia that Japan had occupied territory. You conflate, wrongly, consequences with intent.
“Germans and Japanese were inherently evil. Once they were eliminated peace would reign.”
“Nonsense.”
Nonsense indeed, this is not my opinion but the propaganda peddled at the time. “The age of imperialism” is past. That sounds like Francis Fukuyama’s end of history. Imperialism ended because the leaders of the U.S. said it was ended. Modernists are happy with the status quo. Good luck with that.
Looking for a “morally superior outcome.” Remember the Rape of Nanking. Well that was a tea party compared to what Mao did to the Chinese people.
“Germany and imperial Japan were . . . posing more of threat.” That was not the view of the vast majority of Americans prior to the FDR provoked attack on Pearl Harbor. The Soviets had already exterminated over 6 million subjects and expanded their empire (Tanu Tuva and Eastern Europe).