"Clueless ideological aspersions do not improve your lack of geopolitical understanding much less vastly increase American force deployment in 1945. There simply was no army of sufficient size to do anything about the Soviets in Europe in 1945. Patton's speculations included him CAUSING a vast increase in our forces. Soviet armies were at least 3 million strong and they had no compunction about TAKING any supplies they might need to fight us."
You are daft - Patton was ordered to stand down to allow the Soviets to reach Berlin first. The US forces were well suppplied and it was the Soviets that were stretced thin.
Plus we had the monopoly on the bomb.
It would have been a lot easier than suffering all the BS with Korea, SE Asia, Berlin, etc.
This is not a serious discussion. Anyone who believes that a new, UNELECTED, President could reverse the long-held policy of his Sainted predecessor and attack our biggest ally with nuclear weapons can hardly call ME "daft".
You are also apparently unaware of the Soviet/Russian peoples' capacity for suffering. We could not have killed enough of them to win without turning into the monsters we claimed to be fighting.
Cynics and Machiavellians may be able to rationalize this grab for power but it would have been totally inconsistent with the nature of the American people who had to be dragged into the world arena of power politics.
Less than three decades before America was so isolationist that the Senate rejected the League of Nations. We deliberately turned our backs on European politics until it became so dangerous involvement was unavoidable. Now it would be ready to rule the world through military power? I don't think so.