Very very wrong on this one you are, sir. We had the atomic bomb and Russia did not. President Roosevelt was a fool or worse. The United States could have dictated any damn thing they wanted without firing a shot.
The lack of resolve by Roosevelt and Truman is what caused the Cold War with hot wars such as Vietnam. Roosevelt was a fool and Truman was even worse. For almost 4 years he had control of the only atomic arsenal in the world. He failed to secure freedom for Eastern Europe and China which he could have done with ease. He squandered his power to do good.
Now if you're suggesting Truman could have threatened his way across Europe with it later on, well, I guess we'll never really know. I doubt it could've been done "with ease." Doesn't much matter now anyway.
I agree and your correct but I am also now going to factor in the mood of the era. Tens of millions of people had died, four years of intense warfare and the entire country sacrificing for the cause in all ways.
I agreed with MacArthur on China/North Korea to use our atomic arsenal and secure the peace, after all it was China whom decided to enter the fray and cost us a lot of American lives.
However, with Russia, your opinion/strategy based on the Generals of the day (whom actually recommended nuking Moscow) may have extended the war but with Russia as the adversary. Stalin was a madman and would have over-ran our forces in Europe, even at the loss of Moscow due to an atomic strike. Stalin at that point had a lot of access to sensitive rocket/jet/nuclear materials from the Nazis and could have built their own A-bombs. Our arsenal was a few weapons, it’s wasn’t like we had dozens at that point.
We sacrified Eastern Europe which held very little value to our country to avoid any further bloodshed and history demonstrated this was the right move. The EU and Nato has expanded membership and turned Eastern Europe into democracies, we didn’t give up on those people, it just took a few decades and almost zero blood spilt on the Allies side. Even the Cold War gave us very advanced technology such as our space program as side benefit and certainly massive economic booms while competing with the Soviets.
Russia is fighting back now against the Democratic hedgemony feeling this land was earned in blood from WWII but in reality, the nations of Eastern Europe themselves have chosen their own course. Russia is once again becoming very dangerous and our allies had better beef up security big time and accelerate energy independance. If the West had energy independance we would care very little what Russia did at this point in the world.