“That is not exactly correct. The Russians had much more force on the ground in Europe than we did”
That is correct. We had the atomic bomb and they did not. Our production line was in progress and we could have turned out several a month. Also at that time the Soviet Union was very much dependent on our industrial capacity to wage the war against Germany. In actuality they could have inflicted great loss against us in a short term battle of conventional warfare. They would have been totally destroyed in a few short months using our atomic warfare. As the Soviet Union was a top down control of their army once Moscow and the top generals were taken out by atomics they would have ceased to function as a coherent effective force.
As opposed to our Army the Soviets feared greatly the ability of officers that were not of high rank to command the field of battle if the higher ranks were killed. Take out the generals, and high officers and they cease to function. Take out our officers and a Sergent will lead his men in battle.
The Soviets trusted their officers of high rank as they were political. They greatly feared the officers and Sergents of low rank. That fear was most justified.
In reality all Roosevelt needed to do was say to Stalin, “This is the way it will be or you, your army and nation will cease to exist. He did not! Thus decades of proxy wars between us and the Soviet Union happened. Roosevelt was either a fool or evil. As mentioned I think him not a fool, thus he is evil.
> In reality all Roosevelt needed to do was say to Stalin, “This is the way it will be or you, your army and nation will cease to exist. ... <
That would have worked...if Roosevelt had been an absolute dictator, and had the military been his puppet.
But that wasn’t the case. The Soviet Union was our ally at the time. Would the Congress have gone along with a mass slaughter of our “allies”? Would the generals (Patton excepted) have gone along with even more killing?
And most importantly, would the home front have gone along with even more killing? Mom and Pop didn’t see the danger in Stalin. American propaganda had painted him as our ally, Uncle Joe. Mom and Pop didn’t want more people killed just to push Uncle Joe out of Europe. The war was over. They just wanted their sons to come home alive.