I am reading the book “Downfall” which details the last six months of W.W. II and the fight in the Pacific.
It gets into great detail the planning for the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands.
The U.S. was war weary at that point and while there was a great deal of planning to move a large number of European forces to the Pacific for the planned invasion there was also a plan to demobilize as many as 2 Million serviceman per the demands of the citizens and congress.
So don’t blame Truman for gutting the armed services after the war that was going to be demanded by the people.
At the end of the war the U.S. had some 8 to 12 million people in the various branches and that number was going to be severely cut no matter what.
I quite agree.
However, if you’re planning launch aggressive pre-emptive wars against world powers, as others on this thread seem to think we should have, you had better not follow any such policy.
What is comes down to is the USA isn’t set up to be a world conqueror, regardless of what “progressives” think. The people would not have stood for a war against USSR in 1945 or 1947. It just wasn’t in the realm of possibility, no matter how theoretically wise it might have been.
I think it’s reasonable to point out that we got the same result. Took 50 years longer, but all it cost us was a whole bunch of money for the Cold War.
At the end of the war the U.S. had some 8 to 12 million people in the various branches