Now you have to take into account the insurmountable odds Britain faced:

First, according to Wikipedia, the Soviet Union had twice the number of troops in Europe and in the Middle East. Even if the Brits chose to attack, they'd be very vulnerable to Russian rocket attacks.

Second, at the time that Germany had surrendered America was concentrating forces in the Pacific for an invasion of Japan, giving the Russians the oppurtunity to invade Western Europe. So I don't think Britain could've been able to win or even survive without American support for a total war. Also, there was also the risk that Russia would bolster and ally with Japan had relation with it's Western Allies deteriorated further.

But, I would like to hear what everyone's opinions are, based on these facts and what ifs.....

No invasion of Russia has ever been terrible successful - Germany, Napoleon, etc, all fell to the harshness of the Russian winter and the sheer size of the country. On top of that, Russia is a pretty spirited country, and the people wouldn't respond well to occupation...I think the morale of the Allies would have faltered long before Russia fell.

Yeah, the Russian winter also contributed to the downfall of Hitler and the Nazis. What was that battle that was a huge turning point in the war? Russia pretty much held it at a standoff. Germany decided to turn back because they were counting on an easy victory and didn't want to spend the winter there.

So just because invading Russia has never been wildly successful means that any invasion is doomed to failure?

As a point of interest, I was once told that America once considered using nuclear weapons preemptively on Russian cities, almost immediately after WW2, to stop Russia from developing nuclear weapons.

Anyone know anything about that?

Yes. The Soviet Union had been totaly spent by the war and Stalin's purges. They were drafting 14 yr old boys to fill the lines. All of their rubber most of the copper, trucks and half tracks come from the US. A large portion of their air force was US and UK made, and they did not have long range aircraft. The initial battles might have been difficult due to the better tanks and larger ground force of the USSR. But with the better air and overwhelming production capacity of the US the collapse of USSR would have been likely.

It would not have been just the Brits alone. The bulk would have been US. Also they would have used Polish forces and 100,000 surrendered German forces.

I don't think the Germans would have had much patriotism for another war after what they had done and been through.

Russia would almost ceratainly, if attacked, used Japan as a shield to prevent an invasion through Buryatia or Kamchatski and would also have bolstered and supported Japan.

ZaZa You think wrong, you forget that the Germans feared, with good reason the Russians, and many of their soldiers were still held by the USSR many never returned home. Plus it would have liberated eastern Germany from the USSR. German generals and officers hoped that Allies would do just that because they understood the threat the USSR was.

Ah, okay. But there would at least be some of the German forces that would be fighting a half-hearted battle.

I don't think the Germans feared the Russian as much as what the Russians could've done to their POW's.

Hostages make things a lot more difficult than they should be.

StevenC You have a point but after 2 nukes I do not think Japan would have done much more fighting. Plus after Japan being nuked Stalin most likely would have backed down and let Poland be independent. He was if nothing else but a surivor.

True. But maybe, had Stalin been as stubborn as Hitler about Italy not surrendering, he would've turned Japan into an occupied territory and use it as a base of resistance. I also think that Japan would've loved a shot at getting back at the U.S. by resisting with Russia.

By the way, I ran communsim through the 20 Questions game. The AI guessed cartoons.

I don't think any attempt should have been made against communism and Russia. We wouldn't want to eliminate cartoons.

What they allready did not do? They had been fighting them for 4 yrs. Like I said many did not return anyway, the best chance they had is to force the Russian to give them up.

How would the Russians get past the US fleet?

I think any Germans legally would have to be volunteers. You can't conscript from an occupied nation.

Could it have worked? Maybe, after millions and millions of deaths and the total destruction of Europe between the Channel and the Urals it could have worked. I hate communism, but I think what actually happened was a better outcome.

Cartoons good, Communism bad. Cartoons funny, Communism not.

According to 20 Questions cartoons and Communism have the same description. They must be the same thing.

with the US commitment in the pacific, I think the Russians would have quickly overrun most of europe to spain.

The soviet forces there were battle hardened, much of their equipment may have come from america but it was deployed in the field. (look up operation unthinkable, for an actual idea of what was discussed by churchill at the time)

In the short term England would probably have survived without an invasion of the island. the USSR would have had major difficulties controlling the french and germanys, as the USA wouldn't have stood by.

Without the Soviet declaration of war on Japan, a surrender would have been less likey. Launching an attack would most likely have encouraged the soviets to ally themselves with japan, and the US would have spent at least an extra year in the pacific, with a possible costly invasion of the home islands.

Meanwhile in the middle-east the soviets would have taken most of the useful productive areas of the birtish empire, up to India/pakistan, which may have held out (i don't know what militrary strenght lay there at the time) But soviet oil production would have sky rocketed, and they could have traded this for various other resources which they may have lacked.

In the long run i think atomic weapons and the US production capablities would have won out, however had the UK attacked without US approval it is entirely likely that the US would have gone with their original plan of allowing a seperate empire control europe the middle east and most of asia. (look at what the isolationist US were considering had Hitler remade Europe to his plans, US control of the americas north and south... pearl harbour made a difference, but Hitler was considered by many a lesser evil than stalin and communism, as Hitler's economic policies caused less difficulties for some americans.)

It seems you are forgetting the Russians where running out of man power. Would have had no rubber, little copper. Production of tanks would have been reduced to make trucks and half tracks, the US had supplied. Aircraft production could not keep up with aircraft losses. I think it would have lasted not much more than a year before they collapsed. But more likely Stalin would have backed down first when pressured.

"Could it have worked? Maybe, after millions and millions of deaths and the total destruction of Europe between the Channel and the Urals it could have worked. I hate communism, but I think what actually happened was a better outcome."

Invictus, saying that a Cold War, nuclear Russia, and the division of the world was a better outcome than a war that would've prevented nuclear weapons from being developed is just foolish.(an American diplomat suggested the creation of a UN agency, free from veto power, to inspect and prevent the creation of nuclear weapons by ANY countries. This however, was shot down when a fearful Russia vetoed the plan in the Security Council. Had there been a war against Russia immediately after WWII nothing would've stopped it from passing because it had widespread support.) I am simply saying that Operation Unthinkable, had it been implemented, would have been successful and the world would be without nukes today.

Are you serious? 45 million people died in World War II. At least that many, almost certainly more, would have died in a war between the US and Britain against the Soviet Union. All of Europe would have been flattened by the ensuing warfare. Plus Japan would have continued to fight in Asia if the new war started before Japan gave up. Remember Japan was never kicked out of China, they left after the surrender. You can't underestimate the consequences of such a war.

Plus, the US would have definitely used nuclear weapons against Russia. It would have done so indiscriminately as the war had such high stakes and no one at the time really understood about radiation. It would have been incalculable the damage such as war would have inflicted on the world. Perhaps, perhaps, it would have led to an Allied victory and the end of the USSR and world communism, but at such a cost that there would hardly be a world left for democracy's "triumph."

Operation Unthinkable was aptly named.

orathiac By this time all the armies where battle hardened. Over running all of Europe no way. Logistics problem would be difficult at best when you have the largest airforce bombing the shit out you. The same air force would also knock out alot of the tanks and trucks they could not replace. Ask the Germans. Moving their armies into south Asia from the West would have been difficult due to logistics and time required. Middle East would have been more problamatic, but at this the the US was the largest exporter of oil and because of the long coast lines of the middle east, navel and amphibous attacks would make it difficult for Russian troops.

Navel attacks? Sounds kinky.

HA HA ok naval.

well, if you used axis and allies you might be able to represent this.

I have to agree with Invictus here.

The toll of war would have made it impossible. No one was going to do it.

There is no "what if" here. People do not fight wars for that long with such great costs unless their survival is at stake.

That aside, support for the war even if the leaders went for it would have been nil. And I don't even think it would have prevented the building of nukes. Do you really think the US wouldn't keep building them in secret, or that knowledge of how to make them wouldn't have leaked?

Especially in such a war-torn world, the more likely thing is that even MORE nukes would have been built, and worse, used, in the course of World War II part II.

I have to agree with Invictus too. I'm not quite sure it would necessarily have been quite as bad as he makes it out to be but it certainly could have been, and I think it would have likely been a Pyrrhic victory.

It is possible that nuclear weapons would have had their spread slowed (though I don't think there's ANY chance that the wouldn't have spread), but it's also entirely possible that without a balancing super-power that also had an interest in preventing proliferation, and that could act as a proxy counter to the US for a number of allied countries, that there'd be a lot more countries with nukes around the world.

It's very hard to say what would have happened, but I do think it would have been a terrible price to pay for whatever benefit there might have been.

All of that being said, please feel free to defend counter-views! I love counterfactual history and love hearing other peoples ideas and arguments! Let's keep this up!

I agree with Thucydides.
This would have been on the tail end of one of the hugest wars in history, and everyone would just be too tired.
And do you think the American taxpayer would have supported another long, arduous war, with more and more American dead, and less reason to fight?