Impact on Britain and the USA of a shorter WW2?

Recently I've been considering the impacts of the Soviet Union doing better in ww2 and the war ending in Europe in late 1943. Borders in Europe aren't too much different from OTL, Greece is still in the British sphere of influence, East Germany looks about the same as OTL, there may be a Soviet occupation zone in Italy and Austria might have a larger Soviet zone or might be entirely inside the Soviet block in TTL.

Also, due to the WAllies invading France earlier on (say in 1942), the British have been much more prominent in liberating the country and the war in the West doesn't last long enough for the Americans to shake their reputation as "our Italians" (as one British general put it).

Obviously, for both the US and UK, a shorter war means less financial strain, which could be particularly important for the Brits. Was Britain already too deeply in hoc to the US for that to make a big difference? And does less financial and human strain on the US have any interesting effects?

Additionally, assuming Japan still enters the war (which I'm not sure is likely in a scenario where the Germans never reach the suburbs of Moscow, but regardless), are there any major impacts of the war with Japan lasting much longer than the war with Germany?

fasquardon
 
Britain had already run out of money by late 1942 OTL so the main butterflies would be in people who were killed in 1944 and 1945 surviving . John Jarman on the literary scene, Rex Whistler as an artist, Lord Hartington and Lord Dufferin, Nicholas Bernays as politicians. However the post war US UK relationship would stay pretty much the same. For that to be different you would need a different war in the Far East where Malaysia, Singapore and Burma never fell and Britain able to sell a lot more tin and rubber on the world market. Not undoable if someone more tough minded than Perceval is in command in Malaysia. Hotblack maybe if his injury is butterflied away or Marshall -Cornwall. But even then, the US will be dominant partner. Best scenario is a less indebted Britain with a slightly stronger economy not an equal partnervous.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
Soviets are bolder, since we wouldn't have seen the absolutely ludicrous quantity of materials being put out.

The KMT probably gets a lot more military aid.
 
Britain had already run out of money by late 1942 OTL so the main butterflies would be in people who were killed in 1944 and 1945 surviving . John Jarman on the literary scene, Rex Whistler as an artist, Lord Hartington and Lord Dufferin, Nicholas Bernays as politicians. However the post war US UK relationship would stay pretty much the same. For that to be different you would need a different war in the Far East where Malaysia, Singapore and Burma never fell and Britain able to sell a lot more tin and rubber on the world market. Not undoable if someone more tough minded than Perceval is in command in Malaysia. Hotblack maybe if his injury is butterflied away or Marshall -Cornwall. But even then, the US will be dominant partner. Best scenario is a less indebted Britain with a slightly stronger economy not an equal partnervous.

So major changes for the post-war WAllies only happen in the second scenario where Japan stays out?

The KMT probably gets a lot more military aid.

Which could get interesting in its own right. especially if the KMT can do better than stalemate Japan.

fasquardon
 
It all depends on when the tides of war start turning, in this scenario especially when the Soviets gain the upper hand and related to that how much support they and the other nations receive from the US. Also, will this support be purely material through the lend-lease program or will it involve actual fighting by US troops.

In the minimalist scenario, Germany collapses in early 1943 due to a 12 month meatgrinder at Stalingrad. The USSR then proceeds a steamroller offensive across Eastern Europe and by December 1943 reaches the outsirts of Berlin.

In the meantime the US stopped the Japanese expansion at Midway and is now hopping its way to Japan island by Island. More importantly, it is already bombing the XXXX out of the German heartland from its bases in Britain.

In Europe, the situation stays the same as OTL: In the west, the US will still receive its credit as liberator and Bastion Of Liberty. In the East, Russia will still pay its victory with an unsurpassed loss of lives, famine and destruction everywhere. It's massive task of rebuilding the country only surpassed by its task of cleansing the liberated areas of all traitors, turncoats and generally everyone with Unstalinist tendencies.

The bigger change will now be in the East with Germany out of the picture but Japan still occupying most of the former colonies, you can not only expect the British, with Australian, New Zealand and even Indian support, to play a more active role, but also the Free French and even the Dutch to join in the fray. And if course, the Soviets will not wait until the Japanese collapse to meddle in China, Korea and Vietnam.
 
Part two: The most audacious theory. If I were to devise a scenario with the mist changes, I would say: Summer 1941: Operation Barbarossa is a gigantic failure, the USSR somehow being a lot stronger then expected stops the German war machine before it advances 100 miles into Russian territory and over the next two years not only holds off the Nazis but slowly pushes back and within 20 months stands on the outskirts of Berlin. However the push to the west goes at a much slower pace as most commanders try to minimize their losses in a war they feel is theirs already anyway. Therefore the USSR is still the heroic nation that stared down Hitler as opposed to the fanatic one that send half of their population into the meatgrinder.

With the Germans pretty much dead men walking by autumn of 1941, Japan rethinks its strategy and finds it more important to shore up it's holdings in China against a super strong Russia then to go after the Western colonies while they are otherwise occupied (excuse the pun) with the Nazis. Pearl Harbor never happens and the USA never enters the war. Western Europe is liberated by the British and its allies-in-exile like the Free French, the Dutch Navy In Exile, the Polish Navy In Exile and the Czech Volunteer Force. They also manage to liberate anything west of Wolfsburg as OTL.

The US did still help the British and Russian war effort through its lend-lease program, but without actual troops on the front, they will be forever known as the nation that is more interested in selling guns than in doing the fighting. The real heroes of the war will be the British, for staring down Hitler in 1939 while the rest of the world was still debating whether a little sticking it to the 'impure races' was necessary such a bad thing. For decades to come, even up to the present day, the British, not the Americans will be 'The Good Superpower', while the USA will even trail behind the USSR in public opinion. No Holywood nor Saturn Rockets can change that.
 
Britain had already run out of money by late 1942 ...Best scenario is a less indebted Britain with a slightly stronger economy not an equal partnervous.
I'm wondering if you can't have Winston not just give the U.S. no-charge access to radar & everything. Was it possible to make royalties a repayment of Lend-Lease, or something?

Failing that, what about loans from, frex, Spain, Mexico, or Argentina? Or a deal to, frex, sell Newfoundland to Argentina postwar? (If the Newfies don't like it, sell to Canada after...)

Edit to add:
the British, not the Americans will be 'The Good Superpower'
I doubt Britain gets "superpower" status. She's already in decline economically before the war, compared to the U.S.

You might get the U.S. called "merchants of death" more, but when you're the #1 economic power...& with no manpower losses in the war, & no stop to civilian production...

OTOH, with the U.S. not involved, you don't get the same very large deficit of civilian goods & production boom postwar. Nor do you get the consequent urban sprawl. Nor the Baby Boom, which has big cultural impact.
 
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