What if America had sought to unite the world after ww2?

In the aftermath of WW2 America was hegemonic. It's only rival the Soviet Union was severely damaged by the war and lacked nuclear weapons technology for several years.

What if American leadership realizes that the UN peace-through-diplomacy model is a farce and that the existence of nuclear weapons puts civilization in mortal peril so long as there are multiple competing governments? What if the Washington DC establishment decides that the time has come to put an end to war and once and for all, and to unite the world under one progressive world government?

It wouldn't be an easy task and there would be a lot of resistance and casualties. But, looking at the world today, it's obvious that a world government in which all were citizens would be better. Especially since Washington politics would probably be more progressive. Because whiles Republicans and Democrats are evenly split in America, Democrats are far more popular then Republicans abroad.
 
I can't see this happening at all. It would be more than a 'lot of resistance and casualties', it'd be the most absurd case of imperial overstretch in the history of humanity.
 
I can't see this happening at all. It would be more than a 'lot of resistance and casualties', it'd be the most absurd case of imperial overstretch in the history of humanity.
America was the only nation in the world with nukes in time, already controlled Western Europe and through them their colonies, was hegemonic in Latin America. What does that leave? China and the Soviet Union, which were utterly battered. And then? Just a mop up operation bringing a handful of minor states into the union, and suppressing rebellions.
 
I think you're assuming rather a lot here.
Not really. If the world was united we'd have freedom of movement on a global scale, while now we have the segregation along national border lines and an orange fascist elected specifically to enforce that. If the world was united we'd have a global welfare and wealth redistribution state putting an end to the extremes of poverty and starvation in Africa and Asia. If the world was united, nationalist candidates like Trump and Le Pen would never stand a chance because their appeal would be purely local. If the world was united there would be no war between nations, no WMD arm races, no state sponsors of terrorism, far less money wasted on the military.
 
America was the only nation in the world with nukes in time, already controlled Western Europe and through them their colonies, was hegemonic in Latin America. What does that leave? China and the Soviet Union, which were utterly battered. And then? Just a mop up operation bringing a handful of minor states into the union, and suppressing rebellions.

Leaving aside the military aspects (I'll leave that to the experts), how on Earth do these One World Government types persuade a war-weary population to go forth and conquer the entire world in the name of God and apple pie?
 
Leaving aside the military aspects (I'll leave that to the experts), how on Earth do these One World Government types persuade a war-weary population to go forth and conquer the entire world in the name of God and apple pie?
By making the case that if they don't do so their will inevitably be more wars in the future, and those wars may be even more devastating and involve the use of nuclear weapons. This would require earlier publicization of nuclear weapons paranoia, but it could be done. Truman should have made it clear that America and the world had a choice: seize their last and best chance to unite the world while other's ability to resist was limited, or accept the world being torn apart by great power politics and the possibility of a nuclear WW3 in the future. A heavy down payment yes, but the long term rewards fastly exceed the short term costs. And if they fail to seize this chance, the sacrifices of WW2 will all have been for nothing anyway.
 
By making the case that if they don't do so their will inevitably be more wars in the future, and those wars may be even more devastating and involve the use of nuclear weapons. This would require earlier publicization of nuclear weapons paranoia, but it could be done. Truman should have made it clear that America and the world had a choice: seize their last and best chance to unite the world while other's ability to resist was limited, or accept the world being torn apart by great power politics and the possibility of a nuclear WW3 in the future. A heavy down payment yes, but the long term rewards fastly exceed the short term costs. And if they fail to seize this chance, the sacrifices of WW2 will all have been for nothing anyway.

And then he gets impeached for being a war-mongering lunatic and every American politician for the next 100 years tries to pretend the whole thing never happened. Americans are not going to want to go to war with the entire world in order to prevent a global war.
 
And then he gets impeached for being a war-mongering lunatic and every American politician for the next 100 years tries to pretend the whole thing never happened. Americans are not going to want to go to war with the entire world in order to prevent a global war.
They already have gone to war with half the world to put an end to a global war, and the other half was reeling and barely capable of resistance. If Truman(or perhaps if FDR had selected someone else as a VP?) had used his bully pulpit to drive home what they stood to lose and what they stood to gain, then they would rally for one last war. One far quicker and easier then WW2 itself had been.
 
They already have gone to war with half the world to put an end to a global war, and the other half was reeling and barely capable of resistance.

Germany, Italy and Japan were nowhere near half the world. The 'other half' were mostly countries that we'd been fighting alongside for almost half a decade. Now we're going to invade, conquer and annex them? It's not going to fly with Americans in or out of uniform.

You can make an interesting ASB scenario out of this - how much could 1945 America conquer and hold if it were somehow so inclined? - but as a plausible ATL, I just don't think it works at all. Sorry!
 
Germany, Italy and Japan were nowhere near half the world. The 'other half' were mostly countries that we'd been fighting alongside for almost half a decade. Now we're going to invade, conquer and annex them? It's not going to fly with Americans in or out of uniform.

You can make an interesting ASB scenario out of this - how much could 1945 America conquer and hold if it were somehow so inclined? - but as a plausible ATL, I just don't think it works at all. Sorry!
What? Britain, utterly indebted and economically dependent on the US? China, where the KMT was struggling with the PRC and would surely prefer retaining control within a world union to losing control while independent? France, occupied? The Soviet Union would put up a whole lot of resistance, but were already crippled by WW2 an dependent on Lend-lease.

What is ASB and ATL?
 
Regime change in the USSR is the main question. Without the Soviet Union, the United States could probably puppetize the rest of the world in the medium term if it pursued such a goal with enough determination. A 1945 Cold-War-Gone-Hot scenario has been explored in a lot of threads, and it would have been very costly for everyone. If such a war did end with the removal of the communist government in Russia, America would have presumably been the undisputed hegemon of the globe and vasselize other countries to the degree it found useful.
 

CalBear

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Not really. If the world was united we'd have freedom of movement on a global scale, while now we have the segregation along national border lines and an orange fascist elected specifically to enforce that. If the world was united we'd have a global welfare and wealth redistribution state putting an end to the extremes of poverty and starvation in Africa and Asia. If the world was united, nationalist candidates like Trump and Le Pen would never stand a chance because their appeal would be purely local. If the world was united there would be no war between nations, no WMD arm races, no state sponsors of terrorism, far less money wasted on the military.
Please refrain from discussing current politics outside of Chat.
 
How does the USA go about annexing Western Europe/Canada/Australia? They surely wouldn't just accept the annexation without opposition, and there is no way that the public would accept a war with our close allies.
 
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I can't see Truman or anyone US major politician being so stupid. Like previous posters have stated, it would cause global resistance. USA can't win that even with nuclear weapons. Even if leadership of USA would become total mad they wouldn't last long. Military not want fight against their allies after when they had alredy while ago beat another lunatic warmonger nations. Truman wouldn't last very long and he would be fired and impeached.

And other nations wouldn't anymore trust to United States. It would be big propaganda victory for USSR. Such attempt would be great evidence how imperialist and egoist USA is.
 
lf the world was united there would be no war between nations, no WMD arm races, no state sponsors of terrorism, far less money wasted on the military.

Plenty of countries have civil wars in spite of being one country.

And in order to suppress the people who might start one, you need a police state that costs just as much as the military.
 
Not really. If the world was united we'd have freedom of movement on a global scale, while now we have the segregation along national border lines and an orange fascist elected specifically to enforce that. If the world was united we'd have a global welfare and wealth redistribution state putting an end to the extremes of poverty and starvation in Africa and Asia. If the world was united, nationalist candidates like Trump and Le Pen would never stand a chance because their appeal would be purely local. If the world was united there would be no war between nations, no WMD arm races, no state sponsors of terrorism, far less money wasted on the military.
If you think the US of the 40s and 50s (having just recovered from the Depression) would have sunk huge chunks of their wealth to develop China, India, South America, and Africa then your idealism is beyond blinding. At best they would have been turned into markets and resource gathering points like every other imperial system. With the rise of nationalism in Africa alone, imagine the atrocities that would arise and how it would inflame blacks in America seeing slavery resurrected. Not to mention Americans were tired of war by 1945. Do you really believe the US could suffer even more casualties and not face a revolution at home? Terrorism would still be there, particularly in India. They were not ready to trade one master for another. Unless America was prepared to nuke, to starve, and to kill like the evil empires they had fought, for said reasons mind you, the US was not going to succeed let alone turn the world into a global Utopia.
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
Not really. If the world was united we'd have freedom of movement on a global scale, while now we have the segregation along national border lines and an orange fascist elected specifically to enforce that. If the world was united we'd have a global welfare and wealth redistribution state putting an end to the extremes of poverty and starvation in Africa and Asia. If the world was united, nationalist candidates like Trump and Le Pen would never stand a chance because their appeal would be purely local. If the world was united there would be no war between nations, no WMD arm races, no state sponsors of terrorism, far less money wasted on the military.

You and I clearly have differing views on the matter, but to boil it down: You believe that utopia is possible and I do not. You believe a World Government could create such a utopia and I do not.

Also, Trump's rise was not the result of a lack of World Government, it was the result of BOTH SIDES acting like petulant children and not wanting to work together through proper compromise. But again, Calbear is very right in that this remains in Chat. If you wish to continue this conversation PM me, but I doubt it'll lead to a mutual understanding, our views are too diametrically opposed.

Frankly I think this thread should be either closed or moved to Chat.
 
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