I take your point. The US is certainly a potential military superpower (and already an economic/manufacturing power, and a major naval power). And I wouldn't bet against it in the event of a war in the 1940s - hell, their economic and material support kept the West and Japan afloat against the USSR, if they'd joined in...
That said, in a modern war with one of the major world powers... Hard to know, really. I mean, the US is a major naval power, and they've a decent-sized air-force, but most of their planes are fighter-bombers rather than dedicated heavy bombers. So if they went to war with a bomber-heavy nation, until their manufacturing got into high gear they'd probably suffer from heavy bombing they couldn't respond to. Question is: how would Joe Public in the States react to that? Would they want to come to terms, or would they bear it until the US could strike back in kind?
Mind you, the atomic bomb makes this kind of discussion meaningless to an extent. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, China, Japan and the US all have their own arsenals: in a nuclear war, even the winner loses... Though thank God the Arms Talks of the 1960s outlawed those planned 'Pan-Continental' missiles and limited atomic arsenals to cruise missiles and gravity bombs. At least with those, neutral countries are less likely to get caught in any crossfires.
OOC: I figure that without a 'Pearl Harbour moment', the rest of the world would still question just how America would fare in a major war, and how its people would stand the pace...
theg*ddam*h&s3fan, I again point you to Suomi. Think of the United States of America as a Finland with an economy and population as big as Europe.
The USA is the most technologically-advanced nation in the world. Lend-Lease aid caused the industrial buildup that made the USA the world's premier industrial power to this day. If the USA wanted to it could conquer the Arab Republic in about two weeks--and hold it, if they were willing to accept heavy attrition. And that's with
OTL power, a huge navy but a military that's little more than a glorified police force by, say, German or Finnish standards.
In '39, Finland was a backwater with no more than a couple of dozen tanks for the entire nation, barely any antimateriel or artillery, and up against the
entire Soviet Union. You play Hammer and Sickle 3, you
know just how big of an advantage the Soviet Union starts with. Now look at the numbers in America--yes, America starts with Isolationism as a national value, blahblahblah, but look at the factory numbers. Remember that Finland starts with similar national values, about 2 factories, and a military that's 30 years out of date. Note
just how much ass Finland kicked in real life, despite having
their cities firebombed and with Stalin marching
two million men straight down their throats.
And they were vastly outnumbered with a joke of a navy and a pathetic army 30 years out of date with little to no armor or artillery.
In a modern war, the United States would obliterate their opposition, simply because there is no power tough enough to be a USSR to them and deal enough damage to get them to drop out of the war before they upgrade their army and air force. Who's going to attack the USA? Germany? US has more factories, more people, a much better navy, and isn't suffering from political strife or the blatant intervention in Slovakia bullshit that Holger Apfel's* fucking with. France? Their navy's a joke, their air force and tanks are last-gen British loans, and they don't have the sheer population needed to threaten the USA. Britain? They have two Dominions remaining, Canada and ANZAC. ANZAC won't go to war unless they're
really scared of China or Japan. Canada relies too much on American goods to ever attack them, and
its own military is a joke. On top of that, the Royal Navy only has one supercarrier, and it's half the size of the
President Hubert Humphrey-class**, let alone the
President Audie L. Murphy-class***, and in terms of speed, armament, range, and fuel efficiency the
King George VI-class destroyer is fundamentally inferior to the
Chester Nimitz-class destroyer****, let alone the
Alvin York-class prototype*****. Britain would lose the Dominions and its navy would be screwed, then America would float the
President Murphy to a safe distance off Brighton and just send bombers to flatten London. China? They're a food importer, they can't afford a lasting war, and the 20th century political chaos and totalitarian phase has fundamentally left them without the industrial capacity or modern military technology needed to compete even with Japan; why do you think Japan still has half of east Asia in its sphere? If China had real power it'd be able to pry Korea and Burma out at a minimum. Japan? The IJN is the only serious challenge to the US Navy, yes, but again--the
President Humphrey-class is 25% larger than the
Yamamoto-class, and the USN has two more supercarriers including the trump card that is the
President Murphy,
and they have the
Washington-class submarines. Those are at least ten years ahead of anything else in the world. Japan's biggest weakness is that after the Army lost so much prestige in the '30s when Yamamoto took Tojo out of power and disavowed his actions in Manchuria, their army isn't much better than the US army. With the massive population disparity, the dubious willingness of the non-ethnic-Japanese population to fight for the glory of the Emperor, and the US's sheer weight of factories, a long war again favors the USA. One of the Russian fragments reforming Russia and going full Stalin? If they even got that far they'd have to rebuild half a continent. The Indias? If they ever stop squabbling they're still 20 years behind the rest of the world in all fields. Some African country? Don't make me laugh. Even with pre-emptive nuking there's no way that anyone can survive an extended war with a pissed-off democracy of the US's sheer size and power.
In the second world war? Dude, I'm fucking
terrified of what the United States could do. They bankrolled the London project, they bankrolled Britain and Japan
and Germany, and they sent so many
Lincoln tanks to Finland that by '45 the Finns had more tanks being operated on that front than the Soviets did.
And that's just after coming out of near-collapse and narrowly avoiding a civil war in the Big Crunch.
And keep in mind that the nuclear supercarriers of our USN are from a United States that basically has a big navy to tell other nations not to fuck with its trade
ever again. Imagine a militaristic USA that feels it won the second world war like OTL Germany and Britain do. A USA that's the world's one superpower
and flexes those muscles. They could have half of Europe in some kind of defense treaty, Japan would be little more than a puppet rather than a trading partner and ally of convenience against Chinese ambitions in Vietnam, Great Britain would be second fiddle, Canada would probably be outright annexed instead of America's hairpiece, Mexico would never have had all the revolutions and political strife over the later 20th century...basically, the world would be the US's playground. Don't tell me that's not a scary idea, with the entire world drinking that pisswater the US calls beer.
*OOC: German Putin, former
Heydrichjugend member and State Sec officer. OTL a crazy neo-Nazi.
**OOC:
Nimitz-class equivalent.
***OOC: Advanced prototype broadly similar to the
Gerald R. Ford-class
****OOC:
Arleigh Burke-class equivalent
*****OOC:
Zumwalt-class equivalent
OTOH, Siberia and Karafuto both meant that Japan's resource issues were solved, so no real need for further expansion.
