re: When was the United States at its peak - in relation to the world?

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just to defeat USSR

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Oh I believe we could have defeated the USSR without nuclear weapons. It sure as shite woulnd't have been easy though. By no means. And it would have required full participation from our French and British allies. Preferably the Germans too but that was a sticky political situation.

There is of course the possibility of Mao Tse Tung's Communists and the USSR joining forces.

The few nukes we had in 1945-1946 wouldn't have been enough to prevent that from being a full on, extremely bloody conventional war though.

The ideal scenario would have been to push them back to their pre-war borders east of Poland and settle. Other than that it would have been rather unpredictable and costly beyond comprehension. IMO.