re: If the West was forced into war vs the Soviets immediately following Germany’s surrender

by late 1945 our service men were ready to revolt at the prospect of loading up to head to the pacific campaign....

you would have had a full on desertion in the ranks if they were told to fight the russians....

and i dont think we had much material to make but a few more bombs. i remember reading that had Japan not surrendered after Nagasaki we were worried we would still need to go via beach invasion of the mainland,....

Also, there was 3 months between JE Day and VJ Day.... with the prospect of a longer war in the pacific, al while we pushed for Russia to declare war in 90 days on Japan.....

no way we turn from Germany to russia....

However, i think things would have changed drastically had we pushed to beat the USSR to berlin instead of giving them trophy... we pushed east into germany then going South into Austria we beat russia to berlin. but FDR had promised them berlin and the east sector of germany

i also wonder if churchill's paln to invade Greece instead of Sicily and italy would have been a better option. the US and British were in a stalemate at Monte Casino

had we pushed into greece and then done normandy maybe we save central and South central europe from falling to the iron curtain.