When you're popular, everyone loves to hate you- and if you're American, then you should
be able to admit that throughout history the US has done things that deserve being hated
for.
And if you're not an American, then you should be able to admit that throughout history the
US has done things it deserves being loved for.
Yet as the world's sole superpower, the US's influence spreads around the world, in both
good and bad ways.
What would happen though if the US didn't exist anymore, or at least if its influence
across the world stage disappeared overnight?
World War II Ends In A Stalemate
Armchair historians love to point out that the moment Hitler invaded Russia, he was doomed
to failure and thus, World War II would have been won by the allies, even without the US.
Yet historical truth is not quite that simple.
Invading Russia was a critical mistake made by Hitler, and one worsened when the US joined
the war and reopened the Western front in Europe.
Yet what if the US had simply shrugged its shoulders when Russia and Britain begged it
to join the war effort?
Despite a superior fleet, Britain's war material supply was running dangerously low even with
constant American resupply efforts.
Without the US to ship war goods to Britain, the best that the United Kingdom could have
done is stave off a German invasion.
In war games carried out in the early 2000s by a British think tank, it was discovered
that Hitler could never have successfully overcome Britain's fleets, the RAF, or the
Home Guard in an cross-channel invasion- yet this war game was undertaken with constant
US resupply efforts underway.
Without those resupply efforts a cross-channel invasion would probably still have been disastrous
for Germany, but then again Germany would have had little need to invade Britain without
the US supplying it.
A token defensive force could have been left behind in France in order to discourage a
British invasion, and the full might of the Wehrmacht could have been dispatched to the
eastern front.
Not just reviled as a madman and mass murderer, Stalin was also famously a very poor strategic
thinker.
He was so surprised by Hitler's invasion that in the years leading up to it he had taken
almost zero precautions against German hostility.
To make matters worse, his political purges prior to World War II had decimated the ranks
of the Red Army, and eliminated most of its experienced commanders.
Despite having exponentially greater numbers and firepower advantage in the Winter War
of 1939 against Finland, the smaller and much more poorly equipped Finnish army managed
to absolutely decimate the Red Army before overwhelming numbers alone forced a defeat.
By the time of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, little had improved in the Red Army
in the way of command and control, logistical support, or even training.
When Hitler invaded, his troops quickly seized many of the Soviet Union's agricultural regions,
leaving the nation to face mass starvation- if it hadn't been for the US's lend-lease
aid program to the wartime allies.
Providing food, raw materials, tanks, planes, ammunition, clothing, and everything in between,
the United States provided critical aid to the Soviet Union in its most desperate hour.
American raw materials fueled Soviet factories that churned out tanks, and thousands of Studebaker
trucks helped move goods around the nation and its troops to the front lines.
Warm winter clothing kept Soviet soldiers from freezing to death, and American rations
fed both soldiers and civilians alike.
As Soviet General Georgy Zhukov said after World War II:
"We didn’t have explosives, gunpowder.
We didn’t have anything to charge our rifle cartridges with.
The Americans really saved us with their gunpowder and explosives.
And how much sheet steel they gave us!
How could we have produced our tanks without American steel?
But now they make it seem as if we had an abundance of all that.
Without American trucks we wouldn’t have had anything to pull our artillery with."
Immediately after the invasion of the Soviet Union, the United States gave the nation an
interest-free loan of $1billion – or about $17.5 billion in today's dollars- worth of
supplies and raw materials.
The United Kingdom was also given an initial lease of between 40 and 50 destroyers.
Per the terms of Lend-Lease, the materials were lent for the duration of the war, and
expected to be returned or reimbursed only upon war's end if they were kept for civilian
use.
Any combat losses would not be expected to be repaid.
Basically, the US lent the allies surplus military equipment under condition that it
didn't have to be repaid for that equipment unless it was kept after the war was over.
In total the US gave the Soviet Union 44,000 jeeps, 375,883 trucks, 8,071 tractors, 12,700
tanks, 1,541,590 blankets, 331,066 liters of alcohol, 15,417,000 pairs of military boots,
106,893 tons of cotton, 2,670,000 tons of petroleum products and fuel, and 4,478,000
tons of food.
It's clear that without the US, the best the allies could have hoped for would have been
a stalemate, with Germany holding on to the richest parts of the Soviet Union and expelling
Britain off the mainland.
No European Union
Immediately after the end of the second world war, Europe found itself in shambles.
Nearly all of its financial and industrial networks had been destroyed in the fierce
fighting, and entire national economies had collapsed.
The war had been the most devastating in human history, and the fate of entire nations hung
by a thread.
Two and a half years after the end of fighting, there was very little sign of recovery from
the European mainland, with millions homeless and out of work.
Then in 1948 US Secretary of State George C. Marshall drafted up a four-year plan meant
to reinvigorate the European economy.
The plan would rely on $15 billion dollars of financial aid- or a quarter of a trillion
dollars in today's dollars- and would be completely financed by the American taxpayer.
The first target of the Marshall Plan as it came to be known, would be feeding the European
population, as a massive famine was threatening the mainland.
Thus food aid was immediately dispatched to 16 European nations- the Soviet Union and
its satellite states had been offered assistance as well but had turned it down due to fears
of meddling by the US in internal affairs.
The main focus of the Marshall Plan was on the recovery of Europe's largest industrial
powers, such as West Germany, France, and Great Britain, as it was believed that if
these great economies were jump-started then the effects would spread to other nations.
Attempts to rebuild national shipping fleets, road and railway infrastructure, and reconstruct
devastated cities were bolstered by American aid money- though the effect of the Marshall
Plan is likely less economic, and more political.
Due to the Soviet Union's refusal to partake in any reconstruction efforts, the Marshall
Plan and the 16 nations it aided helped establish the political framework for what post-WWII
Europe would look like, with the West firmly aligned in solidarity against the Communist
east.
The Marshall Plan seeded the idea of European unity, and fostered an intertwining of European
interests which was President Truman's greatest goals- as only a unified Europe could stand
against the Soviet Union, but also only a unified Europe could avert another world war.
Without the Marshall Plan European economies would have taken longer to recover than they
did, which would have made them more vulnerable to political revolutions fostered by the Soviet
Union, who's agents were constantly at work attempting to make the ideology of Soviet
'revolution abroad'- or of spreading communist revolutions around the world- a reality.
The Marshall Plan however also laid down the political and economic roots for what would
become the European Union, and without it it's very likely that Europe would have returned
to the 'old power' way of thinking that had dominated European politics for centuries.
European Colonialism Prevails
Prior to World War II European powers retained colonies across the world, and upon entering
the second world war, President Roosevelt made it extremely clear to the Allies that
America's help was dependent on the eventual liberation of the majority of these colonial
holdings.
With their feet to the fire, Britain and France were forced to agree, and after the end of
the war President Truman made it a top priority to ensure that Britain and France, as well
as other European powers, held true to their promises to begin liberating their colonies.
Though the process was slow, the end of colonialism was as much the result of the economic collapse
of Europe's great powers as it was the sheer determination of American presidents to see
Europe relinquish its old ways.
Without the United States, European colonialism would have continued- and may in fact have
worsened.
With their economies in shambles, European powers would have leaned even harder on their
colonial states, bleeding their economies dry in an effort to rebuild themselves.
This would have sparked violent insurgencies around the world, which would have brought
with them harsh crackdowns by the colonial powers.
In the end the death of European colonialism would have taken decades more to arrive, and
the world today may in fact look a lot more like it did during the age of the great powers.
Korea Unified Under The North and Japan Rises As An Imperial Power Once More
Today South Korea is a vibrant and prosperous nation, while its neighbor to the north is
facing mass starvation and economic desolation.
Yet the entire Korean Peninsula would look very different today were it not for the US.
Two days after the start of the war, the UN published Resolution 83 urging UN members
to lend military aid to the South.
A UN coalition force would ultimately formed, but it was the US that would do the heavy
lifting.
The war would end three years later after China's involvement, with the US not desiring
to see the situation evolve into another major war that would now include China.
If the US had not been available to defend the south, the war would have been won by
the north far too quickly for the UN to marshal a sizable military response, and the entire
peninsula would have been reunited under the North.
Communism would have overtaken the south, and while we may be tempted to compare the
fate of a communist peninsula with that shared by the North today, it's important to remember
that the state of the North's economy is largely the result of US-led sanctions efforts against
the Kim regime.
Without the US to lead these sanctions, and under the protection of a growing China, the
unified Korean peninsula would be in a stronger economic state than the North is today.
If it would have been more prosperous than South Korea is today is debatable, but what
isn't is that a Communist Korea wouldn't necessarily be as impoverished as the North is today.
A communist Korea would have naturally gravitated towards China, and become a satellite state.
This would have upended Asian politics as we understand them today.
Japan, for one, would have been quick to ditch its pacifistic ideologies, which were only
ever truly possible as a result of Japan enjoying the protection of the United States.
Faced with a hostile China, Japanese nationalistic hardliners would have upended the constitution
and rewritten it to allow Japan to once more field a military capable of both offensive
and defensive operations.
Even today Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is a member of a right-wing nationalistic
party which in the past advocated a return to Imperial power.
Japan would have risen as a military power once more, and conflict in Asia would be all
but unavoidable.
The second half of the twentieth century would have been dramatically different without US
intervention, and it's likely that Communism would have dominated the global stage both
militarily and politically.
Whereas today we live in a world of mostly strong, democratic states, we could in fact
have seen a reverse of this, with the world as we know it being made up of a collection
of communist states where the democracies are the minority.
What would that have meant for global civil rights movements?
We can only guess, but in part two we'll take a look at how the world may have looked as
it entered the 21st century in a world without the US.
What do you think would have happened to post-war Europe without the US?
What would the world look like today?
Let us know in the comments!
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part two of What If: World Without US!