What would have happened if World War 2 didn't end when it did?

Answer 1

This is a pretty open ended question, and of course any answer will be entirely speculative. In Europe had the war not ended when it did makes the assumption that Germany was still in the war after May 1945. Thus Germany would have had to have stabilized the eastern front, possibly as far east as the Volga. It is highly unlikely that the Western Allies could have successfully invaded Europe under such a circumstance. Thus the war would have been become a technology race, since neither sides armed forces were sufficient to dominate the other. Germany clearly had the lead in many weapons systems such as submarines, tanks, small arms, mines, cruise missiles, rockets, nerve gas and a few others. The US/Britain armies had the advantage in various surface naval vessels, radar, heavy bombers, and nuclear. I disagree with many historians that the Abomb was an American trump card. Perhaps when flung against the small island nation of Japan - a nation without resources that had been defeated decisively on all front already - it was a determining factor. However German occupied Europe was not Japan. Germany's territory was much larger - we'd have to assume well over a million square miles. Germany's cities were plundered furiously during the war in any case, and that did not end the fighting. I could go on but the point is, five or ten nuclear bombs detonated against Germany would not likely have ended the war any more than the terror fire bombing of Dresden did. The German armed forces would have remained intact. So the outcome might have been that Germany looses a million or so civilians and 10% or 20% of her industrial base from the nuclear assault. Could Germany have withstood this assault and retaliated with her own nuclear bombs? It is well documented that the German nuclear program was run by men who did not support the Nazi regime. Would these persons have continued their creative incompetence had they seen German cities being ruined? If not I suspect Germany could have had a small number of bombs themselves by early 1946. And even if not, Germany certainly did have the capacity to produce 'dirty' nuclear devises (nuclear material encapsulating a conventional explosive) that would have made several of Englands cities uninhabitable. It is conceivable that such weapons might have been used directly against the USA eastern seaboard too. Would the western powers have continued fighting after seeing THEIR civilians massacred indiscriminately? Thus I think the war might have drug on to the end of 1946 and ended in stalemate with Germany the continents dominant power, Russia greatly reduced in strength, Britain totally depended on the USA, and the USA about as powerful as she was anyway. The colonial independence movements in S Asia and Africa would have happened even faster since the French, Belgians and Dutch would have been completely impotent and the British much weaker. In Asia it would have been interesting too, since if we are assuming Germany has stabilized the Russian front along the Volga, the Soviets would have been unable to invade China as they did Summer 1945. This invasion was very important to the USA as it meant the Soviets captured huge amounts of Japanese armaments, which they then gave to Mao, who quickly defeated the less well armed pro-west Nationalist forces, leading to a Communist China. Instead China would/should have been properly armed by the west and become a much more pro-west / pro-USA nation. Japan goes down either way....but with China out of the Soviet camp, there are no Korean or Vietnam wars. Another alternative is that Japan simply refuses all terms and goes on fighting. The Asian war thus continues until the Japanese home islands are completely occupied by Soviet/American forces sometime in 1946. The bloodbath would have been horrific - possibly numbering in the tens of millions for the Japanese, since neither the Americans or Russians had any compunction about killing civilians in mass quantities and both certainly had the means to do so. Japan comes out of the war in even worse shape than historically. The nation may have eventually recovered somewhat but would very unlikely have become the world economic powerhouse it is today.