the US was the only country on earth that had nukes for 5 years and was unscathed from WWII. We could have demilitarized and enslaved the entire planet under threat of nuclear death, but instead we gave away billions to help Japan and Europe rebuild. There's never been a more selfless act in human history as far as a country not seizing an opportunity to gain power is concerned. There's probably never been a larger power disparity between a single country and the rest of the world than post WWII USA, and they did exactly nothing to take advantage of that disparity.
US is far from perfect, mainly due to unconstitutional actions by our intel community and military, but as far as superpowers go there's really no comparison.
> they did exactly nothing to take advantage of that disparity
Oh come on, you cannot seriously believe that. Anyhow, I recommend you watch 'The Untold History of the United States' by Oliver Stone [0]. He has done a great job of telling people the stories that are not told in your history classes.
Because of course a propaganda book from foaming at the mouth, dictator-worshiping, and Anti-American hypocrite Oliver Stone would provide truth. /facepalm.
They guy made a documentary, and journalistically speaking, his work checks out. There are no factual errors in his documentary you can point to, so go on, call him a hypocrite or a dictator-worshipper (for which you can show no evidence btw) but know that you come off as an enormous hypocrite yourself. You've been programmed well sir.
I think that's a rather naive understanding of war. Look at Vietnam, look at Afghanistan. The USA still have by far the most powerful military in the world but that doesn't mean that you can just say "btw you're all your slaves now" and everybody is just going to accept it.
Maintaining a strong, authoritarian grasp on the entire world would require technology that (fortunately) did not exist during WWII and probably still not today. You'd just have civil wars, coups and terrorist attacks every other day. Your military would be spread thin across the globe. You'd basically have hundreds of countries in continuous state of insurrection like Afghanistan right now. It would cost the USA a fortune (and not just economically).
Giving these countries money in order to stabilize them and maintain "soft" influence makes a lot more sense in many cases.
But you did use it to gain power, just not in your "enslave all of humanity" nightmare.
It was nice, sure, but don't confuse it with some greater selfless act.
> It sure was very selfless and noble of America not to wage world war 3 im a quest to enslave humanity, with your limited supply of first gen nukes and increasingly war weary population.
the US was the only country on earth that had nukes for 5 years and was unscathed from WWII. We could have demilitarized and enslaved the entire planet under threat of nuclear death, but instead we gave away billions to help Japan and Europe rebuild. There's never been a more selfless act in human history as far as a country not seizing an opportunity to gain power is concerned. There's probably never been a larger power disparity between a single country and the rest of the world than post WWII USA, and they did exactly nothing to take advantage of that disparity.
US is far from perfect, mainly due to unconstitutional actions by our intel community and military, but as far as superpowers go there's really no comparison.