Moral norms: Nuclear weapons gave the USA a decisive advantage at the end of WWII. If the USA had been entirely ruthless and bent on power at any cost, it would immediately have used that advantage to cripple all rivals for world superpower and declared its rulership of the world.
Dubious. We never had a decisive advantage. At the end of WWII we had a few atomic bombs, yes, but not ICBMs. The missile tech came later. Our delivery method was a bomber, and the Soviets were quite capable of shooting them down, unlike Japanese at the time. Attacking them would have been a terrible risk.
The Soviets had spies and developed their own nuclear weapons much sooner than we anticipated.
In hindsight, there may have been a point early in the Cold War when a nuclear first strike could have worked, but we didn’t know that at the time, and we’d have certainly taken losses.
I agree, if the USA had decided to take over the world at the end of WWII, it would have taken absolutely cataclysmic losses. I think it would still have ended up on top of what was left, and the world would have rebuilt, with the USA on top. But not being prepared to make such an awful sacrifice to grasp power probably comes under a different heading than “moral norms”.
Dubious. We never had a decisive advantage. At the end of WWII we had a few atomic bombs, yes, but not ICBMs. The missile tech came later. Our delivery method was a bomber, and the Soviets were quite capable of shooting them down, unlike Japanese at the time. Attacking them would have been a terrible risk.
The Soviets had spies and developed their own nuclear weapons much sooner than we anticipated.
In hindsight, there may have been a point early in the Cold War when a nuclear first strike could have worked, but we didn’t know that at the time, and we’d have certainly taken losses.
I agree, if the USA had decided to take over the world at the end of WWII, it would have taken absolutely cataclysmic losses. I think it would still have ended up on top of what was left, and the world would have rebuilt, with the USA on top. But not being prepared to make such an awful sacrifice to grasp power probably comes under a different heading than “moral norms”.