Big difference. The Japanese had no more fighters. But to cross Europe to Moscow??? Fuggedabout it. We would have encountered hordes of Soviet planes the whole way-—and remember, the weight of the Bomb was so great that I don’t think you could carry more than one per plane, meaning every plane that went down was a complete loss to our nuke arsenal. Then there were the duds. As late as the 1970s, a full 15% of our rockets and bombs failed (this is actually pretty low). But still, take a 100 plane raid, spruce it up with 100 decoys, then siphon out 15% duds, then apply Soviet air defenses . . . .? Nope, wouldn’t be sufficient to even make a dent in Soviet ground capabilities.
Yes, the US supplied materiel in abundance to the Russkies: and I'd match the US production capabilities to Russia's in a heartbeat (the US produced some 48 Thousand Sherman tanks and variants, according to the good folks at Avalon Hill).
But I've never heard or read much about the Russian Air Force's capabilities: neither the quality of their *designs*, nor the actual airframes, nor yet again the skill of their pilots.
And I read once that Stalin pulled out of a planned takeover of Iran in '46 or when Truman sent an envoy to threaten Stalin that if he didn't leave, we'd nuke him.
Doesn't square with what you wrote -- can you give me more information?
Full Disclosure: I just bought your "Patriot's History of the United States" and "48 Liberal Lies" for my college-type cub for Christmas. I hope he lets me read them when he's done...
Cheers!
...oh, and Merry Christmas!