\1 In real actual history, the US didn't developed a working nuclear weapon based on UK provided designs until after the German surrender.
So in real history there was no chance to "glass" an active EU war zone during WWII.
\2 In the GP's fantasy history in which the US left Europe alone to deal with the Nazi's on their own, the MAUD folk would have never passed on their research to the US and the US would have wallowed in their belief that nuclear weapons were impractical and continued on messing about with atomic power from big piles.
The US saw the MAUD report before entering the war. American scientists received copies as early as October (chemist James Conant received it october 3). But the US didnt commit to entering the war until after Pearl Harbor, December 8.
You are mixing the order of events.
Second you are overstating its importance. The primary contribution of the report is scientific feasibility.
Every part of the engineering and design of the bombs was done in secret in the US without any other country collaboration. They didnt need "UK provided designs" because there was no such thing.
MAUD made repeated paper approaches to the US to convince them of the feasibility of a weapons program, these were ignored.
Mark Oliphant made several advances and presentations in person before the US were convinced.
It's on record that regardless of any papers read, whether from the UK group, the Germans, the Japanese, et al. US scientists largely remained skeptical that a bomb was possible until repeated outside influence resulted in outside scientists baby walking them through the approach and the numbers.
> You are mixing the order of events.
* The German Instrument of Surrender was a legal document effecting the unconditional surrender of the remaining German armed forces to the Allies, ending World War II in Europe. It was signed at 22:43 CET on 8 May 1945
* Trinity was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. Mountain War Time (11:29:21 GMT) on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project.
It would appear Germany did, as stated, surrender before the US had an actual working atomic bomb.
> Every part of the engineering and design of the bombs was done in secret in the US without any other country collaboration.
is straight up ahistorical; both the UK and Canada were deeply invovled in the project until, at least, the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. They played a crucial role in technique (magnetic seperation, etc.), raw material provision, provided a number of personal, etc.
The relevant order of events is when the US entered the war and when they received the report.
When Germany surrendered is not relevant to the hypothetical discussion.
The Manhattan project was an enourmous effort of 100,000. It was entirely self sufficient without the UK, and the results from the MAUD report were all replicated anyway. The most important advancements in chain reaction physics, plutonium reactor design, uranium enrichment architecture were all done without the british.
Its true that Britain made important early theoretical contributions and also supplied valuable British scientists, but the Manhattan Project’s success was overwhelmingly American in funding, manpower, industrial capacity, and scientific leadership. The U.S. would certainly have achieved the bomb on the same timeline without UK assistance.
The Quebec Agreement was a secret agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States outlining the terms for the coordinated development of the science and engineering related to nuclear energy and specifically nuclear weapons.
It was signed by Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt on 19 August 1943, during World War II, at the First Quebec Conference in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
British scientists performed important work as part of the British contribution to the Manhattan Project, and in July 1945 British permission required by the agreement was given for the use of nuclear weapons against Japan.
> The U.S. would certainly have achieved the bomb on the same timeline without UK assistance.
In real history the US didn't even consider a nuclear weapons program w/out being pushed by the Bitish.
In real history both Churchill and Stalin wer better informed as to the progress of the Manhattan Project than was Truman who wasn't even aware of the project until On April 25, 1945.
In the realm of speculative history, the atomic bombing of Germany has often been discussed by real informed historians, the bulk of these discussions, the better informed ones at least, conclude such a thing to be unlikely to impossible .. but still worthy of a good beer table hypothetical.
The UK being kept in secrecy from the Manhattan project is absolutely correct.
Yes, they were part of the beginning (MAUD report) but later cut off from full Manhattan Project information after 1942 due to U.S. security concerns and then formally cutoff by the McMahon Act of 1946, which made sharing of nuclear technology fully illegal. This is why for example Britain went on to develop its own bomb independently after the war, because they were not privy to the full development. And why any sort of collaboration only resumed more than a decade later in 1958, after the UK independently became a nuclear power.
If they were part of it, why would they need to design their own? Think about it logically.
I am really not saying anything that isnt widely known or understood. The american nuclear program in general was highly controlled information that was not shared to allies. The Manhattan project was kept in secrecy from the UK, contrary to your claim.
Are you from the UK?
There is this bizarre yet pervasize belief that Britain is still relevant on the global stage. I wonder if the overstating of Britain's very minimal role in the Manhattan project stems from the same vein.
In reality the UK is roughly the economic size of one US state and its modern role is that of a sports venue and tourist destination for more powerful countries. If you are from the UK, this discussion makes sense.
We... do? Of course, if you'd like to name whatever wars we're a) involved with and b) not fighting ourselves, then that would be splendid.
Anyway, how is that relevant to enforcing the DSA on X?
> We civilized them. And we may have to civilize them again.
What does this even mean? What do you mean by "civilize"? Also this sounds very much like how colonialism and imperialism were justified back in the 19th and 20th centuries.
But again, what does this have to do with X and DSA?
> But until they turn to yet another genocide maybe we should just let the Europeans have at each other.
Russia is currently conducting a genocide over in Ukraine, for example by kidnapping children and bringing them over to Russia and beyond, for example to North Korea.
This is a war crime and also genocidal. So by your admission you ought to be helping.
But again, what does this have to do with X and DSA?
> We can pay them the $150m to let them take care of Ukraine themselves. It was bad enough we had to drag them by the nose to the water. Maybe enough is enough.
We are taking care of Ukraine. Most of the aid is coming from various EU states, and the organisation itself.
Of course, the United States is the largest singular donator and also has donated some very important capabilities to Ukraine, for which people should be and are thankful for, but the claim that Europe isn't doing anything for Ukraine is just false. Could we do more? Absolutely. Should we? Yes. But that doesn't mean that nothing is happening.
But I must ask again, what does this have to do with X or the DSA?
> What does this even mean? What do you mean by "civilize"?
Teach them not to gas millions of people, that kind of thing. Nothing outrageous or anything.
> Russia is currently conducting a genocide over in Ukraine, for example by kidnapping children and bringing them over to Russia and beyond, for example to North Korea.
Ukrainian casualties are nothing like what Germany was inflicting on people. The latter rises to the standard. The former perhaps not.
To be honest, at first I thought we had to help a European country being invaded by Russia, but over time I've realized that Europeans mostly don't want us there. This is an internal affair for them. Some Europeans killing other Europeans. If it gets to the millions of civilians dead, then yeah they've fallen back into their atavistic ways and we have to go clean up again. But otherwise you kind of have to let Europeans be Europeans.
Blowing up their pipeline to get them to help themselves was unnecessary. If they don't want to help, they don't have to. It's up to them. We've got stuff to deal with. And they don't appreciate it anyway. They primarily treat the US as some kind of pinata to pop out money and weapons any time they decide to go kill each other.
> Ukrainian casualties are nothing like what Germany was inflicting on people. The latter rises to the standard. The former perhaps not.
The UN convention on prevention of genocide doesn't have any victim threshold for what counts as genocide.
> To be honest, at first I thought we had to help a European country being invaded by Russia, but over time I've realized that Europeans mostly don't want us there
Anyone using "Europeans" to broadly paint a whole continent with a single brush as expressing a singular opinion is at best extremely misinformed, at worst...
Anyways, Ukrainians very much want American support. And have been providing invaluable information on exactly how the Russians work and think in exchange for it.
In most EU member states, the majority of people, wanted US and EU side by side helping Ukraine. After all, most of those countries sent soldiers to help US kill a bunch of Iraqis, wouldn't it be nice to do it for a good cause for a change? Of course, the ~20-30-40% of Russophiles in multiple Central and Eastern European countries (like Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, etc) didn't want that, they wanted their "brothers" to win. But they're mostly irrelevant, and mostly dying off.
That's also why it's stupid to paint any war as just "it's just Europeans killing Europeans or just Africans killing Africans". How does that change anything about the war, or its casualties? Was Srebrenica not a genocide that merited being stopped just because both were Balkan peoples? Does the war in Sudan deserve no attention because it's just Africans?
But Trump and Vance have completely changed how Europeans see the US. Now everyone knows that they're no longer a partner. There is no going back on this.
> Trump and Vance have completely changed how Europeans see the US. Now everyone knows that they're no longer a partner. There is no going back on this.
The quietly released (no fanfare) 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States of America that dropped last night explicitly steers the US away from traditional European allies and embraces Russia.
> But Trump and Vance have completely changed how Europeans see the US. Now everyone knows that they're no longer a partner. There is no going back on this.
Exactly. Europeans believe we are not partners any more and that we never will be. There’s really no reason for us to send anything to Ukraine. When we were partners it made sense but as you point out, Europeans don’t believe that’s the case. So I think it’s time to move on and stop trying to force an alliance that doesn’t want to be together.
We should disband NATO and adjust to the new world order where Europe and the US are not allies, just participants in a multipolar world. If Europeans want to fight Europeans, we should let them work it out.
It’s not our business and they don’t want us in it. The allies we pick should be ones who want to be allied with us. America lost four hundred thousand men for your last internal conflict. We requested and got a token few thousand men over all the times we needed you. The debt will remain unpaid. And that’s okay.
You don’t want us and we don’t want you. It’s time to get a divorce.
