For a brief, shining moment in 1945, the United States stood astride the world like a colossus. In four years, we had built the greatest military machine in human history, liberated half the planet, and dropped the sun itself on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to prove the point. Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and imperial Japan (three empires that had terrorized the globe) lay in smoking ruins. The message was unmistakable: try America on the battlefield and you will be annihilated.
