Inspired by some threads about the immediate post WWII years.
How about this possibility? Was Stalin bluffing over Eastern Europe? Could the US, Britain and France (presumably with with German volunteers as well) have forced him back to the east of Poland? Politically, or militarily if necessary?
This reminds me of the original SNL sketch, “What if”, and particularly, “What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?”
And the answer here is if there were the political resolve and reason, the United States could have done it alone with logistical support from the UK and France. We had the bomb, the Russians didn’t. As others have mentioned, Patton and MacArthur wanted to. But you may have noticed that Patton and Mac were generals, not politicians. Remember everyone was war weary. More than 50 million people were dead. And while we had technology the Soviets didn’t, they would shortly. And they had millions more soldiers fighting. It would have been an awful, bloody mess. Far more awful and bloody than the cold war that ensued.