[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Perhaps, if the Axis Powers just sat still and left the UK alone to do it, sure. When did GB test its first nuclear weapons? 1952. That's 13 years after the war [in Europe] started; 7 years after it ended. Could it have developed, tested, and deployed its own nuclear weapon/s under the constant pressure of a partial naval blockade and constant air and V-weapon attacks?

Note where it was tested. Certainly wasn't in the UK!!!
Middle of Australia, Woomera to be exact.

Originally Posted by Raellus

You also conveniently ignore the fact that UK had lost almost all of its East Asian empire by 1942 and did not have the means to both get it back and hold off the Germans at the same time. Without the Americans, could the British have defeated the Axis in the ETO and recovered its East Asian real estate?

India was still in the fight as was Australia and New Zealand, not to mention South Africa as well as a number of other countries of somewhat lesser strategic importance (although able to supply troops and materials). Although at the time there was a great deal of fear that the Japanese would continue southward and roll over Australia and New Zealand, there was in reality little need for them to do that, nor did they really have the available forces anyway. Australia is HUGE. They'd need hundreds of thousands of troops to take it in the 1940s (more today with our greater population), troops they simply didn't have as it turned out.

With the constant threat of German aerial attack it's likely much of the UKs industrial production would be shifted to safer colonies (such as South Africa) with finished products shipped in via convoys. Eygpt and the suez canal would likely have become even more important with Commonwealth efforts against the Axis forces concentrated there while the UK itself carried out only holding actions to prevent invasion. Instead of D-Day landings being in France, the main thrust (when it finally came, likely several years later) may have been up through the middle east in an attempt to link up with the Soviets.

All in all though it's really impossible to say what might have happened, but it is foolish to say the UK would definitely have been defeated without the US.

Originally Posted by Raellus

If you are arguing that the Commonwealth could have defeated the Axis Powers without American help...

It was possible. Even with the multiple fronts the Commonwealth were holding their own using substandard equipment (mainly god awful tanks with underpowered guns and dodgy tactics). It may have taken a few years but the Commonwealth may have been able to strangle Germany just enough to force a stalemate, and eventually, after another decade or two, maybe even take back some areas.

It would be a radically different world that which we live in today, one I imagine would somewhat resemble that shown in the George Orwell book, 1984 with war a constant background and the people generally living in poverty.