Russia vows consequences after Norway invites more U.S. Marines

[Thatfatrat]

It's kinda funny you should mention that bit about " Never give them a chance to prop themselves up again until basically there is no chance they could pose a threat again". In the interim period between the US developing nuclear technology and the soviets getting their hands on it a lot of US officials considered blasting them back to the stone age. Even Bertrand Russell was in the camp of hamstringing the soviets. So basically the US did almost do exactly what you propose.

[Thelurker1234]

Given the past 150 years, you can't really say they're that stable.