It's a simple enough question, could Mr. House before the Great War had saved the world and if so was he likely to accomplish such a goal?

No. If he tried to point out the insanity, the Enclave would have arrested and executed him as a communist.

I tend to think House's lack of desire to save the world was because it was already a [censored] hole by the time he was a billionaire.

He expected to make a Vegas-based Utopia Post-Apocalypse only for the chip to not arrive.

Saved the world from what?

The bombs.

You mean the ones launched by all the humans? That wasn't some accidental catastrophe; it was a choice made by every powerful nation on Earth. House would have had to have reformed both the U.S. and Chinese governments as well as solve a resource crises in order to stop the Great War, and I just don't see how that's feasible or even sensible. If by "saving the world," the OP meant saving human civilization as it was prior to the Great War, then I'm afraid that that's not possible. Human civilization as it was prior to the Great War caused the Great War.

No, he could'nt stop the great war and save the world. I don't think he wanted to save the entire world.
Just wanted to save the mojave and las vegas.

He would have needed to have control over every country with nukes.
And that'd take a loooogg time and a lot of hacking.

And a like or neutrality to all countries with nukes.
Which is unlikely.

He's not a vituous altruist.
He's neutrel to good neutrel. Truely Neutrel I think. He wanted to preserve and save were he lived. Then make it his empire and have a thriving empire geared towards progress.
He wanted to save las vegas and the mojave. Because he loved the city and area.
But beyond that is pushing it anyway.
He did what he could in secret and had the chip come in time he would have saved a lot more lives and land.

If he'd actually tried to stop the great war, or protect america, the enclave would have hunted him down and killed him.
Because they were planning it.
And he probabely knew or felt that there were forces behind the hostilities and stayed the hell out of it.
Prewar world was not a place you crossed the govourment and authorities in.

FYI, the Enclave didn't exactly "plan" the Great War. It's more like they saw it coming and decided to use it as an opportunity to leave and find a "more habitable" planet, but they ditched that idea. They ended up using it as an opportunity to take power over a people too devastated to fight back. Ultimately, the Chosen One showed up and rendered their plan invalid.

I somewhat agree with you, although the reason he saved Vegas (besides the fact that he loved the city) was that its Economy can be utilized to fuel a new nation that could be forged after the events of Fallout New Vegas.

Look, he knew almost exactly when the bombs would fall, so he kind could have protected the U.S or atleast cooporate with the government in the making of enough anti-nuclear missiles but no, he didn't care for the survival of the planet or his country, he cared for humanity in a whole to survive in the long run. So no he couldn't have saved the world, but he could have prevented the U.S to be as damaged as it actually is.

In the words of Mr. House. 'I knew I couldn't 'save the world', nor did I care to. But I knew I could save Vegas, and perhaps in the process, save Mankind.'

In short, no. He couldn't have, nor did he have the concern to do so. However, his plans for Vegas are basically to stake a treaty with NCR, work with their people, build up capital, start reigniting Old World industry and business, and start reshaping the Wasteland in the Vegas region of the Mojave into something resembling its Pre-War self.

knowing and actually being able to prevent something thats gonna happen totally different. What he did was in secret and barely had it done before the war started. If he tried to stop or protect the entire us, no one in the mojave nor him would have been saved because he would have been diverting his knowledge on a much broader scale so things would have gotten done alot slower and would have less or no time in protecting the area he wanted to.

And not to mention he spent 15 years saving just the Vegas area alone. Imagine how long it would take to have saved the entire country.