The Nuclear War that wasn't

Straha

Banned
A favorite topic of Science Fiction films from the begining of the Atomic Age
was the idea of a coming Nuclear War in the late 20th Century. . Most scenarios ("A Boy and His Dog", the "Mad Max" trilogy, ""Logans Run", "Red Dawn", "Omega Man", "Terminator", "Planet of the Apes", "The Postman", etc) had survivors slowly rebuilding civilization back from a babarous state of postwar anarchy. Only a few ("Dr.Strangelove", "On the Beach", "Quintet", Return to te Planet of the Apes") had total human extiction as the predicted outcome.

There was no nuclear war of course. What sort of ATLs do you think could have occured in which a nuclear war actually did take place? The Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 1960s escalates when Premier Beria of the USSR refuses to back down from the U.S. Naval Blocade? The Atomic Bombing of China by President MacArthur during the Korean War? Stalin calls the bluff of the West and invades Western Europe with the Red Army after being informed that America doesn't have more than two or three atomic weapons currently built in 1946, inspiring him to try to use teams of Communist agents to disable them before than can be used?

What Late 20t Century WW3 scenarios can you think of?
 
Arabs more sucesfull in opening stages of Yom Kippur war.
US and US clash when Soviets send paras to Sinai in closing stges of same war
1999 Kargil crisis escalates into war, with China drawn into it (not exactlly WW3 but we are talking about 50% or so of would population being afected)
Soviet-Chinese border clashes develop in full scale war in which nukes are used.
Able Archer exercise in 1983 develops into actual war.
 

Cook

Banned
What if Saddam’s efforts to get the bomb hadn’t been halted back in the ‘80s by the Israeli air strike?
Suppose a more confident Saddam possessing a few nuclear weapons had decided to stick with his original plan and invade Saudi Arabia and The Gulf States along with Kuwait on the 2nd of August 1990?
 
What if Saddam’s efforts to get the bomb hadn’t been halted back in the ‘80s by the Israeli air strike?
Suppose a more confident Saddam possessing a few nuclear weapons had decided to stick with his original plan and invade Saudi Arabia and The Gulf States along with Kuwait on the 2nd of August 1990?

I doubt saddam would use them. That would basically unite the entireworld against him
 
And one of the first threads in the new board too!

Right, yes, I think I recognise it now - this is (or was) the last thread in After 1900 when sorted by last post date. All the others had posts after January 13th, 2004 12:10 PM (probably several of them through bumps like this one).
 
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