AHC: Dismantle Both Cold War Superpowers by 1995

[AltoRegnant]

after the cold war ended, the United States enjoyed a period of sole dominion, and according to some, actually had very little to fear from the soviets. But I'm curious, is there anyway to fully dismantle the United States and the Soviet Union as world powers by the late twentieth century without nuclear war? What might that look like? I'm tempted to propose the Chinese civil war spilling into a conventional ww3, but I don't know if the soviets are prepped for that.
If this does happen, what happens to the world order? Is Germany effectively the most powerful state in the world before the rise of china? is there a rise of china without the sino-soviet split and America using it for cheap labor?

 

[marathag]

Have real peace between the USA and USSR after the WWII ends.
a good start is Stalin falling off his horse in the victory parade, breaking his neck.
No Cold War. No Iron Curtain.

 

[AltoRegnant]

Have real peace between the USA and USSR after the WWII ends.
a good start is Stalin falling off his horse in the victory parade, breaking his neck.
No Cold War. No Iron Curtain.

while interesting, that means that both superpowers don't strain themselves all around the world and the soviets probably last longer without the arms race. so like, the reverse of the goal

 

[marathag]

while interesting, that means that both superpowers don't strain themselves all around the world and the soviets probably last longer without the arms race. so like, the reverse of the goal

without the self destructive impulses of the Cold War, niether side needs huge military forces.
US goes back to WWI level of Army, and with no threat from a rebuilding Europe USSR goes for a lower size of Army since the revolution, and they work on properly rebuilding and developing the USSR.

The “Baruch Plan” of June 1946 called for an immediate halt to Atomic weapons development by all nations, followed by the close monitoring of peaceful nuclear programs. In exchange, Washington pledged to turn over all its nuclear weapons to the authority of an international Atomic Energy Development Authority under the UN.
This is done.

So by 1960, both countries are still Great Powers, as in before WWI, but not superpowers

Now if you want both countries less than a Great Power, and be ruined shells, you need to drop asteroids.

 

[Legofan4]

without the self destructive impulses of the Cold War, niether side needs huge military forces.
US goes back to WWI level of Army, and with no threat from a rebuilding Europe USSR goes for a lower size of Army since the revolution, and they work on properly rebuilding and developing the USSR.

The “Baruch Plan” of June 1946 called for an immediate halt to Atomic weapons development by all nations, followed by the close monitoring of peaceful nuclear programs. In exchange, Washington pledged to turn over all its nuclear weapons to the authority of an international Atomic Energy Development Authority under the UN.
This is done.

So by 1960, both countries are still Great Powers, as in before WWI, but not superpowers

Now if you want both countries less than a Great Power, and be ruined shells, you need to drop asteroids.

The US and the USSR would still stand head and shoulders above the rest of the world though. Especially the US just simply due to the fact that the US economy is so much larger than anyone except for the USSR. I also don't see the US ever giving its nuclear weapons to the UN unless they entirely control it which they don't. Simply because why would they trust a totalitarian USSR run by Stalin?

 

[marathag]

The US and the USSR would still stand head and shoulders above the rest of the world though. Especially the US just simply due to the fact that the US economy is so much larger than anyone except for the USSR. I also don't see the US ever giving its nuclear weapons to the UN unless they entirely control it which they don't. Simply because why would they trust a totalitarian USSR run by Stalin?

My PoD is a very dead Uncle Joe in 1945. That follows on to no Cold War, so East and West Germany is just a neutral 'Germany' like Austria
both make for a neutral buffer
No Iron Curtain
No Cold War
No huge military budgets on either side

 

[ObssesedNuker]

My PoD is a very dead Uncle Joe in 1945. That follows on to no Cold War

By some rather glaring leaps of logic which pretends that the Cold War was somehow the function of a single man, rather than the result of mutual systemic factors in how the US and the USSR perceived themselves, each other, and each others actions...

 

[Analytical Engine]

Define "dismantle".

If you mean "the US breaks up like the USSR did IOTL", then that's almost impossible short of some severe levels of badness. I'm not sure that anything short of a nuclear war could do it.

If you mean "there aren't any superpowers any more", then that's easier, but still difficult. It would require either

(A) the USSR and the US voluntarily stepping down from the position - good luck with that
(B) one of the two superpowers collapse, and the other voluntarily steps down from the position of global hegemony - again, good luck with that
(C) other powers rise up (e.g. China, India, some kind of semi-united Europe), which evens the playing field - though, the OP would probably still require both the US and USSR to weaken as well

 

[AltoRegnant]

Define "dismantle".

If you mean "the US breaks up like the USSR did IOTL", then that's almost impossible short of some severe levels of badness. I'm not sure that anything short of a nuclear war could do it.

If you mean "there aren't any superpowers any more", then that's easier, but still difficult. It would require either

(A) the USSR and the US voluntarily stepping down from the position - good luck with that
(B) one of the two superpowers collapse, and the other voluntarily steps down from the position of global hegemony - again, good luck with that
(C) other powers rise up (e.g. China, India, some kind of semi-united Europe), which evens the playing field - though, the OP would probably still require both the US and USSR to weaken as well

I'm not opposed to 'everything has gone to shit,' just not nuclear level shit, hence the second Chinese civil war ww3 proposition (even if i think it's unlikely)

 

[marathag]

which pretends that the Cold War was somehow the function of a single man,

Stalin was the very man that caused the Cold War, no if and or buts. It was his will that made Eastern Europe puppets.
His paranoia.

 

[AltoRegnant]

Stalin was the very man that caused the Cold War, no if and or buts. It was his will that made Eastern Europe puppets.
His paranoia.

and ya know, the soviet rhetoric about spreading the revolution, the fact that no communist leader would be acceptable to the west, and the fact that they would still develop nuclear weapons no matter who was in charge due to the fact the west was overtly out to get them

 

[Laman Knight]

My PoD is a very dead Uncle Joe in 1945. That follows on to no Cold War, so East and West Germany is just a neutral 'Germany' like Austria
both make for a neutral buffer
No Iron Curtain
No Cold War
No huge military budgets on either side

I've heard on pretty good authority that in the OTL Stalin was in fact pulling for a neutral Germany. For what that is worth.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

On September 19, 1980, there is an accidental 10 MT groundburst at a missile silo in Conway, Arkansas, that contaminates a big swath of America's breadbasket and causes the Carter Malaise to worsen into a second Great Depression.

 

[Korlan]

Another possibility is having the US military spendings going completely out of control, causing a severe economic crisis (something at least as serious as the great depression), and by the time they are back on their feet, other countries have become "great powers".

After that the US decide to not try again such stupid military programs and become content to be a strong regional power, as being a world superpower is far too expensive.

 

[Legofan4]

Another possibility is having the US military spendings going completely out of control, causing a severe economic crisis (something at least as serious as the great depression), and by the time they are back on their feet, other countries have become "great powers".

After that the US decide to not try again such stupid military programs and become content to be a strong regional power, as being a world superpower is far too expensive.

Even with the utterly insane expenditures during the OTL Cold War the US was still able to spend such sums and not collapse and never really came close to anything like the economic meltdown of the USSR. And that didn't even happen until almost 40 years of large expenditures with minimal returns in an incredibly corrupt system.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Stalin was the very man that caused the Cold War, no if and or buts. It was his will that made Eastern Europe puppets.
His paranoia.

Yes, that's the obsolete and long-discredited "Great Man" take of history. But more modern scholars recognize that the Soviet Union was more than just Stalin and that the installation of Eastern European puppets were driven by the security concerns of the Soviet leadership as a whole, so him dying in 1946 would not suddenly result in any successor willing to challenge that. Similarly, the Baruch plan was never taken very seriously by either the United States or Soviet leadership, which is unsurprising since it flagrantly sought to protect the American atomic monopoly and demanded control over sections of various countries economies (namely uranium mining) to enforce it's provisions, so believing that absent Stalin it would suddenly be agreed upon not just by the Soviet Union, but all the other countries who are or will be interested in acquiring atomic weapons in the future, is quite a stretch.

 

[marathag]

Yes, that's the obsolete and long-discredited "Great Man" take of history.

OK, Younger Joe dies of food poisoning in 1903.

Everything plays out exactly the same thru 1945, hmm?
Bukharin follows Lenin, but everything plays out the same?

No, 'Great Men' do influence things

 

[marathag]

On September 19, 1980, there is an accidental 10 MT groundburst at a missile silo in Conway, Arkansas, that contaminates a big swath of America's breadbasket and causes the Carter Malaise to worsen into a second Great Depression.

That doesn't collapse the USSR

 

[ObssesedNuker]

OK, Younger Joe dies of food poisoning in 1903.

Goalpost shifting already. Guess I should have known better than to expect honest debating practices from you. Your original proposal wasn't that Stalin dies in 1903 but in 1946, when all of his influence over the institutions of the Soviet Union have already occurred and his legacy and influence over the country is pretty well set in stone. What's more, you will not find any feasible successor to Stalin nor the requisite critical mass of the supporting leadership cadres who are in favor of abandoning the Soviets favorable position in Eastern Europe nor accept de-facto handing the United States an eternal monopoly over nuclear ordinance.

 

[Saci]

Why should the United States refrain from a Cold War-esque confrontation with the URSS when they have basically all the advantages? A de-escalation helps the soviets more than it helps the americans, as the US can afford the confrontation while the soviets were strained.

The only way for it to happen is for the soviets to understand that they can't afford to compete with the West in the long term, finlandize their puppet states and focus on themselves, something they weren't willing to do due to security reasons.