AHC: Prevent the Soviet Union and Russian Federation from Obtaining Nuclear Weapons

A number of possibilities. You have to make the USSR/Russia unwilling or unable to make a bomb

Unable would require them not being able to afford the cost of a bomb, which is an issue as science marches on and each successive country to get the bomb spends less, a USSR unable to afford the cost of their program in the '40s is one thing, a USSR unable to afford what South Africa or Israel spent, much less North Korea, is another thing and much, much harder for a country the size of Russia with their natural resources

Unwilling means that for some reason they are not willing to spend the bomb. It being within their means but considered too costly for the benefit is one possibility, but that would basically require they not see themselves as a great power, not be threatened by any neighbors, and not care that the US and UK have them, very unlikely. Another possibility is them being bound by treaty not to make them and unwilling to face the consequences for doing so, possible if they lose WWIII and face nuclear attack if they violate treaty terms. A final possibility would be an ideological opposition to nukes, either a Pacifist or Green type government, the likeliness of this is debateable
 
Catch Fuchs (bonus points if it's Feynman who figures him out) and turn him. Have him disinform the Soviets we're using thermal diffusion enrichment, gun-type plutonium designs or U-233, etc. And red mercury.

If Stalin listens to his spymasters instead of his nuclear physicists, it could cost them several years (esp. if he gets mad and purges them because they can't get the unworkable designs he made them use to work)
 
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How could the Soviet Union and Russian Federation be prevented from obtaining nuclear weaponry, while the United States and United Kingdom still possessed them? How would the Cold War be different if the Soviet Union did not have nuclear weapons? (Obviously no Cuban Missile Crisis). If the Soviet Union never obtained nuclear weapons, then would the People's Republic of China never have obtained them either? How about India and Pakistan?

The only thing I can think of is that somebody blinks during the Berlin Blockade and inadvertently causes WW III in 1948, one year before the USSR tested its first atomic bomb. Such a war could see dozens of American atomic bombs being dropped on the Soviet Union, devastating its economy and infrastructure. That would certainly render it unable to get nuclear weapons anytime soon. In fact, the peace treaty, assuming there's something of a Soviet government left at the end, will likely contain a clause forbidding the development of nuclear weapons by the USSR or its successor state(s).
 
Was under the impression that pro-Soviet sympathizers within the FDR administration (allegedly as high up as Harry Hopkins) did much to enable the Soviet nuclear program (along with other Soviet wartime goals), so it should theoretically be possible to prevent or at least make it significantly difficult for the Soviets to obtain nuclear weapons by simply butterflying away the FDR administration (or less likely somehow having the latter go down an anti-Soviet path and purge within the administration).

Not sure it is possible to have the FDR administration take George Racy Jordan's concerns about the transfer of nuclear and other secrets to the Soviets seriously during the early/mid-1940s.
 

PlasmaTorch

Banned
Catch Fuchs (bonus points if it's Feynman who figures him out) and turn him. Have him disinform the Soviets we're using thermal diffusion enrichment, gun-type plutonium designs or U-233, etc. And red mercury.

If Stalin listens to his spymasters instead of his nuclear physicists, it could cost them several years (esp. if he gets mad and purges them because they can't get the unworkable designs he made them use to work)

Liquid thermal diffusion is actually quite useful to an enrichment program thats just getting off the ground. It only allows you to slightly enrich uranium, but this can be used as feedstock for your gaseous diffusion plants or centrifuge cascades. (Its so simple in design that even the russians can easily utilise it) Of course, if you only have thermal diffusion plants and nothing else... You aren't getting an atom bomb. XD

The only thing I can think of is that somebody blinks during the Berlin Blockade and inadvertently causes WW III in 1948, one year before the USSR tested its first atomic bomb. Such a war could see dozens of American atomic bombs being dropped on the Soviet Union, devastating its economy and infrastructure. That would certainly render it unable to get nuclear weapons anytime soon. In fact, the peace treaty, assuming there's something of a Soviet government left at the end, will likely contain a clause forbidding the development of nuclear weapons by the USSR or its successor state(s).

Thats definitely a possibility. But just FYI, it would take some time before the americans can bring their nukes into play. The red army would manage to push into western europe by then. The ground conflict would be quite nasty, but ultimately, the USSRs citys would be pulverised by nuclear bombs. Their ability to embark on a nuclear program would thereafter be sharply curtailed.

"Some 90 B-29s were forward-based in Europe during the crisis period. According to US Air Force histories, however, the B-29s dispatched to Europe in 1948 were not capable of carrying atomic bombs. There were in SAC at the time only 32 B-29s modified to deliver nuclear weapons. All of them were assigned to the 509th Bomb Group, which was not deployed to Britain until the summer of 1949." -Strategic Weapons: An Introduction, by Norman Polmar
 
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Once again, I think we have to distinguish between preventing and delaying a Soviet a-bomb. The Soviet program during World War II was indeed rather slow, but that was because the USSR had other priorities. Once the US made it clear that a bomb could work in 1945, the Soviets would greatly accelerate their program, and would eventually get the bomb even without espionage.

I mean, I have this habit of taking topics literally. "AHC: Prevent the Soviet Union and Russian Federation from Obtaining Nuclear Weapons." This means not only that the USSR would not have the bomb in 1949 but that it would *never* get it--that to this day, the Russian Federation would not have it. Maybe Klaus Fuchs was too modest in saying that he thought his efforts had accelerated the Soviet bomb by one year. But I doubt that he accelerated it by 68 years...
 
Could something convince Stalin that nuclear weapons were inferior to biological ones? Thus, he simply gives funding to stuff like an early Biopreparat program.
 
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