Cold War if no nukes invented

Let's say that due to [handwave here] nuclear weapons are never invented. People try to invent them but find them to be unfeasible and they remain in the realm of science fiction and nothing else. How does WW2 end and how does the resultant Cold War play out with no nuclear weapons? Does irony strike and make it more likely that war breaks out?
 
There were very few atomic weapons in the 1950s and they were not very powerful. Still we all avoided another apocolyptic war. As the WWII generation faded the odds increase of duplicitious old men blundering us all into another global war.

At the end of WWII a invasion of Japan might still be avoided if the Japanese cabinet still sees the oncoming famine. Soviet attack, and conventional bombing as intolerable.
 
World War 3 breaks out with the Allies probably (but not certainly) winning. Stalin wasn't Hitler in terms of aggressiveness but he absolutely believed in expanding Soviet (and his own) power by military force as his actions in Finland, the Baltic's, Eastern Europe, China and Korea show and if he thinks he can take Western Europe he will. So if the West demobilises post 1945 the attraction of launching a sudden strike and grabbing Western Europe before the US can build up and transfer an Army across the Atlantic would be irresistible and if the West doesn't demobilise (which considering American public opinion immediately postwar is doubtful imho) then having two massive Armies so close together would almost certainly end in war sooner or later.
 
Let's say that due to [handwave here] nuclear weapons are never invented. People try to invent them but find them to be unfeasible and they remain in the realm of science fiction and nothing else. How does WW2 end and how does the resultant Cold War play out with no nuclear weapons? Does irony strike and make it more likely that war breaks out?
Korean War possibly leads to World War 3, the Soviets wouldn't have anything to keep them from invading Europe.

It would certainly be interesting, most likely bio-chemical weapons are used.

Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact/Communist China/ North Korea V.S America/NATO/British Commonwealth/Japan/South Korea

I'm not knowledgeable to say who would win, the butterflies from no nukes are unimaginable to predict.
 
Ignoring the butterflies on what an Operation Downfall would do to the American psyche I think the Soviets would have a free-er hand to squeeze Berlin and Northern Iran among other areas. Truman is to have said to threatened the Soviets with nuclear attack in order to get stuff like the withdrawal from Northern Iran without that leverage the Soviets will likely do what they want. The United States military was terrified of the Red Army post World War 2 and the consensus was there was nothing to prevent the Red Army from marching to the Atlantic. The United States would likely try to have an even bigger military build up and would likely avoid military combat to reach parity with the Red Army. Perhaps things like universal conscription would be common place in the United States
 
There were very few atomic weapons in the 1950s and they were not very powerful.
However, they were perceived quite differently. It was felt by the public that nuclear war would lead to an apocalypse at the time, even though this was objectively not true, and this doubtlessly affected politics at least in the West where this kind of inaccurate popular sentiment had more scope to express itself than in the Soviet Union.
 
Absent atomic weapons the US military will develop differently from 1945. Louis Johnson will have a far more difficult time supporting the the USAF argument that aircraft delivering atomic weapons is the sole remaining decisive arm. While nothing is certain I suspect this means a more useful analysis of the strength an weaknesses of air power circa 1945 & beyond. It may also mean the near disbandment of the US Army does not occur. At least some combat worthy formations are retained & the ground forces comprise more than a veteran cadre.

It also means the oddity of the Pentomic Division does not emerge in the 1950s.
 
1950, both the Soviets and Chinese intervene in Korea. Once fighting breaks out, the United States starts preparing an army to send to Europe. Stalin reacts and invades Europe, taking Greece, Germany and the Lowlands with heavy fighting taking place in France and the Italian Alps. Eventually both countries fall after breakthroughs, Turkey is also taken.

The UN forces in Korea are overwhelmed, European governments once again form governments in exile.

Fighting is fiercest in Northern Europe, where Norway and Sweden are heavily reinforced to fight the Soviets. Bombers based in Southern Sweden attack forces in occupied Germany and the rest of Europe.
Outside of Europe is the Middle East where British and American formations fight against the Soviets who are moving down the peninsula to take the Suez Canal and capture oil fields around the Gulf.

In South-East Asia Chinese forces have invaded Vietnam to support Communist guerrillas against French, Australian, British and American forces to have occupied the country and are using it as a base to invade China. In Japan and Taiwan bombers are based to pound Chinese and Eastern Russian cities, napalm is heavily used.

I'm not even sure who would win this war, I don't believe either side has the resources to fully defeat the other.
 
The Soviets also most likely never surrender Northern Iran in 1947, this could be a possible flashpoint for a war but I don't think Truman would blink before Stalin does on Iran.

The allied strategy against the Comintern will focus on using naval power and large numbers of aircraft to wear down the Communists and stretch and bleed them across multiple fronts. Places like Arabia, Iberia, Brittany, Italy, Northern Europe and South-East Asia will become battlegrounds as armies fight to control territory. Eventually it'll reach a point where an amphibious invasion begins to liberate Europe after years of fighting. The war would quite likely last a decade and kill more people then World War 1 & 2 combined.

It is possible the Soviets and Chinese could even try to build up a submarine fleet to starve Japan or Britain.

It's also possible that the Soviets or British could deploy Bio-Chemical weapons against eachother.

The end result of the war is that Eurasia would be completed destroyed and possibly hundreds of millions would be dead.

All sides would also have developed significantly more infrastructure and industry, with India and places outside Eurasia being much more developed.

This will be important because most likely wars like this will break out again.
 
Technology would also advance significantly due to the war, with technological leaps happening on both sides to try and gain an advantage.

In at most a decade or two World War IV would break out, between who knows what combatants.
 
Stalin wasn't Hitler in terms of aggressiveness but he absolutely believed in expanding Soviet (and his own) power by military force as his actions in Finland, the Baltic's, Eastern Europe, China and Korea show and if he thinks he can take Western Europe he will.

It's not so much the taking of Western Europe as much as feeding it in the aftermath, in the late 40's the USSR suffered localised famines whilst trying to stave off starvation in Eastern Europe. Stalin wasn't a gambler, especially when the best case scenario leaves you with over a hundred million mouths to feed.
 
It's not so much the taking of Western Europe as much as feeding it in the aftermath, in the late 40's the USSR suffered localised famines whilst trying to stave off starvation in Eastern Europe. Stalin wasn't a gambler, especially when the best case scenario leaves you with over a hundred million mouths to feed.

I think there would be rather less people in Western Europe after a Soviet Invasion than before.
 
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