Conventional World War Three in the 1970s

Without Lyndon Johnson becoming President the United States avoids both the Great Society, and the Vietnam War.

Without the Great Society the economy isn't overburdened with taxes and regulations, and American Society isn't torn apart by Government mandated in Social Engineering and Experimentation.

Without the Vietnam War, the radical left focuses on Anti-Nuclear and Pro-Palestine causes.

Without Vietnam the U.S. Army undergoes a modernization program and leads to the deployment of anti-tank guided missiles on a larger scale a decade earlier. More forces are available for deployment in Europe, Japan, and South Korea.

Further, The United States would never have lost a war, and maintained it's huge advantages in nuclear weapons. The effort to allow the Soviet Union to "Catch Up" in hopes they would stop, and the concept of "Mutual Assured Destruction" created by Robert McNamara, would never have taken place.

From WW2 to Vietnam the ability to bomb a railroad bridge was the same. Without Vietnam it would have taken longer not less time. Without the Great Society we would have thrown the poor under the bus earlier than the GOP did in OTL.
 

Robert

Banned
The Great Society is the cause for the poor remaining poor. Before it's programs were implemented, the poverty level was getting lower and lower each year. Furthermore, illegitimacy rates were also coming down. The Great Society Programs were anti-family in order to take the place of fathers. It brought an unparalleled level of economic dislocation not seen since the Great Depression. It was responsible the the unemployment and inflation that plagued the nation in the 1970s, and very nearly led to the end of the American way of life.

That more then anything it the legacy of Lyndon Johnson.
 

gaijin

Banned
[Dripping Sarcasm Mode On]
Gee, good to see this isn't one of those time lines where the writer is trying to push his own pet political issues. We have too many of those already. A breath of fresh air this is. :D

Also I like how the OP is open minded enough to listen to people's ideas and criticisms and use them to improve the time line. Some people let their own ideological pet peeves come between them and good writing. We have too many of those already. This time line is truly a breath of fresh air. :D

Finally, I would like to express my appreciation of the the fact that this poster tries to focus on facts and doesn't try to drag in unrelated topics in order to support his political views. Too many people do that, bit no, not this OP :D [Dripping Sarcasm Mode Off]
 
Without Vietnam the U.S. Army undergoes a modernization program and leads to the deployment of anti-tank guided missiles on a larger scale a decade earlier. More forces are available for deployment in Europe, Japan, and South Korea.

Further, The United States would never have lost a war, and maintained it's huge advantages in nuclear weapons. The effort to allow the Soviet Union to "Catch Up" in hopes they would stop, and the concept of "Mutual Assured Destruction" created by Robert McNamara, would never have taken place.

Without Vietnam the US may have stuck with the doctrine of Massive Retaliation. That means a US Army made up of Pentomic Divisions which is incapable of fighting anything other than a nuclear war. ATGW was fairly primitve in the 1960s, just looks at the Vickers Vigilant for example. By the '70s the best the British had was Swingfire.
 

Robert

Banned
It's true that 1960s anti-tank guided missile were varily primitive, but we have to remember the effect they have on an enemy coming up against them for the first time. In the Sinai in 1973the Israelis expected to roll over the Egyptians with their armor as they did in 1967. Then they ran into Infantry with SAGGER missiles, and started taking unexpected and unacceptable Tank losses. While they were able to deal with the situation using combined Armor-Infantry attacks, it took time.

In this alternate timeline, the U.S. was able to put it's own Anti-Tank Missiles into production, and Israeli got the American version. They used those missiles to slow down the Egyptian and Syrian advances, and were aware of the weapons capabilities so they already adopted tactics to deal with them. The Israeli counter offensive kicks off days earlier, resulting in the need for direct Soviet intervention.
 

Robert

Banned
In OTL the U.S. Army abandoned the Pentomic Division structure in the mid-1960s. I don't see that changing in this alternate timeline. We also have to remember that in this timeline the U.S. retained it's superiority in nuclear weapons (no stopping to let the Soviets catch up in the hopes they'll stop building new weapons, which as we now know, they didn't).
 
In OTL the U.S. Army abandoned the Pentomic Division structure in the mid-1960s. I don't see that changing in this alternate timeline. We also have to remember that in this timeline the U.S. retained it's superiority in nuclear weapons (no stopping to let the Soviets catch up in the hopes they'll stop building new weapons, which as we now know, they didn't).

What exactly does superiority in nuclear weapons mean in this context?
 

DTanza

Banned
The Great Society is the cause for the poor remaining poor. Before it's programs were implemented, the poverty level was getting lower and lower each year. Furthermore, illegitimacy rates were also coming down. The Great Society Programs were anti-family in order to take the place of fathers. It brought an unparalleled level of economic dislocation not seen since the Great Depression. It was responsible the the unemployment and inflation that plagued the nation in the 1970s, and very nearly led to the end of the American way of life.

That more then anything it the legacy of Lyndon Johnson.

You forgot the part where he ate Uncle Sam and banned mom and apple pie.
 
Wow, this timeline is quite ASB and a lot of it seems to be based on some sort of idea that "the left" is a single entity that consists of nothing but communists along with a whole bunch of "the US just has to do this and nothing can go wrong!", as well as ignoring of cause-and-effect.

What exactly does superiority in nuclear weapons mean in this context?

Being able to destroy the Soviets ten times over while they can only destroy the United States five times over.

It's true that 1960s anti-tank guided missile were varily primitive, but we have to remember the effect they have on an enemy coming up against them for the first time. In the Sinai in 1973the Israelis expected to roll over the Egyptians with their armor as they did in 1967. Then they ran into Infantry with SAGGER missiles, and started taking unexpected and unacceptable Tank losses. While they were able to deal with the situation using combined Armor-Infantry attacks, it took time.

This is because the Israelis forgot that you were supposed to use combined-arms instead of just relying on tanks for everything, not just because the Arab armies suddenly acquired anti-tank missiles. And the Israelis did have early anti-tank missiles but didn't adopt them for the same reason France in 1940 didn't immediately adopt Blitzkrieg or all of the European powers in 1914 didn't go to war expecting trench warfare: just because they had the weapons and knew their capabilities didn't mean they knew what the actual impact they would have on the battlefield.

They used those missiles to slow down the Egyptian and Syrian advances, and were aware of the weapons capabilities so they already adopted tactics to deal with them.
Anti-tank missiles would have been irrelevant in defending against the initial the Egyptian attacks because they (firstly) achieved total surprise and (secondly) used worked around their army's limitations in personnel quality via phased advance and entrenchment, relying mainly on infantry and artillery to seize the enemies front-line and then immediately fortify it to repulse the counter-attacks. The Syrians likewise achieved total surprise, but their plan was an attempt at a more classic maneuver armored breakthrough and exploitation which ultimately failed because of their military's hilarious institutional incompetence.
 
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