Did anyone ever advocate WW3?

Tellus

Banned
I cant believe anyone here can seriously think going to war with the soviets could ever have been justifiable or desirable. Absent an outright Soviet invasion there was never any impetus for this, and those who say it was about regime change are even further in the wrong. The Soviets had as much a right to communism as we have one to capitalism and democracy. Forcefully changing others governments is not a reasonable goal of war.

We had everything to gain by maintaining peace and everything to lose by going to war. If I had to choose between a POD that causes an early war against the soviet union and another that gave them the power needed to continue to exist today as a major superpower, I would pick the latter without a second of hesitation. They were simply no threat to us unless someone was precisely stupid enough to want to attack them.
 
In response to the suggestion that Patton and Montgomery agreed on the need to confront the USSR, wouldn't there be a powerful case that if both of those men agreed on anything we should all definitely back away from the proposal under discussion?:D
 
I cant believe anyone here can seriously think going to war with the soviets could ever have been justifiable or desirable. Absent an outright Soviet invasion there was never any impetus for this, and those who say it was about regime change are even further in the wrong. The Soviets had as much a right to communism as we have one to capitalism and democracy. Forcefully changing others governments is not a reasonable goal of war.

We had everything to gain by maintaining peace and everything to lose by going to war. If I had to choose between a POD that causes an early war against the soviet union and another that gave them the power needed to continue to exist today as a major superpower, I would pick the latter without a second of hesitation. They were simply no threat to us unless someone was precisely stupid enough to want to attack them.

I agree with absolutely everything you say, except... right to communism? Didn't the rise of Russian communism sort of violate Russia's right to not be overtaken by a band of murderous putschists?

I think everyone has a right to choose their system of governance (even communism, in the rare cases where this anti-democratic doctrine can be reconciled to democracy) through democracy, but that right is infitely trumped by the right to not be obliterated in a pointless nuclear holocaust.

In response to the suggestion that Patton and Montgomery agreed on the need to confront the USSR, wouldn't there be a powerful case that if both of those men agreed on anything we should all definitely back away from the proposal under discussion?:D

Most definately!:D
 
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I have not at any point in this discussion suggested it would have been a good thing to start a pre-emptive war against the USSR.

That would be supremely immoral and foolish unless an attack by them was imminent (see the book "Defcon Five" by Joe Weber).

However, I took issue with some of the arguments the anti-nuke-them crowd made--Faeelin's apparent blanket argument against "humanitarian war" and Susano's apparent snarking at the US for using nukes at the end of WWII.
 

MrP

Banned
I have not at any point in this discussion suggested it would have been a good thing to start a pre-emptive war against the USSR.

That would be supremely immoral and foolish unless an attack by them was imminent (see the book "Defcon Five" by Joe Weber).

However, I took issue with some of the arguments the anti-nuke-them crowd made--Faeelin's apparent blanket argument against "humanitarian war" and Susano's apparent snarking at the US for using nukes at the end of WWII.

I think you might need to tighten up on the old reading comprehension, Merry.
 
If the Western Allies go after the USSR in 1945, what happens to all the European refugees? Can the respective western and eastern logistics support another conflict, and the needs of the civilian populations? I'm wondering how many more people die of starvation and disease if the European war continues.

I also have my doubts about the Western Allies logistics being able to send Patton and Montgomery all the way to Moscow before the second half of 1946.

The Japanese will be happy though, if their enemies go to war with each other before Japan surrenders.
 
If I had to choose between a POD that causes an early war against the soviet union and another that gave them the power needed to continue to exist today as a major superpower, I would pick the latter without a second of hesitation. They were simply no threat to us unless someone was precisely stupid enough to want to attack them.

That statement is completely true, but only proven by hindsight. During the cold war, a nuclear exchange was a real threat. There was a mindset that the USSR needed to be taken out shortly after WWII, and it continued into the eighties. The logic is simple. The fewer the casualties, the better. The idea of killing tens of millions (with fission bombs) in the late forties is not as bad as killing hundreds of millions with nukes in the late fifties or early sixties; or a MAD exchange that wipes out billions with ICBM's.

We now know a real WW3 was not a threat, so the closest we could come to aggression against the USSR would have been a response as outlined in Operation Dropshot in the US or Operation Unthinkable in Britain. But this thread begins with the notion to consider a more deliberate path to war, and there does not seem to be a credible path.
 
I've read that Mao was very cavalier about nuclear holocaust, reasoning that hundreds of millions of Chinese would doubtless survive and that would be enough to re-start civilisation.

It is said he said it to Nehru so it might be hard to verify but the punchline is said to me something along the lines that 10% of the population may survive but capitalism/imperialism is wiped out forever.

Was it anybody else wo said it on the other side of the iron curtain?
 
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