Soviet Nuclear Weapons w/o Eastern Europe

So FWIG, the first several years of nuclear weapons development in the USSR were hindered by a shortage of uranium within the country, which would remain the case for several decades; as such, the vast majority of nuclear material in the Soviet program came from their conquests in Eastern Europe, specifically Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Poland. If the Red Army had done less in the war, and as a result fewer uranium mines are found east of the Iron Curtain, how does that affect Russia's ability to create a nuclear weapons arsenal that can compete with the United States?
 
Their germ warfare program simply gains a public face as the main component of the MAD doctrines.

Instead of symmetry in massive stockpiles of nukes you get nukes vs germs.
 
By the way, the disparity in nukes was OTL until the mid 1960s.

Soviet defense policy was often coldly rational, and it was built on layers of redundancy (bombers, subs and missiles on railcars) and defense in depth (why Poland, the Baltics, and the Ukraine being in NATO is alarming). When there's a fundamental assymetry that they cannot overcome, it'd be them and not us who would be trying to achieve a successful Star Wars. If they have to rely on germs, so be it.

Khrushchev talked and acted so tough because he knew the Soviets were outgunned in nukes overall and dramatically overshadowed by the missile gap between them and the US.
 
Also, the clearest cut option to match up with a nuke is drug-resistant weaponized anthrax-tipped missiles. It serves both the area-denial and wide-scale casualty effects. More importantly, it's not contagious, so the damage is contained.
 
So FWIG, the first several years of nuclear weapons development in the USSR were hindered by a shortage of uranium within the country, which would remain the case for several decades; as such, the vast majority of nuclear material in the Soviet program came from their conquests in Eastern Europe, specifically Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Poland. If the Red Army had done less in the war, and as a result fewer uranium mines are found east of the Iron Curtain, how does that affect Russia's ability to create a nuclear weapons arsenal that can compete with the United States?
Uranium isnt that rare, Lots of it can be found in Kazakhstan, the issue is that in Eastern Europe the infrastructure to extract and transport it already exists but it's not something which could not be made in Kazakhstan if there's an urgent need.
 
Uranium isnt that rare, Lots of it can be found in Kazakhstan, the issue is that in Eastern Europe the infrastructure to extract and transport it already exists but it's not something which could not be made in Kazakhstan if there's an urgent need.
According to Wiki, prospecting in Kazakhstan didn't even start until 1943. So. You have to prospect, find the ores, build the mines, etc.
While there were some mines operating in the '50s (again, from the Wiki article), expanding that whole operation would take time. Yes, I imagine they could develop it faster - but I don't imagine it would be a whole lot faster.

After all, I'm sure they wanted a securer supply than Czechoslovakia....
 
Their germ warfare program simply gains a public face as the main component of the MAD doctrines.

Instead of symmetry in massive stockpiles of nukes you get nukes vs germs.
I have doubts about that. Early on, germs aren't a credible deterrent to nuclear bombardment (the Soviets will still have trouble with putting together delivery systems in the 1950s, which will be compounded by the difficulty of actually delivering germs, relative to nukes), later on they'll have developed the huge Kazakhstan deposits (Kazakhstan is the largest uranium producer in the world in the present day) and will be able to do just fine with nukes, as they did OTL.

Remember, they can multiply their stocks by using plutonium instead of uranium in their bombs, or by using uranium-233 from thorium, too. They can also pare back their civilian nuclear program in favor of bombs, which should save a fair bit of fissile material. There are multiple options available for them to bypass any shortages of accessible uranium and still maintain a powerful nuclear weapons program.
 
Given that Kruschevs bluster in 1956 about rockets flying was an important factor in the Suez crisis and Kennedy was deterred by the prospect of a mere 30 or so bombs hitting the US in 1962 I doubt not having as many warheads as OTL would make a massive difference as long as the ones they have are able to hit Britain and the USA. They could use chem, bio and conventional forces to threaten non nuclear powers and save what few nukes they had for the big boys, since most of the delivery systems for OTL warheads were short range.
 
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