Soviets in Korean War?

Was there any possibility of Stalin sending Soviet forces to intervene directly in the Korean War alongside the PRC troops?

Could this have somehow happened without triggering WW3 and/ or the use of nuclear weapons?

What would've happened to the UN?

Would the war have ended with a united communist Korea?
 

Hyperion

Banned
If the Soviets join the fight directly, beyond just sending occasional advisors and pilots, there is a very real chance that the fighting could escalate beyond Korea.

At this point, and this is admittedly beating a horse to death on my part, the Soviets do have a very limited nuclear capability to use against the US or the western and US allies if need be, though at this time the US does have a numerical advantage in devices that can be delivered in a worst case scenario, and somewhat better forces to deploy devices.

Assuming the Soviets enter the war but both sides keep the bad toys in the box, there is a very real possibility that the Soviets could be forced at some point to start relocating forces from Europe to fight, or to rebuild units that are withdrawn from combat.
 

Caspian

Banned
Wouldn't the Soviets also still have to deal with a shortage of available reserves, due to the massive losses of World War II? If so, that would impair their ability to carry on a long war.
 
Things get BAD. It's not at all likely the Allied and Soviet troops on the borders in Europe can keep it in their pants if this particular piece of excrement goes through the rotating blades.

However, I get the feeling that West Europe will, as a bloc, tell the US something like "keep it non-nuclear in Korea, or GTFO of Europe". They've experienced one European war already, and I don't think they particularly feel like experiencing a second. Now, what consequences that has for American-European relations...
 
More thoughts and questions about "Soviets in Korea"

(BTW, I'm still kinda new here, might be "doing this wrong." sorry)

The only reason I wonder that a war in Korea could be kept contained from spreading to the rest of north east asia, much less Europe or elsewhere, is that it happened in OTL with the PRC. The US never fought them directly in their own country even though they were right next door and there were tons of US forces stationed in the area.
Would fighting Soviet forces in Korea be different?
Because they were the West's "ally" in WW2?
Or because the USSR had been established 3 decades earlier whereas the PRC was still just emerging? Or because they had armies stationed in Germany? Or because they were beginning to amass a nuclear arsenal??? Or some other reason?

moving on though, that's an interesting idea about European threats against US nukes in a conflict with the Soviets over Korea. seems possible. I wonder if such threats might feed into a more general destabilization of the UN. I'm very intrigued about the fate of the UN in the event of direct Soviet intervention in Korea.

I don't think the UN would fall apart like the league of nations, but I can see how tensions within the Security Council might result in a Soviet withdrawal/ ban from the organization.
Would it become a strictly western/ capitalist organization?
Might it somehow merge with NATO (and the similar agreements around the world being organized, or that would be organized, by the US)?
Could the PRC, Mongolia, and a communist Korean government find themselves accepted into the Warsaw Pact a few years down the road? Perhaps it would be the Tashkent Pact, or Irkutsk Pact to reflect the more Eurasian character of such an alliance.

I see four possible fates for the UN in the event of it's key members engaging one another in proxy wars with the threat of (somewhat limited) nuclear war in the background:

1. total collapse of the UN as well as NATO when Europe fears 3rd war on continent; USSR and US fight openly, but still in contained proxy war theaters only (somehow).

2. withdrawal/ banning of Soviet membership and quasi formal "westernization" of the UN possibly including incorporation of a military pact system such as NATO. Barring all out war in the early to mid fifties, the mid to late fifties sees the emergence of a massive western UN/ NATO and a massive eastern Warsaw Pact aligned against one another.

3. The UN survives with Soviet membership despite enormous tensions and in fact plays a key role in preventing Soviet-UN combat in Korea from erupting into a global war, though cold war tensions rise higher than IOTL because of the experience of direct combat between Soviet and American forces.

4. The UN becomes the conduit for global diplomatic pressure for Stalin to back down and actually forces direct Soviet intervention in Korea to end soon after it begins. This would be the one most similar to OTL I believe with the least impact on history.


One other international aspect of my question here about Soviets in Korea is what impact it might have on Greece and Turkey, particularly the Greek Civil War. Stalin was no internationalist, and his deals with Churchill already "limited" his abilities in Greece, but there's no denying that communist governments on the Korean Peninsula and around the Aegean theater would've been massive strategic boosts for the Soviet geopolitical position.
Could direct Soviet intervention in Korea have lead to direct Soviet intervention in Greece and/ or Turkey? Or vice versa? All without leading to an all out war between East and West? I've raised the stakes from my original what if, and it's quite a tall order, but if anyone's got any thoughts on how it might be possible, or completely impossible, I'ld love to hear them.

Also please let me know if i'm not doin the AltHist forum posts "correctly." I know I haven't really given a POD for this what if, but it seems like almost any time during the Korean war this scenario could've played out more or less.
 

Cook

Banned
A lot would depend on timing and the nature of the forces.
Timing prior to Macarthur being dismissed would be much more likely to lead to escalation.
Presumably they would be a “Volunteer” the same as the Chinese. Wether anyone would accept that fiction in the effort to limit the scope of the war is another matter.

http://aeroweb.lucia.it/rap/RAFAQ/SovietAces.html

http://www.korean-war.com/AirWar/AircraftType-LossList.html

The claimed Soviet Kills in the first link far exceeds the total number of UN Forces losses. Not bad for a war they were only covertly engaged in.
 
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