The Cuban Missile War...

[Chris]

Everyone (but only for a given value of everyone ) has been asking me to do a novel which is real AH; i.e. no time agents, no ISOTs, no...well, you get the idea. I have been thinking about a Cuban Missile War...and seeing that plenty of people have opinions on how such a war would have gone, I thought I'd ask people...

So, how do you think the war would have gone? POD - there is a nasty clash between a nuke-armed USSR sub and a US ship, which rapidly gets out of control...

Chris

 

[GTD Aquitaine]

The most important thing, I think, would be how many nukes got loose. Shitty fiction aside, world nuclear stockpiles in 1962 weren't sufficient to cause the "destruction of all life" angle, which has been overplayed regardless. But every major city in the United States except Seattle was within range of Soviet missiles based on Cuba. Interception of bomber strikes might keep the toll from going far beyond that, but on the whole North America would get properly pasted.

As far as Europe goes, that'd depend on how NATO reacts to the crisis. There is a fair chance that a great deal of the continent might end up glowing in the dark at the end of it.

 

[Glen]

Everyone (but only for a given value of everyone ) has been asking me to do a novel which is real AH; i.e. no time agents, no ISOTs, no...well, you get the idea. I have been thinking about a Cuban Missile War...and seeing that plenty of people have opinions on how such a war would have gone, I thought I'd ask people...

So, how do you think the war would have gone? POD - there is a nasty clash between a nuke-armed USSR sub and a US ship, which rapidly gets out of control...

Chris

You know, Chris, of late I've been wanting to sketch out what would most likely happen in the event of the Cuban Missile Crisis breaking out into all-out war, including a likely nuclear element, with the results realistically projected (neither limited by wishful thinking, nor all destroying non-proliferation-wank).

 

[Agrippa]

From what I remember of the nuclear balance at the time, the US had a fair bit of a lead. The end result would likely see Western Europe as a smoking crater, the USSR smashed, only surviving because of its side, and the US as the "winner". Of course, they won in the same sense that Poland won the Second World War (not much). The ultimate effect of the change would be to almost completely remove the Great Powers from Africa and Asia (though maybe we'll still some American influence over Latin America) overnight. That would be an interesting angle - what would happen when the last grasps of colonialism/imperialism just disappear.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

You know, Chris, of late I've been wanting to sketch out what would most likely happen in the event of the Cuban Missile Crisis breaking out into all-out war, including a likely nuclear element, with the results realistically projected (neither limited by wishful thinking, nor all destroying non-proliferation-wank).

Perhaps this...?

The Cuban Missile Crisis: Second Holocaust by Robert L. O'Connell is an alternative history essay in which the 1962 Cuban missile crisis developed into war. The essay was published in What Ifs? of American History, edited by Robert Cowley.
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

War breaks out after a senior Soviet naval captain uses a "nuclear torpedo" against United States naval forces off the Cuban coast. (Soviet authorities had earlier decided that senior captains could fire such torpedoes in certain circumstances without first obtaining authorisation from higher up.) Matters soon escalate to the point that a Soviet missile is launched from Cuba, destroying Washington, D.C. and killing President John F. Kennedy, Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson, and most other civilian decision-makers.

This act seals the Soviet Union's doom: had Kennedy survived, he might have ordered a measured response; since he didn't, surviving American generals order a total attack, which continues long past the destruction of any Soviet military capacity. In the course of The Two Days' War, Cuba is completely destroyed, with 95% of its population being killed; heavy radiation spreads throughout the Caribbean and also damages southern Florida, which had been attacked by the Soviets. The Soviet Union is also destroyed, not just militarily crushed, with some 80% of its population perishing in the nuclear attacks themselves and the ensuing large-scale famines and radiation sickness. The East European countries are also severely damaged and lose a large part of their populations.

As a result, the US is completely isolated and ostracised in the post-war world and accused of having perpetrated genocide, the "Second Holocaust" of the title. The situation is exacerbated by Nixon being elected president in 1964, refusing to make any apology and also refusing to give up nuclear arms as required by a treaty signed in Geneva by all other surviving nations on Earth. NATO collapses with all other members leaving, and the United States leaves the UN, where resolutions were adopted accusing it of war crimes; the United States orders the UN to leave New York City. Eugene McCarthy, elected president in 1968, offers partial concessions which fail to satisfy the rest of the world.

The story is presented as a summary of the report prepared by a high-level US commission of inquiry which thoroughly investigated the course of the war and how it came to have such a horrific result, and reached the conclusion that the US must give up its nuclear arms in order to be re-accepted in the International Community.

After years of being classified it is presented to the public by Newt Gingrich, who in this history is the Chief Archivist of the US and who had never gone into politics.


Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuban_Missile_Crisis:_Second_Holocaust"

What's important but the wiki doesn't mention is that the there was little communication amoung the elements of the Red Army at the time, and the Kremlin had little control over the use of nukes. What happens is that the sub fires a nuclear torpedo at an aircraft carrier on its own orders, and the US responds by attempting to knock out the Cuban missles.

The Kremlin doesn't even know about the first nuclear torpedo strike (and neither does the commander of the Cuban battery), and so when the US fails to perfectly knock out the missles the commander battery, on his own initiative, launched the decapitation strike missle. Which in turn triggers the US return strikes, but the Soviets never know what's happened until they're nuked.

It's an intertaining shortstory that I have right beside me.

 

[DAv]

There was a book called 'Ressurection Day' where the Cuban Missile Crisis had ended in war with Russia destroyed and a large portion of the US devestated. Britain basically becomes the strongest World power with the Commonwealth binding together. France and Germany forge an Alliance to stop this and the US relied on British aid to survive. Not very well written but an interesting scenario.

 

[Glen]

So far I have found these scenarios somewhat unsatisfying in terms of detail and likely outcomes.

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

I found the O'Connell scenario to be probably the closest (and in my mind the most realistic) scenario about what might have happened. It's extremely similar to the "Dispatches" thing I whipped up in the writers' forum not too long ago. About the only problem I had with O'Connell's story was the relative lack of devastation in Western Europe.

While the Soviet Union was extremely behind in the arms race in 1962, they did still have over 2,000 nuclear weapons. Now, most of those couldn't reach the United States (there were fewer than 24 active Soviet ICBMs at the time, and many of those may be knocked out before launch, due to the lengthy fueling time), and bombers would be flying into the teeth of one of the most intricate air defense systems ever designed. But that won't help Western Europe, which is in range of dozens of IRBMs based in eastern Europe. It won't be pretty.

The end result is a hurt United States, a wasteland Europe/Soviet Union, a superpower China, and a world largely dominated by the Southern Hemisphere.

The U.S. makes out fairly well in such scenarios -- ironically, Canada will fare fare worse, as Soviet bombers damaged in penetration attempts had orders to hit the nearest viable target -- but you can count half a dozen to a dozen American cities outside southern Florida as destroyed. Southern Florida itself may be written off entirely, depending on how you have the war in Cuba play out. Key West is definitely gone -- it's in range of FROG missiles -- and Miami is a viable target as well. North of the line Tampa/Cape Canaveral, things should be all right, however.

It's a scenario I've studied for a long, long, long time, given that I live in Key West, the virtual epicenter of the Crisis. Chris, I'd love to work with you on this. There's a boatload of primary sources down here, and I can look up pretty much anything as needed.

 

[luakel]

So far I have found these scenarios somewhat unsatisfying in terms of detail and likely outcomes.

How's the Second Holocaust one bad though? It has a pretty detailed description of how we wipe out Russia in about a day then spend a few more dropping bombs randomly on any traces of civilization left there. The idea that we'd become an international pariah for such a thing seems unlikely as well.

BTW, is there any chance that a war over Cuba does end up involving nukes being used and yet both the US and USSR survive and remain superpowers?

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

BTW, is there any chance that a war over Cuba does end up involving nukes being used and yet both the US and USSR survive and remain superpowers?

I think you've got a tougher time doing that than having such a war remain non-nuclear entirely. In a non-nuclear war, you just have to not release anything at all -- it happened in WWII with chemical weapons -- and it might work here as well.

If you start with tactical weapons, however, there's the danger of retaliation pushing things up and up and up until you've got a full-fledged nuclear war. It's tough to stop that sort of one-upmanship without running the danger that you'll lose.

 

[robertp6165]

The most important thing, I think, would be how many nukes got loose. Shitty fiction aside, world nuclear stockpiles in 1962 weren't sufficient to cause the "destruction of all life" angle, which has been overplayed regardless.

If you believe the Nuclear Winter theory, that's not actually true. Nuclear Winter theory holds that as few as 1,000 warheads could trigger a Nuclear Winter, and that, if the worst predictions hold true, could be fatal to most life on earth, and to human life in particular.

And the nuclear winter projections are based on the warheads we have today which are tiny compared to the huge multi-megaton city-busters which filled U.S. and Soviet arsenals in the early 1960s. The effects from the use of those monster warheads could be several orders of magnitude worse than those predicted by the nuclear winter studies.

 

[Electric Monk]

You can't believe in a theory (same problem with "believing" in global warming). You either agree, or disagree.

As for nuclear winter it's been modelled and studied and it ain't happening, folks. Carl Sagan was dead wrong though, to his credit, he both admitted this and pointed out his own errors stating that science is a learning process.

However most models predict both global cooling and up to a decade or more disruption in world climate—not nuclear winter, but akin to volcano's going off.

As for the timeline… Eh. I'm unsure. On the one hand there are interesting stories (Japan is going to be pretty damn imperialist, I think, with the import problems) but destroying the world economy, the vast majority of industry, and basically the entire technological base of the world is kinda boring.

China, sadly, will be wiped out because if the Russians are going down they'll be taking a few "friends" too.

Japan, South Africa, and Australia being the superpowers is fun, though. Hmm. Assuming Russia doesn't nuke Japan.

India will starve. There's no dwarf wheat coming in this scenario.

Well. I think it could be interesting, could be bad. However I do have faith in Chris (and would love to see a regular AH novel from him) so if this what you want to do—go for it!

 

[gtrof]

It would be intresting to see a purely convetional war. Although unlikely, it woudl be intresting. The lack of Soviet sea power would pretty much doom Cuba. Castro and the Soviets can put up a spritied resistance however there will be no resupply from the USSR.

 

[Riain]

None of the SS4&5s were ever emplaced in Cuba, the only nukes in the area were about 9 FROGs and some tac nuke bombs plus the nuke torps on subs. Thus the SU could only target the US with a few hundred warheads, many of which were hideously vulnerable to a first strike or decapitation strike, and the survivors of the 150 bombers would have to penetrae NORAD which was assumed to be able to shoot down 25% of attackers. I think after a first strike on the SU the US could expect to recieve about 30 nukes in return. The wild card is US allies, while the US itself is hard to target, Europe and Japan can be blanketed by Soviet theatre nukes. Would the Sovs attack these targets?

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Would the Sovs attack these targets?

Hell yes! If someone's using bombers from Japan to launch nukes at me, you can be damn sure that I'm going to retaliate. It was that fear that lead Japan to insist that the United States have no nuclear weapons in Japanese territory.

 

[Riain]

Well there you go, all of Eurasia, from Britain, thru Russia to Japan is nuked to the shithouse. The US loses about 20 million people but can go on, it is the only major power left in the world after Nov '62.

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Well there you go, all of Eurasia, from Britain, thru Russia to Japan is nuked to the shithouse. The US loses about 20 million people but can go on, it is the only major power left in the world after Nov '62.

Something intrigues me, though. Will China be hit as badly as we think? In 1962, you're still a few years off from the complete Sino-Soviet split. Yeah, the Soviet Union's supporting India in the Sino-Indian War, but at the time of the Cuban Crisis, there's only an ideological split, not the at-each-others-throats mentality you get in 1969.

Hell, the Chinese were in Moscow in October 1962 for the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party. Yeah, they disagreed over ideological concerns, but even a complete ideological split didn't come until June 1963, when both countries sent letters equivalent to Luther's 95 Theses.

All told, I'd give it a 50/50 shot whether China was on the Soviet SIOP or not. Probably depends on the moves China makes. At this point, I highly doubt Soviet strategists wanted to put China on the side of NATO in a war. I imagine they hoped China would remain neutral, and would wait for it to make the first move before anything else. NATO and Europe always were the first priority, even during the border skirmishes. At this point in time, my gut tells me that the Soviet Union would not attack China unless China hit first. And since the Chinese nuclear bomb is still two years off, I don't think they will. They've got far more to gain by sitting on the sidelines and letting NATO and the Warsaw Pact smash each other, like Stalin hoped Hitler and the West would do to each other. After all, Mao absolutely adored Stalin, and I can easily see him emulating the Soviet dictator in that respect.

I'm sure I'll catch some flak from this, but my gut instinct is that the Chinese will sit this one out. They don't have any reason to get involved, and unless the Chinese attack, the Soviets won't attack on their own.

 

[Syphon]

Everyone (but only for a given value of everyone ) has been asking me to do a novel which is real AH; i.e. no time agents, no ISOTs, no...well, you get the idea. I have been thinking about a Cuban Missile War...and seeing that plenty of people have opinions on how such a war would have gone, I thought I'd ask people...

So, how do you think the war would have gone? POD - there is a nasty clash between a nuke-armed USSR sub and a US ship, which rapidly gets out of control...

Chris

1962 is a terrible time for the USSR they only had 3322 nukes the US on the other hand had over 27000.

Now I doubt that the majority of these weapons are based in Cuba so I don't see the US being destroyed.

The USSR on the other hand might very well be destroyed if Kennedy losses it big time.

And remember the BUFF's B-52's have been rolling off the production line at boeing since 1952.

Short of the Russian leadership being insane, they cave in or risk being destroyed.

They'll only have to remember what the yanks did to Germany and japan to know that any attack against the US would be a bad Idea.

If it does come to war they might need to take out the us command structure with the first shot and hope that whoever picks up the reigns decides not to destroy them.

In short it would be a very shor war.

Oh and an end to the red menace but it would probably help in vietnam and Ho Che mihn now has no Russian support.

 

[BCO]

During the discussions about the Cuban Missile Crisis there was a consensus to bomb Cuba on Sunday morning and then invade. JFK didn't weigh in his decision yet, and RFK talked everyone out of it. He proposed the diplomatic contact with the Soviet ambassador that settled the crisis. Part of his plan, was to convince the Soviet's that JFK didn't have full control over his generals and that if they did not agree to his solution, a war would begin even without JFK's orders.

Khrushchev, according to his autobiography, regarded this threat as realistic, since he assumed that someone as young as JFK couldn't command the respect of older generals.

What the White House team didn't know during their days of deliberations, was that some atomic weapons were already online, both missiles that could hit the US and short range to attack US landing sites on Cuba. The day they discovered the missiles they were not online, during their deliberations they became so.

The POD's that would have led to a war would have been something that would have caused JFK to go along with the consensus to bomb and invade Cuba, and/or one that prevented the diplomatic contacts with the Soviet ambassador from leading to a solution that removed the missiles.

The White House consensus was that after the attack on Cuba, the Soviets would invade West Berlin, and that allowing that invasion to stand would cause a lack of confidence in the US by Western Europe. So, even in their planning their was a chance of a world war. One factor that definitively ended the plan to attack Cuba, was that noone could assure JFK that no missiles from Cuba would hit the US during a US attack on Cuba.