Was the Cold War Preventable?

OK

Let's push back the timeline to 1948 or 49.

The US and USSR are already sparring over inventories and debts from the WWII Lend-Lease program. The Soviets want the debt cancelled and are not returning equipment and ships that the US lent to them.

The Soviets do not have a working A-Bomb until August of 1949.

Is it more or less likely that an attack on the Soviets would work during this time?

I think it is less likely to be successful the later it is tried. Regardless of the difficulty of continuing the war in Europe, at least the men and material were still available in the theater - including the German POW's, who were happy to surrender to the Americans after their treatment by the Soviets.

Japanese materials and manpower could be used to add an Eastern front to the Soviet War.

A war with the Soviets would be more likely to work at the end of WW2.
 
Got to agree with CalBear on this one, regardless of the Allies military capability to defeat the Soviets (and you must be joking if you think it wont involve millions of casualites and years of fighting), its politically undoable to launch a pre-emptive strike (the proposal was dubbed "Operation Unthinkable" for a reason).

In 1945 the Soviets had been fighting the Nazis directly for 4 years, they were led by 'Uncle Joe', and ranging from European communist strength to Anglo-American wartime comraderie the general population would have been unimpressed to say the least to frankly betray the country that arguably did the most to defeat the Nazis, who if you remember have just been outed as genocidal monsters to boot.

You start blowing up Soviet cities and arming ex-Werhmacht soldiers and you'll see public being a mix of Vietnam peace protest and Paris 1789. Then you add the regular GIs into the mix, remembering that there were riots, mutinies and soldier's councils set up over anger of slow de-mobbing. You start another war, and this kind of war in particular and all bets are off.

France wont have anything to do with it, the communists and the need to rebuild will see to that.

In Britain, Churchill is still PM when this happens (Attlee & Labour in 1945 were hawkish but not anti-communist to this insane level) and as such sees his personal image fall Eden Suez Crisis style to the power of 10. Simply put, the government falls and Britain possible withdraws unilaterally from the war at least.

Basically I cant see the Soviets crumbling and the Western leaders who ordered this shocking move are gone quick-sharp. The best the new leaders can get out of this is white peace with MASSIVE compensation and possibly war crime trials for Churchill and others. Anything less and the Soviets oddly enough wont take kindly to the idea of forgetting the immolation of Leningrad/Moscow. Compare it to US sentiment after Pearl Harbour, but on unseen levels as in terms of damage and sheer evil betrayal its mind-boggling.

So at best, the heroes of WWII get to be hung alongside the Nazi elite, and a crippled USSR gets the boon of money and the fact Europe is now either Red or at least so disgusted by the attack they go neutral. In such a world the new British left-wing government will almost certainly forward its 'Keep Left' European third-way foreign and defence policy. America meanwhile goes isolantionist scarred by the strange experience of being geopolitically the victim, saviour from and instigator of jack-booted thuggery in a space of a few years.

So in conclusion its an impossible scenario the short nuclear window wasn't acted on because the Cold War for the vast majority of the time was a rivalry with proxy wars scattered around, only nuclear weapons themselves made it such a deadly scenario. The Western powers probably couldn't stomach a pre-emptive strike and the Soviet experience of WWII made them weary to say the least about a full-on conventional continental or global war.

So look for diplomatic means to end it
 
OK

Let's push back the timeline to 1948 or 49.

The US and USSR are already sparring over inventories and debts from the WWII Lend-Lease program. The Soviets want the debt cancelled and are not returning equipment and ships that the US lent to them.

The Soviets do not have a working A-Bomb until August of 1949.
Although I largely agree with CalBear's points, iirc the Soviets initially had a reaction time for their nuclear weapons measured not in hours, days or weeks but measured in months.

So technically, even post-1950, as long as you'd somehow be willing to, a first strike was a possibility. With hindsight the US could possibly destroy the Soviet weapons, places of research and it's scientist without suffering much themselves.

Ofcourse, the W-Allies would quickly be running out of places to land; untill long after '50 there's not that much to stop the Soviets from reaching the Bay of Biscay.
 

CalBear

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OK

Let's push back the timeline to 1948 or 49.

The US and USSR are already sparring over inventories and debts from the WWII Lend-Lease program. The Soviets want the debt cancelled and are not returning equipment and ships that the US lent to them.

The Soviets do not have a working A-Bomb until August of 1949.

Is it more or less likely that an attack on the Soviets would work during this time?

I think it is less likely to be successful the later it is tried. Regardless of the difficulty of continuing the war in Europe, at least the men and material were still available in the theater - including the German POW's, who were happy to surrender to the Americans after their treatment by the Soviets.

Japanese materials and manpower could be used to add an Eastern front to the Soviet War.

A war with the Soviets would be more likely to work at the end of WW2.

In 1948 the USAF had EXACTLY 96 fighter bomers in Western Europe, a wing of P-47s and a wing of F-80s. By 1948 the West WAS relying on the A-bomb to hold the Soviets at bay and was in no shape to fight a war in Europe. The U.S. has demobilized, the UK had cut its military to bare minimums and the Western European countries were still clearing rubble.

Ivan, on the other hand, still had a HUGE ground component, with every able bodied Soviet male conscripted, trained on active duty for two or three years (the unlucky conscripts selected as NCOs were sent through a training division and forced to serve an extra year on active duty) and then kept on reserve status, either active -Catergory B- or inactive -Catergory C- until age 45. The Red Army was STILL on a war footing in 1948 and the rot that would eventually destroy the USSR had not even begun to spread to the Army in 1948. The Soviets had arguably the best tank on Earth in the T-54/55 (the Centurion might be slightly better - 6/5 & pick 'em) and had LOTS of the earlier T-34 & T-44 (with the 100mm gun) on hand. I would point out that it took close to a miracle for the West to hold on to South Korea without nukes, not that there were that many nukes to be had.

At the END of 1947 the U.S. has THIRTY-TWO nuclear weapons, by the end of 1948 that went up to 110. The USAF had B-29s for delivery of weapons (B-36 didn't begin to enter squadron service until 1949 and the B-47 until 1951), targets in the USSR were well outside the range of American jet fighters and the PVO was operating MiG-15s as bomber interceptors. How do you think that math will work out? Hint: WITH jet fighter escort the Fagot was so effective against B-29/B-50 formations over Korea that the USAF abandoned daylight bombing due to losses. The USAF was so worried about getting through to the USSR in 1952 that they put together a special squadron of stripped down F-86 Sabers to go on ONE WAY strike mission carrying the MK-5 & MK-7 A-Bomb (interesting story , but a separate matter).

The U.S. didn't WANT the vast majority of Lend Lease back and had long since written off most of the debt as the cost of doing business. The return of the Studebaker trucks from the USSR would have depressed the U.S. truck market for years, and why would the U.S. want back the P-39 fighters?

This particular POD simply won't hunt.
 
the UK had cut its military to bare minimum

This a teeny nit-pick given we're talking about WWIII, but the British military after 1945 was still consuming 10% of the UK's gdp. Up until the phasing out of National Service in 1959-60, the Army had 700,000 active conscripts plus millions ready to be called up, plus its professional core. A combination of American pressure and Imperial policing meant the UK had the largest army in Europe proper and had war come the British Army on the Rhine would have been the primary NATO force by a longway until the Americans could get decent numbers on the ground.

Just thought I'd say, contrary to common sense the British were fielding a military more or less on par (per capita) with the Red Army into the 1950s.
 
I would have to say Definitely, but it would involve a lot of compromises on both sides.

Simply by not having Stalin in charge of the Soviet Union, much of the tensions facing the world are removed:


  • Eastern Europe is Finlandized, instead of forced into Communism. Whoever replaces Stalin insists only that Eastern Europe is mostly disarmed. The Western Democracies probably accept, instead of protest this arrangement.
  • Korea Unifies, and the Soviets attempt to bargain with the whole country.
  • There's no Berlin Blockade, because the Soviets never attempt to antagonize the Allies in this fashion.
The point is that Stalin's attempt to grab more power and his treachery with his arrangements, combined with past claims of the Soviet Union to seek global domination, made the Soviets extremely scary in the eyes of the west. Unsurprisingly, Truman would not accept this abuses and started the whole "Containment" strategy.

With no Stalin in place, the Soviet Union might be distrusted; but the world wouldn't immediate fall into armed camps, and arguably, the United States packs up most of its army and presses the snooze button.
 
Skipping the original "US goes completly psycho" scenario, the Cold War can be avoided several ways, depending on how close you want the TL to be to ours and how far back you want to put the POD.

1.) No WWII. Germany slowly rebuilds it's military under a less wacky government and Stalin never works up the noive to try and conquer all Europe. Winning a smaller war vs Japan and Communizing Manchuria and Korea fails to remove the impression in his countrymen's minds that he's most notable for erecting enormous mounds of corpses, and de-Stalinization after his death is much more thorough.

2.) No Stalin in the first place. This could go several different ways, since WWII probably goes differently, and may not happen at all. (If Hitler decides to attack France first rather than a Poland that has received guarantees from the USSR, or decides to invade anyway in spite of Soviet warnings and the French at his back, the generals might work up the courage to do what they failed to do OTL in 1944).

3.) Hitler wins, kinda. The Soviets collapse, but the Reich eventually falls to US forces armed with nuclear weapons. The remnants of the Soviet government move west over the Urals and eventually reoccupy most of their pre-1939 territory, but the USSR has been too badly depopulated to seriously challenge the US, and Stalin has not survived. The US has no real opposition. (OTOH, this could go badly if the US decides it can return to isolationism).

4.) Stalin dies during WWII. A car accident, a lucky bomber, flees Moscow in a German breakthrough and suffers a vote of no confidence (in the back of the neck)...someone less paranoid and wacky takes his place, and the postwar arrangements are different. This one has some sub-possibilities:

a. As mentioned earlier in the thread, a Finlandized E. Europe rather than the direct OTL takeover.

OTOH, a Finlandized Eastern Europe requires, well, some common borders. Would Finlandized Poland allow Soviet troops to cross it's territory to smack the Germans if they try to rearm? So, perhaps
b. Poland is actually Communized. Poland is, Soviets point out, a traditional Russian sphere of influence. And hey, you know, their government between the wars was pretty much Fascist? Polish voters may not like it, but it might still be little enough to avoid a confrontation.

c. Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria are taken over, but the leadership successfully negociates a "buffer" of neutralized, disarmed states - Germany, Austria, the Czech republic. (This lowers tensions, but unfortunately leads to the Fourth Reich in the 1990's :D )

Unfortunately, even if we avoid confrontation in Europe, there are still two things which could lead to serious US-Soviet tensions...

I.) There is the problem of Asia - our alti-Soviet leadership getting all of Korea at the negociating table avoids the Korean war provocation, but what of Mao? China going Red was one of the major contributions to the Cold War scare. Still, an effort by Soviet and Chinese propagandists to portray the Chinese revolution in a positive light might do some good - as it was, OTL a lot of people were dubious about saving Chiang, who was considered too corrupt to be a credible leader of China, and there were a fair number of respectable "useful idiots" willing to portray Mao as merely a "agrarian reformer" or whatever.

II.) There is the Bomb. Even under a more peaceful leadership, the desire to have one of their own will be strong - after all, they're still _communists_, and don't really trust the Very Capitalist USA - and when they get one, the US may freak out a bit. Much depends on whether the OTL US Red Scare has been able to get any traction - if by this time the UK has one too, and the Soviets are just considered another country - just a big and vaguely scary one - this might not kick off the sort of military race we got OTL. Some sort of international arms treaty with inspections and such to prevent a nuclear arms race would be the best option, but how likely is it that any Soviet government would be open enough to let US arms inspectors roam around their country - and visa versa?

Bruce
 

Stalker

Banned
I have been to the former USSR - Poland, Minsk, Moscow.
Ha! I liked that especially! From this moment on, I will remember that Poland was the part of the USSR.:D
ruffthedog said:
uprisings behind the lines?
It proves once again, how little you know Russians, my friend!:rolleyes:
Read the history more carefully. Whichever tyrant ruled Russia, She had always consolidated behind him at the face of foreign agression. You cannot intimidate Russia with A-Bombs, simple and plain. Moreover, you simply have not enough A-bombs until 1947 to bomb the USSR down to the ground. You have no reliable means of delivery either. In 1947 there are interceptors with enough ceiling capable to take off the sky any Flying Fortress far from their targets.
Yes, it's easy to ruin Leningrad, one of cultural pearls of the world, you may even try and reach Kiev, Vladivostok, Murmansk but you can hardly hit any of large industrial and populated regions within USSR. His industrial capacity will remain intact. In response you will get the rage and lack of trust almost everywhere in the world.
So, I advise that this underdeveloped crap be finished because it's even out of the scope of sci-fi.
CalBear has got the point although there some little quantitative inaccuracies in his account of Red Army capabilities in after-war period, as it seems to me. Actually, they were less but the general message of his posts is pretty correct, in my opinion.
 
So..
1) One Fatman wouldnt be able to destroy Moscow- it is needed near ten or twelve
2)There arent runways in Germany for strategic bombers, are they?
3) there are 4.6 million of Allies against 6 milion russians-in appearence ussr hadnt necesary numeral superiority, but when there was battles for right bank Ukraine we were able to big germans with 2.1 million of men against 1.8 million by nazis, and we hadnt superiority in technic too.
 
OK - the Key to no cold war is - a More Successful German Invasion Crete!

That's right - and you heard it here first - Crete is the Key to no Cold war.

OK - here's how it works. In OTL, Crete was a German Victory - barely. The Germans sent the paratroopers in, and they won - but were cut to pieces in the process. Hitler was horrified by the losses, and didn't do it again.

So...in the ATL, the Germans do much better. Student & Co. kick butt. Maybe they had better surprise, maybe the Brits evac'd troops to Egypt rather than Crete, whatever. Doesn't really matter, except Hitler still loves the paras.

Now, this doesn't really impact anything until about Nov 28th 1941. With the Battle of Moscow raging, and the Soviet capital just beyond the grasping fingers of the Wehrmacht, Hitler decides the thing to uncork the Panzers is an airborne operation on Moscow (the Germans actually considered this in OTL). In the middle of a Russian winter, the JU-52s take off, and Student & Co go in.

It is, of course, a disaster. The paratroopers are scattered all over the place in the awful weather. The lightly-armed paratroopers are cut to ribbons by the Red Army. A confused smattering of fighting erupts all over Moscow, and the arriving Siberian divisions ensure the paratroopers fail in their mission. The lunging German panzers (attempting to relieve the paras) are even more exposed to the Soviet counter-strike. End result: like OTL, excecpt a few thousand German paras make it back to German lines, and many more are captured or killed by the Soviets.

But - and here's where it gets interesting. The paras did manage to get into some Soviet government buildings. No, they don't get Stalin. What they do get is a treasure trove of NKVD documents - detailing Soviet intelligence operations in other countries.

Now, this doesn't help the Germans much. The Soviets spying operations in the UK and America are interesting, but not of much use. However, as the winter of 1941-42 goes on, and America enters the war, the German situation gets grimmer.

Hoping to poison the relationship between the West and USSR, German Intelligence leaks the juiciest bits of the information to the US and UK in the spring of 1942 through the embassy in Madrid. At first, it is greeted with skepticism in the west, but then, as it starts to play out, a full-blown anti-intelliegence operation is launched in both the US and UK.

In the UK, this means no Kim Philby, no MI5 penetration, etc. In the US, it is much more profound. Roosevelt, when presented with the information, rapidly looses his naivete regarding the USSR, especially when the depths of the Soviet penetration into the Manhattan Project are revealed. This may also cost JE Hoover his job, but whatever.

Both the US and UK launch sweeps against the Soviet intelliengence operations in their countries. The most important result of this is that the Manhatten Project is swept clear of Soviet agents before most of the science is done. Stalin is blind in the USSR, and further Soviet attempts to get in the A-Bomb project are thwarted by more vigilent US efforts. The Soviets have their own project, of course, but it is hideausly under-funded (with the Soviets fighting ofr their lives against the Germans), and WAY behind the US effort.

So - the rest of the war proceeds about as in OTL. The German aim in releasing the infomation - that is to poison the relationship between the west and USSR - works, but Lend-Lease keeps flowing because it is still better to fight Germans with Russians from the perspective of London and Washington. During the wartime conferences, both Roosevelt and Churchill are much tougher on Stalin.

By 1945, the Germans are crumbling as in OTL. However, the US and UK are much more accepting of German surrenders, and less keen on letting the Soviets advance in Europe. While the west is not prepared to make a separate peace, they do cut deals with local German commanders as the war ends, meaning that troops from Italy beat the Soviets to Vienna. In Bohemia, Patton takes - and holds - Prague and Bradley takes Berlin. Unlike OTL, the German garrison is only too happy to surrender to the Americans, whatever Hitler's orders. Hitler still offs himself, and the war ends.

Stalin, is of course furious. He is also stunned when Hiroshima is struck on Aug 6th, and Nagasaki two days later. The Red Army is strong, and battle hardened, and tactically it could even probably take Germany from the west, but it can not hope to compete with America's industrial and financial might in the long term. The Soviet bomb is years away, and the Soviet Union shattered.

Germany is occupied by the US and UK up to the Oder, and the only Soviets are in East Berlin. The Soviets are pushed out of some of the most economically valuable parts of Europe, and have no hope of a military confrontation.

In this situation, the only solution is early detante. The Soviets do not push the Allies, and a more cordial atmosphere arise.

How's this?

Mike Turcotte
 
You'll need so many butterflies to pull that off, Montreal Insectarium doesn't have 0.001% of it :)

To begin with, the crucial role of Funk and Rosenbergs in Soviet Nukse is debatable, to say the least.

You have to say though, it was very entertaining!

Worthy of a Tom Clammy novel :D

----

I like the sneaky paratroopers best.

"Something set Herr Stirlitz apart from others on Frederikstrasse. It could have been the proud profile, or maybe the confident gait; or perhaps the parachute dragging behind his shoulders"

:D
 
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I once heard something about a map that was supposedly drawn up by roosevelt and his staff and that Churchill might have seen it, but it was lost before Yalta and a new one had to be drawn up with uncle Joe in attendence. apcryphal I'm sure, but?
 
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