What are the biggest missed opportunities in warfare post WW2?

[Wendell]

This would probably also save the USSR, ironically.

Why? Because this somehow impacts Afghanistan?

 

[marathag]

Cut off their food supply and force them to negotiate. Kind of hard to fight a war when you're rebuilding your entire food infrastructure. In the meantime either international aid or communist help would have fed them until they could make enough themselves, but they couldn't both fight and rebuild/feed their civilians on foreign aid.

Though the US did that in North Korea, and they ran off of Soviet and Easter Europe Satellites food during the war and after, till farming would restrt

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Not finishing off Saddam in the first Gulf War when there was clear justification to do so.

 

[Ian_W]

Not finishing off Saddam in the first Gulf War when there was clear justification to do so.

This has the problem that this will end with the pro-Iranian Shi'a running the country, which is what happened after Saddam was finished off ...

 

[Captain Homicide]

Can we count something like the Bay of Pigs? Not necessarily a war but a military action that has a few ramifications going forward if it works.

Six-Day War. Could have taken Israel off the map in reality.

Could either of those conflicts have plausibly worked out differently though and if so what PODs are needed to make it happen?

 

[Deleted member 90949]

Not finishing off Saddam in the first Gulf War when there was clear justification to do so.

That's a terrible idea. It would just be the Iraq War a decade early.

 

[History Learner]

?

Why? Because this somehow impacts Afghanistan?

Gorbachev vs. Deng: A Review of Chris Miller’s The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy

As oil prices fell, Gorbachev tried to maintain living standards which resulted in major growth in the budget deficit. Before Gorbachev came to power, the budget was balanced or even had a small surplus. In 1985, the deficit grew to 2% GDP, by 1990, it reached 10% GDP. In 1991, the last year of the Soviet Union, the deficit exceeded astronomical 30% GDP (p. 152).

The fiscal crisis was partly explained by a collapse in global oil prices but was partly handmade. First, Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol campaign reduced revenues from excise taxes. Second, in order to keep the industrial and agricultural lobbies happy, the government continued to subsidize their inputs and raise prices for their outputs. At the same time, in order to pacify the general public, consumer prices were kept low. Gorbachev also avoided cutting expenditure on public goods and tried to maintain living standards. He decided that–unlike Deng–he would not use force to suppress protesters and therefore tried to avoid the situation where people took to the street to voice their economic grievances.

To fund the deficit, the government resorted to borrowing. The foreign debt increased from 30% of GDP in 1985 to 80% of GDP in 1991 (p. 152). As the markets were growing increasingly reluctant to lend, the government funded the deficit by printing money. The official prices were still controlled, so the monetization of budget deficit resulted in “repressed inflation”, increased shortages and higher prices in black markets. Eventually Soviet Union ran out of cash and collapsed.

With the Iran-Iraq War ending early, the Arab states will cease their overproduction and thus prevent the oil glut of the late 1980s; this will prevent the collapse in oil prices and thus the decline in living standards within the USSR. With the support of the people, Gorbachev can then seek to enforce fiscal discipline on the interest groups and thus reform the Soviet economy ala Deng.

 

[ric350]

I‘ve said this before in similar threads, but after Inchon, MacArthur bypasses Seoul, and effectively blocks the NKA from escaping north. At the same time, give the SKA the task of liberating Seoul. Then the NATO forces drive north, but stop around the 40th parallel, and create a fortified defensive line across the peninsula. Meanwhile, backchannel communications to Mao say the territory north of the 40th will be considered a Chinese “protectorate“. However any aggressive activity, observed or perceived, would be dealt with “most severely“. I believe Mao would accept this as NK getting what they deserved for following Soviet “adventurism”, and getting buffer territory on his southern border.

ric350

 

[Wendell]

I‘ve said this before in similar threads, but after Inchon, MacArthur bypasses Seoul, and effectively blocks the NKA from escaping north. At the same time, give the SKA the task of liberating Seoul. Then the NATO forces drive north, but stop around the 40th parallel, and create a fortified defensive line across the peninsula. Meanwhile, backchannel communications to Mao say the territory north of the 40th will be considered a Chinese “protectorate“. However any aggressive activity, observed or perceived, would be dealt with “most severely“. I believe Mao would accept this as NK getting what they deserved for following Soviet “adventurism”, and getting buffer territory on his southern border.

ric350

People won't be happy about fighting to liberate Korea only to sign away the North anyway...

 

[History Learner]

Yom Kippur War, 1973: Syrian armored columns were at one point like five minutes from the essentially undefended IDF headquarters in the Golan Heights. Take that, the IDF will be dislodged and the Syrians can then break out into Israel proper.

 

[Mike D]

Cut off their food supply and force them to negotiate. Kind of hard to fight a war when you're rebuilding your entire food infrastructure. In the meantime either international aid or communist help would have fed them until they could make enough themselves, but they couldn't both fight and rebuild/feed their civilians on foreign aid.

Attacking food supplies (or anything else which is indispensable to civilian life) is strictly against the Geneva Conventions and is an attempt at genocide. I can't think of many things stupider that the US could have done short of nuking their own cities for a laugh.

 

[History Learner]

As much as it pains me to say, Ian is right, the VC and to some extent the NVA operating in South Vietnam were sourcing food from Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam from friendly sources. The Ho Chi Minh trail was mostly providing weapons and ammo as well as reinforcements.
But your last point is right, new recruits would be food restricted before heading south if the bombing floods the Delta and they tried to keep the war going.
The bigger issue for the North though is 85% of employment and GDP was based on food production. Cut that off and the economy of the North implodes temporarily

Depends on what you mean by VC. If you mean the Pre-escalation one, then yeah, but they were Part-Timers anyway. The NVA units that made up the majority Post-U.S. entry in force had trouble operation at Battalion level or bigger.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Attacking food supplies (or anything else which is indispensable to civilian life) is strictly against the Geneva Conventions and is an attempt at genocide. I can't think of many things stupider that the US could have done short of nuking their own cities for a laugh.

Technically they are attacking the dikes. The rice fields being flooded would be incidental. As it was though China was already partially supplying Vietnam with food, so they would still have food supplies, which could be ramped up.

Depends on what you mean by VC. If you mean the Pre-escalation one, then yeah, but they were Part-Timers anyway. The NVA units that made up the majority Post-U.S. entry in force had trouble operation at Battalion level or bigger.

Doesn't matter which VC or even the NVA, if they were fighting in the south their food sources were from the south (which produced more than the north), Cambodia or Laos.

 

[Mike D]

Technically they are attacking the dikes. The rice fields being flooded would be incidental. As it was though China was already partially supplying Vietnam with food, so they would still have food supplies, which could be ramped up.

Irrigation systems are also protected as are dykes and dams. Try again.

 

[ric350]

People won't be happy about fighting to liberate Korea only to sign away the North anyway...

Well “north” of the 40th, and they’ll be a hell of a lot happier than their contemporaries IOTL.

ric350

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Irrigation systems are also protected as are dykes and dams. Try again.

Why did the Brits bomb the Dams during Operation Chastise? Sounds like a warcrime.

Edit:
Only per the 1977 version it looks like:

Customary IHL - Practice Relating to Rule 42. Works and Installations Containing Dangerous Forces

Practice Relating to Rule 42. Works and Installations Containing Dangerous Forces

ihl-databases.icrc.org

Plus Vietnam was not a declared war...

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

Not ignoring vietnam and letting it become a bilateral Issue between Moscow and Beijing.

 

[marathag]

This has the problem that this will end with the pro-Iranian Shi'a running the country, which is what happened after Saddam was finished off ...

Disagree, could have asked for Saddams head on a Platter, and his underlings would have asked if it was to be a Silver or Gold Platter in 1991

Poppy Bush wasn't looking for Regime Change. Iraq was a nominal client of the USSR, that was in it's death rattles, and Poppy wasn't trying to rub it their face, still treated them as a Superpower, thought at that point, that was going away

some Baathist Flunky would have taken control, and probably wouldn't have poked the US so much over the '90s.

 

[History Learner]

Doesn't matter which VC or even the NVA, if they were fighting in the south their food sources were from the south (which produced more than the north), Cambodia or Laos.

If it was the local part time units, yes, but otherwise no; they either had to indirectly buy it from the RVN/U.S. or directly bring it down the trail for regular NVA units and those out of uniform if they wanted to operate in large, organized forces.

 

[Mike D]

Plus Vietnam was not a declared war...

I'm fairly certain that's irrelevant.

The attack on the dams (which wasn't covered as the protocol on protection of civilians didn't come in until after WW2) would probably be a war crime now, although the UK would probably try to justify it as an attack on an installation being used in direct support of military operations that couldn't be stopped in any other way.