WI: Cold War Superpowers Willing to go Nuclear in their Wars

While never coming to direct blows, the US and USSR fought a number of wars in foreign nations in order to indirectly fight their enemy. My question is, what if they were willing to use nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise, in these conflicts, such as:

  • The Korean War
  • The Vietnam War
  • The Sino-Soviet border conflict
  • Soviet war in Afghanistan
  • Etc (If I forgot anything)
Not necessarily in one timeline but taken as seperate.
 
Well, it's hard to imagine a senario in which the use of nukes in any of those wars wouldn't have spilled over into a total nuclear war between the US or the Soviets, though I guess it could have been possible.MacArthur of course wanted to use nukes against China in the Korean War, but I'm not sure how the Soviets would react if it actually had happened...
 
Korea and the Sino-Soviet border conflict are the most likely, as they are conventional wars and not guerrilla wars. It would be very problematic using nukes in a guerrilla conflict.
 
Well, a couple billion people would be dead.

If it spilled into a larger conflict which was directly between the US and USSR and China, then yes. But if it were managed to be contained to one of the third party wars like Korea or Vietnam, then it'd only be tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands to perhaps a million or so. Granted, usage of nuclear weapons in a tactical manner like that would push society toward being more open to atomic war, which was not good. But there would still be a few factors to keep some fear in there. For one, there's the tall man pushing onto a little person's head while they swing away deal with this; the US was a superpower, and the Vietnamese, Koreans, and even Chinese did not have the capability to strike back in kind (albeit the Chinese would be able to in 1964). The USSR was also a superpower, and the Afghans would not be able to strike back in kind. The only war like that would have been a Sino-Soviet war.
 

Laurentia

Banned
Well, it's hard to imagine a senario in which the use of nukes in any of those wars wouldn't have spilled over into a total nuclear war between the US or the Soviets, though I guess it could have been possible.MacArthur of course wanted to use nukes against China in the Korean War, but I'm not sure how the Soviets would react if it actually had happened...

The Soviets in the early 1950's didn't have the delivery system's to do serious damage beyond Europe and Asia.
 
To get nuclear weapons used, you'd have to alter American foreign policy thought right back to 1946. Nuclear bombs were initially thought of by military planners (most notorious among them Macarthur, who wanted to use them as tactical weapons to support his invasion of Japan if that nation didn't capitulate, and later in Korea) as really big explosives. However, as the 1940s wore on and American politicians applied pressure to shrink the standing army, the Americans began to use the nuclear bomb as their Last Resort, a boogeyman weapon that would be invoked if the Soviets tried anything. Of course, this left the US in the position where it was unwilling to use the atomic bomb when Stalin expanded his sphere of influence into minor eastern European nations.

So, find a way to get a moderate conflict between American and Soviet forces (not necessarily the US and USSR going to war, but rather a proxy war, perhaps in China) at some part of the world around 1947-8. Get a small atomic weapon used in combat, as a tactical weapon, and you've cemented the atomic bomb in military planning as a tactical device. From then on, the precedent for using it in a purely battlefield environment is set.

Of course, this could evaporate when MAD sets in at the time that hydrogen bombs and worldwide delivery systems become practical.

So, either Korea or China are your best bets. Get the US involved in beating Mao's forces, get American boots on the ground, drop a 30-kiloton device on the Communists. The results of this? Perhaps China is split between a north and south China. Perhaps the Soviets feel free to use their own tactical devices in Afghanistan (should that occur) or perhaps both sides have no concern with selling 'small' (circa 10 kiloton yield) devices to their proxies.
 
While never coming to direct blows, the US and USSR fought a number of wars in foreign nations in order to indirectly fight their enemy. My question is, what if they were willing to use nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise, in these conflicts, such as:

  • The Korean War
  • The Vietnam War
  • The Sino-Soviet border conflict
  • Soviet war in Afghanistan
  • Etc (If I forgot anything)
Not necessarily in one timeline but taken as seperate.


Probably best answered in For All Time. You get acceptance of nuclear weapons used in combat, probably a WWIII as tensions escalate and a lot of people forced to spend decades rebuilding.


Nuclear War is a legitimate approach to make Charles Manson President of the United States, given how radicalized the USA would be if it were missing several cities.



There would be a proliferation of nuclear weapons in any case, and many more cities would be glass and rubble. Too much of the speculation, however, hinges on unknowable factors: Who launches first? Do nations use a countervalue or counterforce strategy with nuclear weapons? Does the war end with a straightforward surrender or does it devolve into a nightmarish state of warlords who rule by the power of the atomic hammer?



In general, the answer is "You get WWIII". But what comes afterward? Is there a World War IV as survivors generate new weapons in the aftermath and seek once again to fight for limited resources? Is it warlord hell as most of mankind is killed and the following centuries a second dark age? What you can be sure of is that it is a darker, meaner world where nations have adopted mass murder as a means to an ends, and they either regret or embrace that decision. Do they do so in small family bands or in dictatorial regimes?



Our Cold War probably came closest to nuclear war over some islands in the Amur River, followed by the Cuban Missile Crisis. The decison to use nuclear weapons in a proxy duel would escalate the buildup of weapons and launch vehicles, until the decision is made to launch them. How far, and how many this is the question.
 
You also need to make an actual military need for the use of nuclear weapons. The superpowers had complete air supremacy in their wars, which meant that the "nuclear option" risked dealing with radiation fallout, public unrest and international troubles in exchange for something that could just as well be accomplished by conventional bombings. If at any point the U.S wanted to firebomb a city in a third world power out of existence, the end result wouldn't be significantly different from a nuclear blast.

So, the best way to actually make it happen is to have a situation where they are useful - and that would be a war against a power strong enough to pose a challenge, but not one that would lead to retaliation. Admittedly, that is hard to get. A war against China would probably be the best bet for either side, but it is still likely to lead to someone "stepping in" if things get hairy.

Or you can be creative and have another nuclear power set the precedent, but that would need to happen early on to be effective. Given the lesser power projection of middle powers, a nuclear weapon would be much more favorable as a "shock and awe" weapon to bring a swift end to a conflict.
 

elkarlo

Banned
During the Soviet-Sino border conflict. I think the Russians more or less asked "Hey US what is your opinion on us Nuke-ing the Chinese?" Wonder how that would have gone down, if we just sat back and let em.
 
In general, the answer is "You get WWIII".
While this is a certain and very dangerous possibility, it's also highly probable that a strong anti-nuclear backlash would arise among the populace of various nations, which would force politicians to keep a grip on their nukes, in addition to worldwide delivery systems leading to MAD.
 
While never coming to direct blows, the US and USSR fought a number of wars in foreign nations in order to indirectly fight their enemy. My question is, what if they were willing to use nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise, in these conflicts, such as:

  • The Korean War
  • The Vietnam War
  • The Sino-Soviet border conflict
  • Soviet war in Afghanistan
  • Etc (If I forgot anything)
Not necessarily in one timeline but taken as seperate.

One can only imagine the nightmare that would be the War on Terrorism today if the U.S. had given TACTICAL NUKES to the Afghanistan Mujaheddin :eek:
 
One can only imagine the nightmare that would be the War on Terrorism today if the U.S. had given TACTICAL NUKES to the Afghanistan Mujaheddin :eek:

I meant the Soviets using them on the Afghan rebels, in a mirror to the trope of the US using them on the Vietnamese Communists. But the opposite could make some interesting effects, though I think it's far less likely.
 
To get nuclear weapons used, you'd have to alter American foreign policy thought right back to 1946. Nuclear bombs were initially thought of by military planners (most notorious among them Macarthur, who wanted to use them as tactical weapons to support his invasion of Japan if that nation didn't capitulate, and later in Korea) as really big explosives. However, as the 1940s wore on and American politicians applied pressure to shrink the standing army, the Americans began to use the nuclear bomb as their Last Resort, a boogeyman weapon that would be invoked if the Soviets tried anything. Of course, this left the US in the position where it was unwilling to use the atomic bomb when Stalin expanded his sphere of influence into minor eastern European nations.

So, find a way to get a moderate conflict between American and Soviet forces (not necessarily the US and USSR going to war, but rather a proxy war, perhaps in China) at some part of the world around 1947-8. Get a small atomic weapon used in combat, as a tactical weapon, and you've cemented the atomic bomb in military planning as a tactical device. From then on, the precedent for using it in a purely battlefield environment is set.

Of course, this could evaporate when MAD sets in at the time that hydrogen bombs and worldwide delivery systems become practical.

So, either Korea or China are your best bets. Get the US involved in beating Mao's forces, get American boots on the ground, drop a 30-kiloton device on the Communists. The results of this? Perhaps China is split between a north and south China. Perhaps the Soviets feel free to use their own tactical devices in Afghanistan (should that occur) or perhaps both sides have no concern with selling 'small' (circa 10 kiloton yield) devices to their proxies.
The Berlin Blockade would provide such an opportunity if it went hot, perhaps.
 
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