what if no nation had been successful in their attempts to make an atomic bomb? Assuming the allies still win WWII, how does this effect the post war balance of power? Without the threat of mutually assured destruction coming from the nukes, could a conventional third world war between the US lead west and the Soviet lead east actually occur?
WI: no atom bomb?
- Thread starter ArKhan
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In the depths of the World War 2 ignorance, I will say things depend on what happened to make the US not get the atomic bomb and how WW2 progresses with those butterflies. You won't just have butterflies from 1945 on: you'll have butterflies from the date WW2 is changed which affect the war and the world beyond.
Except that the Americans had been bombing Japan with conventional ordinance for five years.
Just think of the number of movies and television series' butterflied away or radically and recognizably altered.
The millions of people that would die in the invasion on both sides maybe?
Generaloberst
Banned
Essentially, Operation Downfall lets the Soviets snatch up all of Manchuria, and perhaps all of Korea. Perhaps you would also see the Red Army marching down through Hokkaido and perhaps Northern Honshu. This radically changes the Cold War and the West. The US doesn't have a definite presence in the Far East, and the Soviets have far more land under their influence.
'Who cares about Japan' is hardly an attitude that you should take in this.
Safe assumption, that. When the Bomb was deployed, Germany was defeated. The entire Japanese navy had been sunk, the Home Islands were under blockade, and most of Japan's cities had been burned down. Japanese armies had been annihilated in Burma and the Philippines, and the USSR was about to declare war and destroy the army in Manchuria.
The first thing is, how does it affect the end of the war? Does the U.S. go ahead with the invasion of Japan, and what actually happens?
OLYMPIC and CORONET were scheduled for November 1945 and March 1946. That adds at least eight months to the war. Most probably the Soviet Army occupies all of Korea and much of north China, probably as far south as Shantung. Chiang may protest, but it will seem rather absurd. Probably the Soviets will follow the pattern in Poland, and establish a Communist-controlled Chinese government in the liberated area.
Meanwhile, British forces would liberate Malaya and Singapore.
However, the Japanese actions during this period would be horrific. The Japanese had plans to murder all PoWs and Allied civilian internees - plans which were aborted just in time by the surrender.
The fighting in the Home Islands would be incredibly bloody and destructive - like Okinawa, but on a greater scale. The collapse of food production and public health in Japan would have consequences of comparable horror. Probably between 10 and 20 million Japanese might die.
That's assuming that the Imperial regime holds together. At some point, the average Japanese is going to give up, and even the Army fanatics will run out of juice. That tipping point could come fairly soon. The completeness of the OTL surrender indicates to me that a lot of Japanese were ready to give in once authority gave the word. Without that word - it would take a fair amount of beating, but I don't believe the entire nation would fight to the death.
Why does this matter? Because it affects the America posture after the war. An additional 200,000 war dead (half again the OTL number) and another year of vicious fighting may leave the U.S. much more "war-weary" than OTL.
The absence of the Bomb changes the postwar situation dramatically in one key respect: the U.S. does not have an apparently overwhelming weapon. Post-war U.S. policy was very strongly affected by that perception. It led to complacency, and to an exaggerated role for the Air Force. There was a lot of talk of "push-button" warfare, with the newly separate Air Force doing all the significant fighting. There were proposals to cut back the Navy to a convoy escort force and disband the Marine Corps. The near-total demobilization of the Army left the U.S. nearly helpless at the time of the Berlin Crisis in 1948.
If there is no Bomb, that talk never gets started, and the U.S. retains much larger "conventional" forces. That affectas the U.S. economy in various ways - larger bill for the war and larger ongoing spending.
On the other side, Stalin asserted that "atomic bombs were made to frighten people with weak nerves", but he never dared use one or risk nuclear attack. The USSR could be more aggressive in Berlin, Greece, or Iran.
Down the road: it depends on how the U.S. reacts to Soviet moves, and what effect the longer and costlier war has on U.S. politics. Will the U.S. be willing to take an international role, or revert to isolationism?
OTL the USSR tried to press its power in a lot of areas on its borders. One historian compared to a burglar trying a lot of doors to see if any are unlocked. The U.S. responded by checking Soviet and Communist pressure in many areas.
ATL - the U.S. may be too war-weary to care what happens in Greece or Iran. Or the U.S. may be less complacent and maintain more force to intervene with, and the USSR may push harder.
The USSR and the U.S. were intrinsically at odds, so I don't think the peace will last more than 10 years - perhaps not even 5. The Korean War broke out in 1950, and there was already the Chinese civil war and the Greek Communist guerrilla war. Without the fear of nuclear war to deter "escalation", the conflict is likely to reach a full war.
Another deep change is the different view of Big Science. OTL, the U.S. gave Big Science a lot of money and Big Science produced the Bomb, which was an absolutely decisive factor. Ever since then, a lot of policy has been set by the idea that Big Science was on the verge of other comparable discoveries. The initial stages of the Space Race were under that idea.
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UrbanRedneck
Banned
Let's just say that they find they cannot enrich Uranium into a weapon and are forced to abandon the idea.
Frankly, knowing mankind and how our war leaders are always after more dangerous toys, they would have created some other kind of weapon of mass destruction. What would it be? Biological? Chemical? Who knows. Maybe something even worse and more terrifying than nuclear weapons.
Frankly, knowing mankind and how our war leaders are always after more dangerous toys, they would have created some other kind of weapon of mass destruction. What would it be? Biological? Chemical? Who knows. Maybe something even worse and more terrifying than nuclear weapons.
Kongzilla
Banned
The Allies will not even bother with landing, they'll just keep bombing Japan, once all the infrastructure is gone, they can either all starve to death or surrender. The Allies will not willingly lose another single soldier if it can be avoided. Even Hirohito is going to realize that having 90 percent of the population die without inflicting any casualties on American bomber forces won't be a good thing.
And I think that Korea and what not had already been decided on. Although I'm not sure.
And I think that Korea and what not had already been decided on. Although I'm not sure.
Not true. If the U.S. wasn't going to invade, then why did the Army and Navy order 500,000 Purple Heart medals?
Also: RAdm Dan Gallery, then a captain, fresh from the capture of U-505, was assigned to the Pentagon in 1944-45. One of his duties was as an alternate member of the Logistics Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (for RAdm John Cassady).
The proposal for the invasion of Japan went through this committee at one point, when Gallery was attending. In his words:
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Oh, preparations to invade continued. Why wouldn't they? Many officers (including LeMay, Nimitz, MacArthur, and others) felt it wouldn't be necessary, but why wouldn't they want to be ready, in case it was?
At any rate, we are not discussing whether or not the bombings were justified. We are discussing whether an invasion would have taken place, had the bombs not have been dropped. On this matter, I tend to go with the conclusion of the US Strategic Bombing Survey. The survey is a good resource, since it used both US and captured Imperial Japanese documents. And the USSBS is fairly clear:
USSBS said:
The start date of the Kyuushuu invasions is Nov 1, 1945, so obviously if the Empire surrenders before then, there will be no invasion.
Flubber
Banned
Let's just say that you forgot that only one of the four nuclear weapons available to the US in the summer of 1945 used uranium. Only Little Boy was a uranium weapon. Trinity, Fat Man, and the Backup all used plutonium.
As for the Gallery quote, there's a great difference between planning for an invasion and actually invading. At the June '45 Pacific strategic conference on Hawaii, Truman only signed off on continued planning for the invasion. He did so as a compromise because the Joint Chiefs were bitterly divided on whether an invasion would be necessary.
The fighting on and around Okinawa had given a lot of people pause. What's more there was a huge amount of intelligence that Japan had correctly guessed Kyushu was the next target, was pouring reinforcements into the island, and was making every effort to improve defenses there.
When polled during the June meeting, Nimitz and King were against an invasion suggesting a blockade instead. Spaatz, representing the USAAF as a de facto independent service, favored a blockade too. Marshall was officially undecided but was also increasingly troubled by the growing intelligence estimates of what waited on Kyushu. Only MacArthur still favored an invasion and only because he claimed not to believe the intelligence.
The upshot to all this is that no nukes in August does not automatically lead to an invasion of Kyushu in November.
Complete bloody nonsense.
Japan was on the brink famine in July 1945. No Bomb, bombing & blockade continues. Coal shipments stop. Rice shipments stop. Winter arrives. Japanese starve in the dark. Revolt against the idiots in charge begins. War ends.
Changes? High probability of war over Berlin in the '50s.
with no Atomic bomb, They would develop alternate Weapon of Mass-destruction.
One would be the Bat Bomb.
you read right, A Bomb carry 1040 Bats each with a small timed incendiary bomb attached.
OTL: the Bat Bomb was ready to use but the Atomic bomb was taken instead.
What is little know fact is that Axes and Allied had next to the very active Bio and Chemical Weapon R&D.
work also on radiological weapon: That deadly toxic radioactive dust disperse by a explosion.
the Soviet put radiological warheads on there rocket until there atomic-bomb was ready in 1950.
so the cold war would pretty much the same, only difference is that the ICBM Warhead contain deadly toxic radioactive dust, anthrax spore or sarin nerve gas.
One would be the Bat Bomb.
you read right, A Bomb carry 1040 Bats each with a small timed incendiary bomb attached.
OTL: the Bat Bomb was ready to use but the Atomic bomb was taken instead.
What is little know fact is that Axes and Allied had next to the very active Bio and Chemical Weapon R&D.
work also on radiological weapon: That deadly toxic radioactive dust disperse by a explosion.
the Soviet put radiological warheads on there rocket until there atomic-bomb was ready in 1950.
so the cold war would pretty much the same, only difference is that the ICBM Warhead contain deadly toxic radioactive dust, anthrax spore or sarin nerve gas.