Would avoiding the Cold was have been wholly beneficial?

In OTL the West and the Soviet Union confronted each other from the 40s until 1989. On more than one occasion there was a real risk of an actual nuclear war. The Western leadership found itself sustaining some rather shameful regimes. For that and other reasons the Cold War felt like 'a bad thing' BUT

Now imagine either Stalin gets a personality transplant or perhaps suffers a bad case of lead poison before 1944.

I can imagine some kind of deal which created a Polish government which would be what we call 'Finlandized'. Communists would have influence in other Eastern European lands without being the total dicatorships they became in OTL.

I tend to regard such developments as being wholly desirable.


However without a Soviet threat would there have been a "Marshal Plan?"- I assume not.

Absent a "Marshal Plan" how long would it take for Western Europe to recover from WWII? I assume much longer.

What would happen to Germany and Austria? I assume that there would be a rather more vigourour denazification. That I would regard as a helpful thing. On the other hand would the absence of a Cold War and a temptation for far right Germans to work with the less make the 'werewolf' resistence more likely?


Any other thoughts?
 
technological level would be much lower. a lot of stuff we have has it's roots in military tech and that was developed because of arms race. Lasers, computers, strong jet engines, helicopters.....
 
The Cold war gave the US government a true war-time mentality; by which I mean they decided that the ends justified the means. They did really bad things to stop communism, like staging coups for terrible dictators. Conversly, the communists did terrible things in general, and some of them inadvertently(all the land-redistribution that caused tens of thousands to starve).

I think it would have been wholly beneficial. Europe would have been rebuilt, eventaully. The time taken was a small price to pay for the atrocities prevented by the lack of a cold war.

That said, it would be hard to stop the cold war. Take China; would niether power really interevene? Considering the "cultural revolution", I would think that it would be best for China to go towards the West, but Stalin would still probably give aid to the Chinese commies, even with no Cold war in Europe.
 
well in all reality you gotta get rid of stalin at the very least if not the entire USSR as a viable entity in order to eliminate the Cold War, since following WWII the US would most likely have returned to an isolationist mentality without the red menace to keep them on their toes.

The up side:
-No proxy wars in southeast asia and the middle east
-no arms race
-J Edgar Hoover might not have ever gotten as much power as he did
-no despots supported by the US in the third world (i.e. no shah of iran and thus no ayatollah and thus no hostage crisis, in fact the whole middle east might look a whole lot better without so much intervention from the suprepowers)
-the ak-47 probably never gets mass produced and thus there isn't a weapon that is as cheap or readily available to insurgents and terrorists across the globe, perhaps lighter death tolls in the worlds hot spots
-China probably goes to the Nationalists under Chiang Kai Shek (sp?) resulting in no cultural revolution in China
-Germany stays a unified nation, and eastern Europe developes into a bunch of independent nations in stead of satellite nations with Soviet Puppet governments

The down side:
-no space race, in fact maybe no space programs anywhere, although we might be seeing the first manned space missions by the turn of the century
-without a need to maintain advanced and up to date military equip in the event of "the big one" between the super powers there is probably less advanced technologies in a variety of fields including medical science and communications, maybe even no internet
-perhaps no counterculture or a smaller version of it, without vietnam as a galvanizing point the hippies may not have had as many numbers or as much strength as per OTL, this may also mean that the civil rights movement gets stunted in the 60's which results in equal rights for people of all races not being established for a while longer
-as per above, music would probably not have been as memorable in the 60's(no beatles, rolling stones, jimmy hendrix, etc...)
-less closely knit international community, no NATO, and the US probably goes back to isolationism, perhaps there is no international support for Israel
-without the internationalisation of the world or a the stability of a bi-polar world you may see a large number of regional conflicts erupting amongst various small nations around the globe in stead of the proxy wars

of course after a while you get enough butterflies and other factors that it gets really hard to predict where the world will be
 
well in all reality you gotta get rid of stalin at the very least if not the entire USSR as a viable entity in order to eliminate the Cold War, since following WWII the US would most likely have returned to an isolationist mentality without the red menace to keep them on their toes.

The up side:
-No proxy wars in southeast asia and the middle east
-no arms race
-J Edgar Hoover might not have ever gotten as much power as he did
-no despots supported by the US in the third world (i.e. no shah of iran and thus no ayatollah and thus no hostage crisis, in fact the whole middle east might look a whole lot better without so much intervention from the suprepowers)
-the ak-47 probably never gets mass produced and thus there isn't a weapon that is as cheap or readily available to insurgents and terrorists across the globe, perhaps lighter death tolls in the worlds hot spots
-China probably goes to the Nationalists under Chiang Kai Shek (sp?) resulting in no cultural revolution in China
-Germany stays a unified nation, and eastern Europe developes into a bunch of independent nations in stead of satellite nations with Soviet Puppet governments

The down side:
-no space race, in fact maybe no space programs anywhere, although we might be seeing the first manned space missions by the turn of the century
-without a need to maintain advanced and up to date military equip in the event of "the big one" between the super powers there is probably less advanced technologies in a variety of fields including medical science and communications, maybe even no internet
-perhaps no counterculture or a smaller version of it, without vietnam as a galvanizing point the hippies may not have had as many numbers or as much strength as per OTL, this may also mean that the civil rights movement gets stunted in the 60's which results in equal rights for people of all races not being established for a while longer
-as per above, music would probably not have been as memorable in the 60's(no beatles, rolling stones, jimmy hendrix, etc...)
-less closely knit international community, no NATO, and the US probably goes back to isolationism, perhaps there is no international support for Israel
-without the internationalisation of the world or a the stability of a bi-polar world you may see a large number of regional conflicts erupting amongst various small nations around the globe in stead of the proxy wars

of course after a while you get enough butterflies and other factors that it gets really hard to predict where the world will be

Civil rights are probably inevitable as it came before the counterculture movement. As for the counterculture movement I think that'd be one of the benefits a no-Cold War world in my opinion as it resulted in a generation of irrationality.
 
well my point was that it probably would have been delayed, not eliminated. Especially since the vietnam war was one of the biggest factors that made the baby boomer generation start to distrust authority, it would be harder to get the counterculture galvanized into the forms of civil disobedience that we see as per OTL.
 
Well...

We couldnt actually be discussing this as a the Internet would be introduced much more later.
 
However without a Soviet threat would there have been a "Marshal Plan?"- I assume not.

Absent a "Marshal Plan" how long would it take for Western Europe to recover from WWII? I assume much longer.
Why would there not be a Marshal Plan or something like it? It amounted to around $90 billion dollars in 2008 dollar value, and some of it were just loans. That wouldn't be enough to bail out more than a couple of banks today.

The money from the Marshal Plan was to be used by the Europeans to buy American goods. Without this demand, the US economy would have a harder time making the transition to peace time economy.

The Marshal Plan had political goals, but economically it served to create markets for US industry. It also helped establish the US dollar hegemony which survives today. Even without an arch enemy to contain the purely economic benefits would be well worth it.
 
Why would there not be a Marshal Plan or something like it? It amounted to around $90 billion dollars in 2008 dollar value, and some of it were just loans. That wouldn't be enough to bail out more than a couple of banks today.

The money from the Marshal Plan was to be used by the Europeans to buy American goods. Without this demand, the US economy would have a harder time making the transition to peace time economy.

The Marshal Plan had political goals, but economically it served to create markets for US industry. It also helped establish the US dollar hegemony which survives today. Even without an arch enemy to contain the purely economic benefits would be well worth it.

Purpose of AMrshall plan was to create good economy in European countries becasue otherwise it would be perfect breeding ground for communists. Without the threat of communist parties taking over and bringing them into soviet camp there would be less incentive for it.
 
I propose a POD like this: Stalin dies in July 1944. The NKVD chief Beria takes over - he uses the fact that Soviet most important military commanders are not in Moscow and mercilessly and quickly eliminates all the opposition (Molotov bites the dust first).
IOTL in 1953 (after Stalin's death) Beria had a chance to take over USSR and IIRC he had some surprising ideas: he wanted to agree to reunification of Germany and "finlandization" of Soviet satelites in Eastern Europe (Baltic states were to remain a part of USSR). He also wanted to make some serious changes in Soviet economy, a kind of another NEP or something, I'm not sure. Not because he was a nice guy (Stalin called him "our Himmler", and he was a pervert to boot) but because he believed that it was the best way to make Soviet Union real superpower, capable to compete against USA economically, since nuclear weapons made direct military confrontation impossible to win.
Anyway, in July 1944 Stalin dies, Beria takes over. War goes pretty much the same way, although Soviets help Polish insurgents in Warsaw (to make Beria look better in eyes of the west), even if after waiting almost a month to bleed the Poles dry. Post-war Europe is quite different: Eastern Europeans countries are all "finlandized": while Soviet keep some bases on their territories, they can pretty much govern themselves, although they have to respect Soviet interests. Soviet Union also keeps Baltic states, eastern Poland (but Lvov remains Polish), Eastern Prussia and Besarabia. Soviet forces occupy eastern Germany: Beria is willing to agree to reunification of Germany if the country will be demilitarized. In exchange he expects a handsome economical help from USA - and he gets it. With that support he starts "another NEP" quickly rebuilding and modernizing USSR.
The West is quite happy with that. In time USA withdraw most of their forces from Europe leaving only occupation units in Germany. Free Poles, Czechoslovakians etc. can go home without fear of persecutions, although they have to suffer existence of quite strong communist parties
in ther countries (backed by Moscow, of course). Marshall's Plan works quite well. Everybody's happy (except of Balts and any poor Soviet sod who had bad luck and said something against Beria).
No cold war - untill the hot one starts...
10 years later Soviet intelligence provokes some riots in Eastern Europe and Germany and Red Army enters to reestablish the order. Soviet tanks push west until they reach the Rhine. Small US garrisons in Germany are surrounded by overhelming Soviet forces and forced to surrender - Soviets promise to return soldiers AND their equipment to USA...
 
Given the Marshall plan was agreed before the Cold War can really be said to have begun (I would say the Berlin Blockade) I fail to see why it would not be offered in this timeline. If anything it might well reach across to Eastern Europe and indeed Russia.
 
I propose a POD like this: Stalin dies in July 1944. The NKVD chief Beria takes over - he uses the fact that Soviet most important military commanders are not in Moscow and mercilessly and quickly eliminates all the opposition (Molotov bites the dust first).
IOTL in 1953 (after Stalin's death) Beria had a chance to take over USSR and IIRC he had some surprising ideas: he wanted to agree to reunification of Germany and "finlandization" of Soviet satelites in Eastern Europe (Baltic states were to remain a part of USSR). He also wanted to make some serious changes in Soviet economy, a kind of another NEP or something, I'm not sure. Not because he was a nice guy (Stalin called him "our Himmler", and he was a pervert to boot) but because he believed that it was the best way to make Soviet Union real superpower, capable to compete against USA economically, since nuclear weapons made direct military confrontation impossible to win.
Anyway, in July 1944 Stalin dies, Beria takes over. War goes pretty much the same way, although Soviets help Polish insurgents in Warsaw (to make Beria look better in eyes of the west), even if after waiting almost a month to bleed the Poles dry. Post-war Europe is quite different: Eastern Europeans countries are all "finlandized": while Soviet keep some bases on their territories, they can pretty much govern themselves, although they have to respect Soviet interests. Soviet Union also keeps Baltic states, eastern Poland (but Lvov remains Polish), Eastern Prussia and Besarabia. Soviet forces occupy eastern Germany: Beria is willing to agree to reunification of Germany if the country will be demilitarized. In exchange he expects a handsome economical help from USA - and he gets it. With that support he starts "another NEP" quickly rebuilding and modernizing USSR.
The West is quite happy with that. In time USA withdraw most of their forces from Europe leaving only occupation units in Germany. Free Poles, Czechoslovakians etc. can go home without fear of persecutions, although they have to suffer existence of quite strong communist parties
in ther countries (backed by Moscow, of course). Marshall's Plan works quite well. Everybody's happy (except of Balts and any poor Soviet sod who had bad luck and said something against Beria).
No cold war - untill the hot one starts...
10 years later Soviet intelligence provokes some riots in Eastern Europe and Germany and Red Army enters to reestablish the order. Soviet tanks push west until they reach the Rhine. Small US garrisons in Germany are surrounded by overhelming Soviet forces and forced to surrender - Soviets promise to return soldiers AND their equipment to USA...
You'd avoid the Cold War, and replace it with a third Big One. :p
 
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Absent a "Marshal Plan" how long would it take for Western Europe to recover from WWII? I assume much longer.

Even without Cold War there would have been a significant US interest upon recuperated European market. Without Cold War the Western governments are freed from significant economic military burden which was over them due to Cold War. On the other hand, without Cold War in case of Britain and France it might well just be that they end up spending more pounds, francs, poilus and tommys to defend glories of the respective dying Empires.

As for the technological development, the space programs are likely to be the only significant casualty. While developing military technologies creates also spin-offs, they are, like the name implies, spin-offs. Without the Cold War and excessive needs for military secrecy the scientific development would have been a lot faster.

As a technological WI, as the initial costs for space exploration will be extraordinary high and delivery of atomic bombs via cruise missiles and bombers is good enough, how about replacing the OTL space race via depths race? Initial costs for sea exploration are lower, and due to no need for as great secrecy as in OTL due to Cold War underwater front the dissemination of information will be much more effective.
 
Even without Cold War there would have been a significant US interest upon recuperated European market.

While it's true America would want the European market to recover, it also did after WW1. The results then weren't encouraging.
 
Purpose of AMrshall plan was to create good economy in European countries becasue otherwise it would be perfect breeding ground for communists. Without the threat of communist parties taking over and bringing them into soviet camp there would be less incentive for it.
Most of the Marshall Plan money went to Britain and France. Without a direct challenge from the Soviets the US government would be less willing to give money to the Germans. That's not to say private enterprise wouldn't invest either though.

While it's true America would want the European market to recover, it also did after WW1. The results then weren't encouraging.

Different worlds. Post WWII the US was half the world's economy. This was an economy geared to wartime production and it needed consumers. The consumers in Europe were broke.
 
Would all those people claiming that technology would be retarded in a world with no cold war care to guess the most technologically progressive decade of the twentieth century?
 
Different worlds. Post WWII the US was half the world's economy. This was an economy geared to wartime production and it needed consumers. The consumers in Europe were broke.

How much of America's trade was actually tied to foreign trade at the point? And furthermore, then why was so much of Congress vociferously opposed to the Marshal Plan?
 

Xen

Banned
While it's true America would want the European market to recover, it also did after WW1. The results then weren't encouraging.

I like to think Washington learned its lesson, but its really a toss-up, it is kind of hard to compare Harry Truman and Woodrow Wilson.

The lack of a Cold War is one of my favorite topics, but I do not believe it is entirely inevitable, the Cold War was about economics even more so than idealogy. The Cold War can be delayed by 10, 15, or even 20 years. I can see a Cold War developing as a result of decolonialization and an alternate Cold War is much more likely to be focused on the Middle East, and Africa than in Europe and the Pacific.

Beria's Soviet Union is a very interesting topic to think of, as I don't believe he will push to Central Europe nor is it likely there will be much civil unrest in the 1950's in Eastern Europe. US Trade, loans, and internal stabilization would prevent this, and I doubt Beria would want it. He has secured the motherland, via eastern Europe through peaceful negotiations, maintaining Soviet bases in neighboring countries and effectively neutralizing half the continent, there would be no need to jeopardize this arrangement as it runs counter to Soviet security, especially in the age of Nuclear Weapons.

If the Soviets bide their time to rebuild their war ravaged economy, create a strong industry based around small appliances rather than heavy machinery, and invest its money in infrastructure rather than a military build-up, then the Soviets are going to be sitting pretty and looking like the perfect alternative to western Imperialism when Britain and France start dumping their colonies. This will give the Soviets a leg up in resource rich, but dirt poor Africa which is where the Soviets will start building their "Empire", the United States and its Western European Allies get wise to this and start supporting military dictatorships in neighboring countries
 
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