I stand properly corrected.
Britain developed the jet during the war, unlike the USA, and had programmable electronic computers, unlike the USA. Thanks to the reverse Lend Lease these were just handed to the americans who were allowed priority on commercialising them, along with access to preferential imperial markets.
As for broke, broke was due to the big debts to America, three milliards sterling plus the 1947 Anglo-American loan of one milliard and the costs of the subsequent convertibility crisis. I dare say nukes, whether as carrot or stick, would have gone some way to reducing any such debts.
As for nuclear fallout, it would presumably have been no worse than after testing in various areas in America and Australia, or after the attacks on Japan.
As for the ability to make the bomb, Britain did develop the bomb after the war, when we truly were broke, after those American ingrates had forgotten TUBE ALLOYS and the reverse lend lease Canadian uranium that allowed them to build their bombs and decided to stop sharing information. Definitely doable.
As for the Soviets and India, the inevitable result of any long war was the eventual election of a Labour government. Before the war ended, in reality. No such government, even with Bevin as Foreign Secretary, would be likely to nuke Moscow and India had been promised independence.
Not relevant in this timeline - Russia’s been nuked.
Anyway, I’m giving up on this thread: just about everyone prefers to threadshit rather than discuss the ramifications of my OP.
Wow. Bitter much?
I’ll grant you that the United States was given a lot of valuable information by the British. And the United Kingdom was given valuable information by the Americans. The reason that the United States was more successful with developing information into postwar commercial uses was not the result of some secret agreement. It was simple economics - the United States had a stronger economy so they were able to move forward better after the war than the United Kingdom.
And you act like owing money on loans was some huge burden the United States imposed upon the United Kingdom. We gave you a large amount of money. Stop acting like we punched you in the nuts.
It’s not threadshitting. You posed an extremely vague hypothetical with no explanation of how it occurred, and then refused to answer any reasonable questions asking you to fill in the gaps.
Britain got a great deal post war. Downright fantastic in anyone’s book. The Americans were nothing like bilking the Brits. If anything the reverse is the case:
And to the OP while we could speculate on a world where GB got the bomb first I agree with others there is no way they would have. IIRC the Manhattan Project remains the single most expensive undertaking humans have ever pursued. Simply staggeringly expensive, needed 130,000 people and consumed 15% of US electrical output.
Just no way GB could do it by itself (not least I wonder if they even had access to uranium). Not because they did not have the smarts but because they seriously lacked the means.
As speculative fiction might be fun to kick around.
Does anyone else have a vision of Britain using their nukes to conquer the world and all of us being ruled by sniggering Terry Thomas types.
They had access to lots of uranium via Canada.
Maybe he is All That Bright, since he’s 100% spot on here.
In the thirties, you mean? The US was impoverished then, too, as was Germany.
Perhaps the nuclear bomb wouldn’t have developed without Einstein, or without a specific core team who pushed development onwards, but the OP was asking about what would have happened if Britain had developed the atomic bomb. Britain having the atomic bomb is a fait accompli in this scenario.
And it’s really not a ridiculous proposition. In the second world war, the British Empire controlled a fifth of the world’s land surface and a fifth of the world’s population (Cite). Twenty percent of the world! Some of it was very poor, but rich in resources, and some of it had lots of money - we’re not talking about a fifth comprising mostly desert and tundra.
Even the disempowered UK of today (and that’s just the UK, not the commonwealth or any of the overseas territories) is the sixth largest economy in the world. It’s not unlikely that an empire of the size, power, and manpower of the WW2 British Empire could have developed a nuclear bomb (and they wouldn’t have had to do it in the British Isles). Comparisons with Luxembourg are just daft.
This might sound like a terribly patriotic post, but it’s not: I’m not so sure I’d have liked a Britain that had the power of the atomic bomb after the second world war. But it certainly could have made one. It was a damn powerful country back then. Well, it’s still pretty powerful now, but back then it was by far the biggest bully in the schoolyard.
Anyway - I’d say that the most likely consequence would have been that the colonies didn’t attain their independence, or, if/when they did, it was later and by a different route. I’d also bet that some of our more distant colonies would have suffered under nuclear testing even more than places like Burkina Fasso did under the testing by the US.
The consequences (in terms of international reaction) of a nuclear strike on seceding colonies would be rather different than the reaction to the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Japan was an aggressive hegemonizing power which had attacked the US; India and the other remaining British possessions, not so much.
I didn’t say anything about about a nuclear strike, but nuclear testing - I mentioned Burkina Faso, not Hiroshima. I don’t think Burkina Faso had done much to aggravate the US.
That wasn’t even part of the US - if the UK had done something similar on an island that was officially part of the empire there would have been even less negative reaction. Not that there was much, if any, international negative reaction to the US’s tests at the time.
Also, there’s no guarantee that there would have been as many seceding colonies if the UK could claim to have won the war the same way that the US often does, and if it had the bomb but the US didn’t. Of course, the UK and some other countries did get the bomb not too long after the second world war, so it’s reasonable to assume that other countries than the UK would have got it too even if the UK started out ‘ahead.’
I interpreted your statement…
… to mean that the colonies would be brought to heel by the threat of nuclear attack. In order for that to work, of course, you’d have to demonstrate your new weapon on an urban population. Big boom or not, nuclear testing just doesn’t have the impact of the Hiroshima attack.
Wait… the US tested nuclear weapons in Burkina Faso?
Wait, the United Kingdom didn’t win World War II?
Yes, Would the rest of the world really react so badly? The Britain could have come up with plenty of excuses for bombing their own colonies, or at least threatening to. They would also be stronger in other ways, from not being seen to be dependant on the US.
But I then clearly referred to the testing that the US had conducted. I don’t know why you thought I meant nuclear strikes when I said that the British would carry out nuclear testing.
Sorry, I was tired, and meant Bikini Atoll. :smack: I’m shocked that wasn’t picked up on sooner!
The allies won. Some idiots from the US have a tendency of claiming that they were the ones who won the war. If they’d stayed out and Britain had got the bomb, then Britain would have those idiots instead. Hell, on another thread on this board quite a few people seem to have forgotten that Britain was a major player in the war at all.
The nuclear arsenals that existed during the first decade or so after the first prototypes were created (and, thus, the sort of nuclear arsenal that would be available to the UK in this hypothetical) are simply not sufficient to eliminate a major power’s fighting ability unless said major power is already at the point where only a face-saving excuse for surrender is needed. I note that one reason the second atomic bomb was dropped on Japan so quickly after the first was that the US had no more atomic bombs and would not be able to build another for several months – essentially, it was a bluff that (fortunately) was not called.
I have to admit I’m not seeing what you’re saying.
The United Kingdom was on the winning side of World War II and had its own nuclear weapons by 1952. This was all prior to the loss of most British colonies (although India, the biggest colony, became independant in 1947).
So are you saying that if the UK had won WWII with American or Soviet assistance, it would have affected its post-war colonial history? Are you saying that if they had built nuclear weapons seven years earlier it would have done so? And are you saying that Britain could have held its Empire together by the threat of nuclear attacks, implied or overt, against colonies seeking independance?
I used to think this too but the SDMB taught me otherwise some time ago.
The US had several more nukes in the pipeline with the next being ready to be dropped perhaps 10 days after Nagasaki.
Although in reality this ended up being dominated by the USA under reverse lend/lease, hence the termination of Tube Alloys.
Yes, I think it is possible that the colonies would have gained independence later or by a different route. Not just down to threat of nuclear attacks, but due to Britain being stronger and of higher status. A country that sees itself as the main, independent, winner is less likely to accept that the days of Empire are over. It seems likely that the empire would have broken up eventually anyway, but perhaps not as soon.
But this would be if they’d won without American assistance, not with. That’s the topic of the thread: no US involvement, and Britain’s got the bomb.