Assume that the end of WW II played out as it actually did, except that nuclear weapons proved to be technologically unfeasible for some reason. You still would have had hundreds of Soviet divisions in Eastern Europe, but there would have been no threat of a nuclear doomsday serving as a deterrent to war. Under these circumstances, what would have been the likely result?
IMO, World War III would have been a virtual inevitability, with massive Soviet armored formations pouring through the Fulda Gap in Germany in an attempt to conquer Western Europe. I tend to think it would have happened in the 1955-60 time period and that it would have resulted in a complete Soviet conquest of Europe, all the way to the Atlantic. I just don’t think the US would have been willing or able to station the massive number of troops in Europe on a continual basis which would have been required to stop the Warsaw Pact advance.
Plus, the Soviets had perfected the massive armored invasion technique during the Bagration Operation in the summer of 1944, which completely annihilated German resistance. Under these circumstances, the overwhelming advantage goes to the aggressor who is able to choose the time of invasion. So I think a Soviet conquest of Europe would have been inevitable without nukes- do you agree or disagree?
I disagree with the “willing” portion of this. It wasn’t exactly a small contingent of people who wanted to continue WWII directly into the Soviet Union at the end of the war. Plus, our NATO obligations would have compelled a response in '55.
Stalin could not have conquered western Europe, and he knew it, because the US had the industrial strength to beat him in the medium to long term, and an invasion of western Germany would have been resisted by British and French forces as well. In addition, I suspect that the US had enough air superiority that they could have bombed targets well behind the Soviet lines, both from western Europe and from bases in China, Japan and the Middle East.
He wanted the easy pickings, and he got them. He was not insane like Hitler, and his acquisition of territory was motivated by defense: he wanted a buffer of friendly territory between the Soviet Union and western Europe, especially if it could be taken as part of the aftermath of WW2.
I would argue that it was a small contingent, but, regardless, it would have required enormous tax outlays each year, as well as the drafting of most able-bodied US men, just to maintain enough US forces in Europe to deter a Soviet invasion. At some point the US people would have voted for butter over guns and most of the troops would have come home.
I’m not sure even a full-scale US military presence would have been enough to defeat a full-scale invasion involving hundreds of divisions and thousands of excellent Soviet tanks. There is little precedent for such an attack ever being defeated. I suppose the Kursk campaign is the best example of it, but the Germans attacked exactly where the Soviets expected them to and at almost exactly the time they expected them to. It’s doubtful that the Soviets would have given us that luxury in an invasion of Western Europe- they would have waited for a drawdown in US troops strength, such as when the US got involved in another war such as Korea or Vietnam.
The long and medium term industrial strength of the US would be irrelevant once the Soviet tanks reached the English channel in a blitzkrieg-style operation. That would be a conquest which could not be reversed through a D-Day style invasion.
No one can say for sure that the Soviets would have been able to accomplish #1, but military history teaches that it’s extremely difficult to avoid panic and collapse when massed armored formations attack in a narrow area, particularly in a surprise attack. And once panic starts it’s almost impossible to salvage a victory out of it, without a huge expanse of territory to fall behind, such as the Soviets had in WW II. Western Europe doesn’t have that luxury.
Don’t forget the Soviets relied heavily on the US for critical items during the war. In particular trucks. Sounds mundane but IIRC one US general when asked what the most important vehicle was in WWII opined “the Jeep”. The Soviets would have to give over a lot of tank production to produce the more ordinary but crucial other pieces to wage a war.
I think NATO policy was to give land to the Soviets and bleed them as they moved further and further west. This did not make the countries closest to the Soviets happy but was the militarily smart move. Europeans and the US also had a far better air force. Better planes. Better pilots.
The Soviets certainly had a juggernaut of an army by the end of WWII but at staggering cost to them. They would not really be in shape to wage a full blown war against Western Europe for years.
I’m not sure of the viability of a Soviet conquest of the West - had they sent their forces out our way, they’d have left the SE door open for China and/or Japan, both of which have been looking across the Russian border with a glint in their eyes since pretty much forever. So essentially, Russia would have faced the same problem the Germans did : too many enemies, not enough weapons and men to go around and cover every front, and the “aggressor factor” going against them in world opinions (i.e. Everyone around would have thought "if we let things go, we’re next, time to gang up on the big guy)
Which is not to say that a Soviet invasion wouldn’t have occured at all, I just don’t think they’d have won WW3 in the end. They would possibly have rolled right over Western Europe, but then slowly been pushed back.
Which IIRC is pretty much what happens in Red Storm Rising (OK, so it was written by a far-from-objective American :)) : the initial Russian advance catches everyone by surprise and with their pants down, and gives them a really bloody nose, but because of political interferences with the prosecution of the attack (i.e. inept generals being in command because they’re good Party members), shortage of resources and… America über alles-ness, I suppose (Clancy being Clancy), they end up getting bogged further and further down, until they’re so desperate the idea of small scale nuclear weapons being used is put on the table, at which point the saner members of the Soviet leadership get scared into stopping the whole show.
Assuming everything played out exactly as it did except for the atom bombs dropped on Japan then I think there would have been a war before the decade was out…probably by '48 or '49 at the latest. Instead of the Berlin Airlift I think the Soviets would have used a much more direct test of American resolve…and that assumes they would have bothered waiting that long. My guess is without the threat of nukes they probably would have pushed the allies for more territorial gains in Germany at a minimum…and war would have hinged on whether the allies were prepared to fight to prevent that.
Certainly I can’t see a stable peace going beyond the early '50’s…basically North Korea would have kicked off a general war had it not happened before then.
A more interesting question is…who would have won.
When you say China, do you mean the Chinese Communists? I don’t think Mao would have taken on the Soviets that early in the game. Arguably, they were still busy consolidating their position in China until the crushing of Tibet in '59. I don’t think the real break with the Soviets starts to show up until the early sixties.
There wouldn’t have been a “North” Korea- the Soviet Union would have occupied all of the Korean peninsula while the US was suppressing Japanese resistance in 1946 and into 1947.
Nothing to add, other than the OP brings to mind one of my favorite scenes from Patton: immediately following VE Day, he’s screaming into the phone about the Russians, and says "We’re going to have to fight the Russians eventually anyway. It might as well be now while we’ve already got the army here to do it. In ten days I’ll have a war on with those Communist bastards, and I’ll make it look like THEIR fault. "
I think if it would have happened soon after World War II, we would have wiped the floor with them.
We had a number of things going for us that they didn’t, that are ultimately more important than the caliber of a tank’s gun, or anything like that.
We would have had almost complete air superiority- we had better planes and better pilots. In addition, we had B-29 bombers, which could have easily have bombed Moscow from the UK, and had fighter cover there and back. (remember, we did similar ranges in the Pacific).
We could have also bombed the factories east of the Urals from India with ease (B-29 had 3250 mile combat range).
Combine that with our vastly superior command and communications technology, such as our “every artillery piece in range” fire control system, our abilities to command and control smaller units more closely because of more widespread radios, and our better training, and we (the US/Allies) would likely have torn the Soviets up.
I suppose anything is possible, but I don’t think Nehru would have allowed the US to conduct operations from India. Jinnah might have allowed it from Pakistan.
Okay, sorry for the hijack, but I’ve seen this, and variations of it, many times on this board, and I have to ask: where is it from? Please fight my ignorance.
It all comes down to when WW3 occurs, I suppose. I think the entire world was war-weary by the end of WW2, and that the real fireworks would only have started after a rebuilding & repopulating interval roughly equal to that between WW1 an 2, so sometime during the mid 60’s. Little warettes like the Korean War were one thing, since they didn’t really tax either superpowers’ strength and economies, but a grand state of total war ? Don’t think so. Then again, I’m not exactly what you’d call an expert in the matter, so…
