Would the world be better now if we nuked Moscow at/after the end of WWII?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Giles]
Another possibility is that the Soviet troops poised to invade Japan would instead move north and take Alaska. Having done that, they can use Alaska as a base to attack the northwestern United States. Even if Canada tried to remain neutral in the war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union might ignore Canadian neutrality an carry out a land invasion of the United States. How well prepared is the U.S. for that, with much of its military deadlocked with the Soviets fighting over Germany?
[/QUOTE]

I doubt the Soviets could have logistically supported such an invasion (ETA: Of the US mainland through Canada using Alaska as some sort of forward base)…certainly not in time to prevent the US from responding or preparing. They had no more chance of invading and conquering the US than the US did of invading and conquering the Soviet Union using conventional forces. Remember…the US had a very large and capable Navy and air force by wars end, so even if the Soviets managed a successful forced entry invasion of Alaska how would they support it, let alone support the build up that would be required to invade through Canada (who would have been quite unhappy with such an invasion of their own territory) and into the US?

Does anyone know what the succession would have been if the US had gotten Stalin and some or all of the Politburo in this theoretical attack? I’d say that would have been the only chance…had the US gotten enough of the Soviet leadership, especially Stalin, it might have decapitated the USSR, or at least made coordinating their military a shambles for a while, giving us some sort of chance to…well, do something I guess.

To answer the OP…it would have been a VERY bad idea.

-XT

42

Calling the US Navy very large might perhaps understate the disparity. :wink: At the end of WW2, the US Navy was the largest navy in history; larger than all the navies of every other country on the planet combined. To face this colossus the Soviet Pacific Fleet didn’t have anything larger than a destroyer. The one thing the US wouldn’t have to worry about would be control of the seas.