So, like it says on the tin. The assumption is that WWIII in this timeline lasts from 1948 to 1951, and ends in a (pyrrhic) US victory, and pretty much results in the USSR collapsing inward, after Zhukov deposed Stalin. This was as the Allies reached Minsk and the USSR had already taken nearly 164 nukes to the face, not to mention the Allies having also nuked some bits of China after the USSR and the CCP opened up a second front in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Besides the obvious "Europe is more trashed than it was at the outbreak of war", and the fact that parts of the USSR maybe unliveable for a few months (or years), not to mention the fact that the European colonial empires may collapse faster than they did in our timeline (I mean, two world wars is bad enough for their economies, so it's not like a third one would mean good news in that respect), while the Middle East is pretty much back to the status quo ante bellum, except for the fact that the USSR collapsed inward in the aftermath of Zhukov's coup against Stalin. But to put it bluntly, you have an estimated 120 million dead across the globe, most of those being civilians, with an estimated 5.1 million Soviet soldiers dead and at least 3.9 million Allied miltiary deaths (most of them being from the European powers, especially the British Empire and the various pro-Allied European resistance movements with the Americans having lost an estimated 780,000 personnel, mainly because after most of Europe fell to the Russians' initial push, the Americans simply resorted to nuking the USSR into submission). Oh and....uh........for those wondering how this war started, the PoD is actually on 29 November, 1948, when a C-97 is mistaken for a B-29 and shot down while traversing to Berlin. The USA accuses the USSR of attacking the airlift and the US calls off the airlift, but rather than simply give up West Germany, the Americans have a backup plan to call the Soviets' bluff: send an armed convoy into East Germany with supplies for West Berlin and hope the Soviets don't fire. SPOILER ALERT: The Soviets fired at the convoy and the shit hit the fan real fast, and this was AFTER a series of diplomatic negotiations that really went nowhere between 29 November, 1948 and 11 December, 1948. Anyways, what would the post-War world look like, with the USSR defeated and most of Eurasia in shambles (again)?
World War III in 1948: Aftermath (US Victory)?
- Thread starter Ace009
- Start date
I do not see an armed conflict breaking out post-war between the USSR under Stalin and the USA. Stalin knew better than to risk it, and if by some travesty it does break out, negotiations would 99% succeed, as both sides are exhausted and have little to gain from renewed warfare. It's pretty hard for negotiations to break down when both sides want the same thing.
Can you really imagine there would be much enthusiasm in the USA to go to war with their ally of just a few years ago? War is unpopular, after all. Stalin, likewise, knew of the nukes, and that war would risk bringing them down on his head, something he had strong reasons to try and avoid.
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Stalin was an asshole. But even he knew forcing his horribly devastated nation into war would be a disaster.
Any bump is a no-no. But TWO HOURS? That is damned near flat out trolling.
Stalin was many things but a fool was not among them. Had he wanted a war he could have provoked one in 1948 over the Berlin blockade. That being said I think that the world successful wars of national liberation in most of the colonial world. I think Mao would have stayed out of the war and would be the spiritual leader of the national liberation movement. Europe would become a mixture of communist/socialist and right wing states. The US would see its moral status as a world leader destroyed by the atomic bombs and would retreat into isolationism followed by its own civil/racial war.
Well accidental wars usually get settled. Not always; World War I comes to mind; but usually. I think a more realistic POD would be to let MacArthur expand the Korean War with an invasion of mainland China. Fortunately Truman and Omar Bradley kept that genie in the bottle.
To put it bluntly, it became part of WWIII. I.e.: the Americans simply nuke the Chinese too (the CCP, I mean).
Cody of AH Hub did a video of this.
Since the USSR didn't have the atomic bomb as of 1948, the U.S. would have the nuclear monopoly. Europe would be full of craters up until the point the Red Army exhausts their supply.
Cody’s video is presumptuous and enormously simplistic. The US’s deficiencies in it’s limited stock and inability to effectively deliver it’s bombs to target in the initial stages of war are something I’ve covered here. Said post is really about a war in 1947, but nearly all of it still applies for a war in 1948.
There’s a few threads out there if you search for them about how dysfunctional the Air Force was at the time when it came to navigation and finding the correct targets. The USAF would have difficulties in atomic bombing the USSR. On top of that, the Soviets actually had interceptors that could reach and shoot down B-29’s so there’s no guarantee that they’d reach their targets even if they could find them.
In 1948, the only B-36 variant available were a handful of B-36As. These were the OG design, incapable of carrying atomic bombs, and not yet ready for operational service. The improved B-36B wouldn't enter operational service until 1950 and suffered from serious teething problem for years afterward, not to mention would likely suffer heavy losses.
So it appears the United States will have to chug losses from the B-29 trying to penetrate Soviet air space. Alternatively, the U.S. can use a radioactive barrier among the Iron Curtain to prevent the Red Army from going further.
Elsewhere, the U.S. may get involved in China even more as there were Army and Marine Corps personnel in the mainland after World War II to protect American citizens and interests (see Operation Beleaguer) .
I'm actually doing a TL on this. My thoughts are that it would not be nuclear until much later in the war.