OK, here's the sitch. With a POD after 1930, how would the Soviet Union be able to launch a practical, doable invasion of the mainland US?
Challenge: Invasion!!!!
- Thread starter Inquisition
- Start date
Not really. This POD is easy.
POD: 1948. As things go south for the Nationalist Chinese, President Truman authorizes the dispatch of 100,000 American soldiers to back them up. Stalin responds with sending a Volunteer Guards Tank Division, complete with early-model T-54s, in to spearhead the Communist assault. They get to fighting, things get worse, and an American general decides that this is an opportune moment to unleash the atomic bomb against the Communists.
Several atomic bombings in Asia and Europe later, American Pershing tanks roll into western Belarus in 1950.
Difficult to work out, but the Chinese Civil War is likely your best bet for an American invasion of the USSR.
Soviet invasion of the US: Not possible. You'd have to have the Soviets develop a Pacific Navy and use it to invade Alaska, go down through Canada, and enter Washington.
Some sort of Coup attempt in the USA causes that nation to descended into chaos for a while, and it doesn't recover, at least not getting near OTL abilities. The Soviets are stronger, not having to fight proxy wars with the USA and eventually launch their global revolution, and invade Alaska. They lose this war, but they might get through Alaska and Western Canada to parts of the States before being beaten back.
Highly unlikely though.
Highly unlikely though.
Yeah this isn't ASB. Over a significant period of time it is possible to have the US experience a horrible series of events and USSR to experience a favorable series of events. A classic dystopian Great Depression scenario in the US while the USSR emerges victorious in a conflict with the remaining great powers.
This isn't like a TL where the author jams in all the changes to benefit one side in a period of 2-3 months. That is ASB.
This isn't like a TL where the author jams in all the changes to benefit one side in a period of 2-3 months. That is ASB.
The US was certainly capable of having another war at that point. It lost what, 300,000 men in battle? The Soviets took millions of casualties and kept on fighting. The US can go for another war (won't be popular, though). And Stalin's regime could have survived another round of fighting!
And the Soviets getting the bomb first with a POD of 1930: Not gonna happen. They just didn't have the industrial capacity or scientific background to get the bomb before 1949. Heck, Soviet scientists admit that, without their espionage network in the US, they wouldn't have built the bomb before 1955!
Actually, Soviet Scientists could've built their own bomb, but Stalin didn't trust them enough, and forced them to make an exact copy of the Fatman Bomb. They actually could've made a more efficient version. This was afterwards, yes, but still, something to keep in mind.
Back to the other thing, if a war wouldn't be popular, it ain't going to happen. Vietnam demonstrated what happens when you get an unpopular war.
Back to the other thing, if a war wouldn't be popular, it ain't going to happen. Vietnam demonstrated what happens when you get an unpopular war.
For the Soviets to get the bomb first you don't necessarily have to speed up the Soviet program, you just have to eliminate the US and UK programs.
Also, do you have a citation for that? I've heard very contradictory things about the Soviet bomb program's reliance on espionage, and it would be nice to see the Soviets' own views on it.
I could have sworn my Cold War History class textbooks said that, but it seems I was mistaken.
What the books do say, however (books in question being "The Cold War: A Global History With Documents," Judge and Langdon, and Walter LaFeber's "America, Russia, and the Cold War"), is that the American bomb was the primary driver behind the Soviet project. Stalin went and devoted entire tank divisions to clearing forests to make room for more laboratories after the Trinity Test. The Soviet atomic bomb project only got real support after that point; understandably, the Soviets had more pressing concerns prior to 1945. Spies in the US and UK programs allowed them to skip a lot of the time-consuming testing phase.
And a Harvard Undergrad Research Journal article from 1996 lists an unnamed Soviet scientist as estimating that 1955 date. It also cites Soviet physicist Igor Golovin as saying that, prior to 1945, the Soviet effort lagged behind even the German effort, and that the information from the US allowed the Soviets to skip a lot of blind alleys. Source
So, all together, I'd say that eliminating the US and UK programs would leave Stalin without a great reason to fund this project further.
Thanks!
Eliminating the US/UK program wouldn't be enough by itself, but it might be possible with other changes. Maybe with a convenient civil war in the US, and a Soviet Union that invaded Europe instead of being invaded. That might leave the USSR with the resources for the project, and, with the UK still hostile and presumably unconquered, the need for it as well. Something like what Know Nothing suggested. Not really my area of expertise, though.
Question asked and discussed a few weeks ago:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=210897
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=210829
Define invasion and mainland USA. Two battalions landing in Alaska is perfectly doable. Divisions marching through Washington isn't.
Winston Smith
Banned
With a POD of divergence in 1930, I'd say that it is possible. The Nazis haven't risen yet, the Great Depression is in full force, etc. The USA is weak at this point.