What if nuclear weapons were developed in peacetime?

[polyharmonic]

IOTL, nuclear weapons were developed during WWII and used towards the end of the war. Afterwards, the US held a monopoly until the USSR (and then others) developed their own stockpiles and we have since entered into the MAD regime.

But this leads me to wonder:
What if nuclear weapons were developed during peacetime prior to the outbreak of war?

Using a POD as far back as you want to make this happen, what would be the implications of this?

If one side had a monopoly on them, would they feel empowered to use them to utterly vanquish their enemies or blackmail them to submission?

And if more than one side had them, would this lead to MAD and thus prevent world war to begin with?

Or would you have a situation where wars break out anyway and then we have...???? (Imagine something like WWI or WWII except the belligerents had a few nukes on each side).

 

[TxCoatl1970]

When you look at how nukes were developed-- they were developed in a crash program with 80-90% of the world's best physicists, chemists, and engineers trying to make them happen as part of an existential conflict against pure fucking evil with a wide open wallet and carte blanche to do whatever to make it happen.

Forget safety, environmental impacts, property rights, whatever civilians might bother with. FDR told Leslie Groves, CO of the Manhattan Project- Just Do It ASAP, and they did.

Peacetime R&D would be far slower and more hesitant.
Peacetime R&D is characterized by slow, incremental tweaks on current tech, though occasionally disruptive technologies change the game.

W/o the doctrine of total war and counterforce and countervalue strategies that nukes make easier doing in hours what used to take weeks/months of attrition, which were bandied about in the 1930's...w/o WWII goosing that along IMNSHO nobody in power would see the need to plow that much talent and resources into nuclear weapons unless absolutely necessary.

If they did, progress would much slower, maybe 1970's or 1980's before the first bomb.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

You'd have to avoid WW2 and get the world financial situation sorted out. In that case the US would be more focused on keeping Japan in check and making money, not developing nukes. Britain and Germany would be the main powers working on it, potentially the USSR too if their spies discovered other programs. Perhaps the French work on something too. The question is whether the Nazis come to power or not, because their scientific establishment would vary wildly with or without their liberals and Jewish intellectuals, as would Britain and others. Say Germany avoided the Nazis or other right wing anti-semitic group and got their economy in order then the military/scientific situation in Europe would be vastly different than if you got the Nazis or non-Nazi Fascist regime in Germany.

Say the rest of the world recognizes the banking crisis in Germany for what it was in 1931 and you get the Hoover moratorium early you then avoid the really bad situation in Germany that brought the Nazis to power and probably end up with a more moderate left/center government in power in 1932. Then you avoid a lot of problems down the road, though the 1930s are going to be messy regardless. By 1940 you could have a few A-bomb programs in Europe if the perceived need is there, which would be setting borders for sure; not sure how Germany's military would feel about that; if they got the bomb first they would push for leveraging it to revise borders. Just about anyone else though would use it defensively to ensure no major war in Europe was feasible from that point on. Of course without the Nazis or analogue group overturning the world order with a war there probably wouldn't be any wars in Europe even without the A-bomb. The Soviets are unlikely to be first to a bomb and Stalin wouldn't risk a war even if he had one, but wasn't the only one.

Really there shouldn't have been a war in Europe without a revanchist government in Germany, so nukes are unnecessary other than to underscore the point that war will be unwinnable, so don't start one.

 

[Deimos]

Austria-Hungary mobilizes against Russia in 1914 and stays on the defensive against Serbia. The Habsburgs avoid some of the losses of men, material and land they suffered IOTL.
With a stronger showing of AH Itay does not join the Entente. [... butterflies happen ...] We get a negotiated peace by late 1916 or 1917.

Longtime medical research into radiology, some lucky breaks and slowly increasing military funding makes the atomic bomb possible by the mid-to-late 1930s.


Some notes on atomic bombs IOTL:

-the US program started basically from scratch (including infrastructure)
- the effectiveness of nuclear weapory in 1945 was enhanced by the nature of the target

With the above scenario I aimed to keep Germany the world leader in physics to enable an incremental progress towards nuclear weaponry, thus avoiding the first point of my notes which confuses the cost and manner of the Mahattan project as the most effective way.

The second note however bears more consideration. An early atomic bomb is - after it has been tested - still probably considered nothing more than a single, albeit very destructive bomb. IOTL we tend to forget that the use of nuclear weaponry was the straw that broke the camel's back and not something that single-handedly won the war in he Pacific. Furthermore the destructive power felt by Hiroshima and Nagasaki was enhanced by Japanese architecture relying on wooden structures to a greater degree than European architecture. The casualties of the Dresden or Hamburg bombings might be closer to what can be achieved against Western city landscapes.
In absence of a conclusive ground war maybe four or half a dozen nuked targets would probably force most nations into surrender.


The best delivery method would be still via air because naval and land artillery would be more limited in their choice of targets. However, the technology of the time would still only enable a very few hundred km range for aircraft heavier than air. Depending on how early nuclear bombs are developed airships and zeppelins might be used for a time due to their high operational ceiling, bomb load and range.


MAD happens as soon as other powers discover nuclear weapons, have a good delivery system and are in range. Before this occurs we could definitely see the use of nuclear weaponry as a first strike weapon to decapitate enemy key strongholds, transport and administrative hubs as it would enable the nuclear power to avoid incurring losses in ground forces compared to the losses incurred in achieving the local aerial superiority needed for dropping an atomic bomb.

 

[polyharmonic]

When you look at how nukes were developed-- they were developed in a crash program with 80-90% of the world's best physicists, chemists, and engineers trying to make them happen as part of an existential conflict against pure fucking evil with a wide open wallet and carte blanche to do whatever to make it happen.

Forget safety, environmental impacts, property rights, whatever civilians might bother with. FDR told Leslie Groves, CO of the Manhattan Project- Just Do It ASAP, and they did.

Peacetime R&D would be far slower and more hesitant.
Peacetime R&D is characterized by slow, incremental tweaks on current tech, though occasionally disruptive technologies change the game.

W/o the doctrine of total war and counterforce and countervalue strategies that nukes make easier doing in hours what used to take weeks/months of attrition, which were bandied about in the 1930's...w/o WWII goosing that along IMNSHO nobody in power would see the need to plow that much talent and resources into nuclear weapons unless absolutely necessary.

If they did, progress would much slower, maybe 1970's or 1980's before the first bomb.

While I partially agree with you, you seem to downplay the fact that even in peacetime there would be a race to ensure the OTHER SIDE doesn't get them before you do.

So say in some OTL, there is no world wars. But some country is secretly developing them and other rivals get wind of this. I'm pretty sure they would pour in resource to ensure they got them ASAP to avoid facing nukes without the ability to counterattack.

Thus progress, while slower, would NOT be MUCH slower, IMHO.

 

[Jape]

While you wouldn't have a crash course like the Manhattan Project, once the big wigs realise an atomic bomb is possible I can see several countries putting solid R&D into it by the end of the 1940s at the lastest. And if word gets out one country is doing it, their rival will up the game too.

If its a simple no-WW2 timeline due to Hitler never taking power, you'll have Enrico Fermi still hanging out in Italy. You bet your ass Mussolini would want the bomb. You might also see an Anglo-French project to ensure they get it before the Italians/Germans/Soviets/Japanese/whoever.

I'd expect bomb tests by the late 1950s/early 1960s.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

While you wouldn't have a crash course like the Manhattan Project, once the big wigs realise an atomic bomb is possible I can see several countries putting solid R&D into it by the end of the 1940s at the lastest. And if word gets out one country is doing it, their rival will up the game too.

If its a simple no-WW2 timeline due to Hitler never taking power, you'll have Enrico Fermi still hanging out in Italy. You bet your ass Mussolini would want the bomb. You might also see an Anglo-French project to ensure they get it before the Italians/Germans/Soviets/Japanese/whoever.

I'd expect bomb tests by the late 1950s/early 1960s.

Sounds about right to me.

 

[packmanwiscy]

It depends on how far back you go. If it's a relatively close POD that only prevents WWII from happening, we could have what happens above. The farther back you go, there's a chance that the tech increases faster than in OTL so that it becomes feasible that the bomb is made in peace time at around the same time as OTL.

 

[TxCoatl1970]

@polyharmonic

About the only hope you've got of faster progress on nuclear tech is butterflying the barbecue of people and resources in WWI.

There was a bit of a pause in physics research from 1910-1930 where great work went on, but at a slower pace b/c other things were much closer to hand- chemical weapons and tanks and other stuff, even heavier-than-air aircraft were more promising than nuclear energy.

Keep in mind, everyone else except the UK is playing with anywhere from 1/2 to 1/20th the resources ($$$, tech, and people) that the US worked with in Manhattan project (and getting to crib from Tube Alloys' notes, mind).

The UK could probably have had a working nuke by 1940- IF they went full-on, didn't have the Depression or WWI casualties/debt hangover to clean up after.
Again the $$$ and human resurces weren't budgeted there.
You want to give up radar, jet engines and a ton of other things just to have nukes?
This ain't Civ IV son, where the tech tree's obvious and you're Maximum Leader able to get the ants working on whatever to the exclusion of all else.

What's the existential threat from 1920 on spurring this crash project?
The Germans? The Soviets? The Lizards from tau Ceti?

Say Italy wants the bomb from scratch in 1935. They couldn't afford sufficient weapons for a WWI army, much less a competitive combined-arms force against any competent European state.

That's why Italy had trouble with Ethiopia and no shot whatsoever solo against France. Greece kicked them out and Italy needed German help in both Yugoslavia and Greece to avoid humiliating defeat.

Trying to hide a serious nuclear research program would be impossible for Italy.

You want them to build nuclear weapons from scratch by when, 1980?

France, if it got the Dirac or Fermi or Einstein note in 1935 might have been able to put it together five, ten years after Manhattan/Tube Alloys working solo. They had uranium in West Africa and could possibly develop and test it in secret there or in Polynesia.

France had plenty of industrial equipment, universities (intellectual capital), and so forth. More with German, Austrian, and C Euro refugees)
Still, 1950-1955 before they build and detonate a working nuke w/o crashing their economy.

Japan would be about in the same boat as Italy. They aren't hopeless, just way behind and needing to develop Manchuria and Korea economically to where they weren't a drain on imperial resources.
The Japanese Empire wouldn't be in the economic or military position to develop the bomb until 1960 at the very least.

The wild card in this scenario is the USSR. IF they don't gut themselves with purges and then get the harrowing from Germany during WWII, would have ample resources to get the Bomb more or less by 1945 if they went flat-out WiTHOUT cribbing from the Manhattan Project via Fuchs and the Rosenbergs.

The problem ITTL is a few scattered A-bombs (20KT apiece) aren't the 10, 000+ city-killer 300+KT city-buster instant sunshine thermonukes via ICBM/MRBM maintaining the current balance of terror. We use nukes now, you're signing your own death warrant as well as nuking your enemy.

if it's the USSR vs the world in say 1950, bet on the world curb-stomping them conventionally until they can return the nuclear favor.

Problem with that scenario is that nukes become just higher explosives and aren't as taboo. More get used, folks discover radiation hormesis is a thing, and thus, there's survivable rad doses w/o developing a new limb or leukemia, and probably a bit more atompunk vibe going on (Wider usage, much greater comfort working with fissiles, etc etc.)

I'm not saying it's impossible for nukes to be around before 1945, but anything before 1940 w/o SOMEBODY spooking all concerned to get bigger firecrackers is bloody unlikely with a lot of distortion effects on scientific research, economic development, political priorities, etc.

YMMDV but that's my take.

 

[anotherlurker]

the manhattan project cost some 2 billion $ in the 1940s, today that would be 26 billion $, security, wages, material costs, developement and building of all machinery, the installations and so on - that's very cheap for an arms project! there's some microstates today with enough cash at hand to finance that, it's unthinkable that a semi large developed country in the 40s wich wants the bomb could not afford it, most european countries back then had good enough scientists before the nazis forced them to flee to do it and uranium wasnt such a controlled good as it is today.

my own theory: if there's no ww1 germany gets the bomb in the mid to late 30s which would also boost von brauns rocket research budget.