Unthinkable: Cold War Strangled

[George W. Hobbes]

Unthinkable: Cold War Strangled

June 29, 1945
Military action is approved against Russia.  General Dwight D. Eisenhower resigns as Commander of the Allied Forces.  General George Patton is named as his replacement.

July 1, 1945

General George S. Patton orders the execution of “Operation Unthinkable”, launching 47 U.S. and UK divisions (half a million troops), backed up by a spare hundred thousand German soldiers.  The Allied movement sweeps into northern Germany and catches the Red Army off guard, because in this timeline the Soviets weren’t tipped off and kept their armed forces on a stand-down procedure. 

Across the world, shock is palpable.  Franklin Roosevelt’s dream of the Four Policemen has been destroyed by Truman and Churchill, who both face a liberal backlash.  In Moscow, “Uncle Joe” Stalin calculates that the Soviets are more than prepared to deal with this.  He gives the Red Army orders to drive forces into Turkey, Greece, and the oilfields of Iraq and Iran.  “Like with Lenin,” Stalin jokes to a Pravda reporter, “The capitalists are giving us the rope to hang themselves with.”

September 1, 1945

Patton has done an admirable job and dramatically moved the Soviets out of most of Germany.  The Soviet advances in Greece and Turkey have been somewhat checked, but it’s looking to be quite a long haul.  Stalin has decided to gamble on attrition, and pray that a war-weary electorate in Britain and America will vote the “imperialists” out of office.  He’s still thinking this when the Enola Gay drops the world’s first atomic bomb directly over Red Square. 

Over the next two days, U.S. planes wage a holocaust over major Russian cities, including Leningrad and central troop centers. 

Addressing the nation, President Harry S Truman announces “that the forces of liberty and the grace of God have defeated the world’s greatest evils, that of fascism and communism” and delivers a twenty-four hour ultimatum for the rest of the Red Army to stand down and for unconditional surrender of the Japanese.

September 2, 1945

By the time of the deadline, most of the Red Army, which is now leaderless without any Moscow; surrenders.  What doesn’t is mercilessly destroyed by Allied/German forces.  Japan also surrenders, completing what President Truman calls “a very satisfying end” to the Second World War.

December 25, 1945
President Truman, in his famous “Christmas Address”, announces the division of Russia into five military zones which will eventually be parceled into five new countries as well as how to implement the Marshall Plan to speed up European reconstruction

November 1946

The Republicans are not really happy.  Even Truman’s passage of the so-called “Marshall Plan” to rebuild Europe and Russia made enough sense that the GOP had to support it.  Every Republican that voted against it was quickly vilified by the Administration for wanting another Hitler or Stalin to rise from the ashes of depression.  While Senator Robert Taft really didn’t think like that, he quickly realized that most of Ohio probably would buy it, and swallowed his pride to save his office.  Regardless, Truman can do no wrong, and the Democrats fatten up their majorities in Congress.

It’s a gloomy GOP that looks towards 1948, holding out in vain that some general will turn out to endorse their sagging banner.

8 January 1947

Mao Tse-tung is assassinated by groups of demoralized officers.  The so-called People’s Liberation Army scatters, and the Long March has ended.  Chiang Kai-Shek celebrates this victory, and President Truman is grinning from ear-to-ear with the victory for the Nationalists.  Although portions of northern China will have limited communist guerilla activity for years, there is no real leader for them.

January 18, 1948

After thrice rejecting Patton’s demands that the U.S. military forcibly seize portions of the Mideastern oilfields (“We’re spread out thin enough,” Truman notes.), Truman tires of the man attempting to lecture him over pretty much anything, and fires Patton.  The decision causes a major stir, and a vengeful Patton quickly demands that his telephone be connected to the Republican National Committee.

January 27, 1948

In a momentous day for the GOP, Patton meets with Senator Taft and leading Republicans to plot the 1948 presidential campaign.  After accepting orders that he “pretty up” his speeches and start wearing a suit (Patton is willing to make the sacrifice to win the Presidency from Truman), as well as do some early electioneering in the few primary elections being held; all sides are set.

Taft is a bit put out, he quickly realizes that his isolationist vision will be undercut by Patton, but he decides that a Republican President is better than the grinning Truman.  “There is no substitute for victory,” he mumbles.

June 25, 1948
General George S. Patton accepts the Republican presidential nomination to a rowdy GOP crowd in Philadelphia.  At the end of his speech, supercharges but chaste as per orders, Patton delivers one of the best lines of the campaign, “We’re a-gonna kick them damn donkeys so far down hell that they’ll pass every Japanese, Italian, German, and Russian soldier that our boys sent there!”

For Vice-President, most pundits approve of the selection of Senator Arthur Vandenburg of Michigan.  He’s an insider to Patton’s outsider, and balances the ticket nicely.

July 14, 1948

Harry Truman doesn’t need to deliver a rip-roaring speech at the Democratic convention.  He’s just focused on not tripping up.  Even with Patton-Vandenburg as the GOP ticket, he still has a solid lead.  To insure this, Hubert Humphrey’s pro-civil rights speech is quickly vetted and refused by the party bosses, who still wish to hold the Solid South. 

To counterbalance the Patton nomination, General George S. Marshall has been tapped for the number two slot, and that’s that.  Afterwards, one wry delegate who’d been holding a “We’re Wild About Harry” placard suggested to a reporter that the second “W” should have been flipped.

November 2, 1948


George Patton   Republican   51.05%   275   WINNER
Harry Truman   Democratic   48.46%   256   

Patton triumphs in the end, mostly by daring to press the envelope and by attacking Truman on all fronts, focusing on winning flag-waving farmers by going so bold as to demand a more interventionist foreign policy doctrine than President Truman’s. 

“There will always be a next war.  Your young sons and daughters will be the soldiers and nurses of that next war.  Harry Truman wants to put his head in the sand and only focus on the rebuilding of Europe when the next war is brewing out there.  He’s being careless with your children.  I want them prepared, dammit, and under a Patton White House they will be!”

Begrudgingly, Patton also accepts the Marshall Plan, but also manages to make the easy campaign promise of banning the American Communist Party.  When Truman balks, Patton snarls “What?  Does he have something to hide?”  The newspapers, always looking for a good story turn the comment into a national scandal, and Truman is forced to sign an executive order banning the Communist Party…but by then public opinion has amazingly turned against the man who atomic bombed Russia into submission.

The Midwest breaks Patton’s way on election night, and dazed Democrats can’t quite believe what happened.

[opebo]

Why would the US attack a harmless ally?  Oh I forgot - Empire.

[jokerman]

Interesting, though I think a Truman fresh from war victories would not be beat.  I also find it strange his opponent is his main general.  I don't see how the public would see that as a real alternative and that many of Patton's votes would go to some third party liberal candidate.

[George W. Hobbes]

January 20, 1949 

It’s an…interesting crew that President Patton brings into office with him.  There’s Douglas MacArthur at War, of course, mostly because Patton wants the Japanese front hero as close under his nose as possible.  At the begging of Senator Taft, who wants at least one isolationist thrown into the mix, Charles Lindbergh is named the nation’s Secretary of State.  For Commerce Secretary, he taps Henry Ford II, on the grounds that “we need a man who can understand how order applies to the marketplace.”  There’s some muttering about anti-Semitism by Democrats, Ford’s father was a notorious anti-Semite and Lindbergh once delivered a speech in 1941 that seemed to blame Jewish Americans for the war. 

However, Ford’s son is Ford’s son…not Ford.  And a quick answer during a press conference repenting for his “former misguided belief”, Lindbergh buries the issue of his bigotry.  Who can turn down a tear-streaked former national hero, after all?  Patton seals the deal by offering “unconditional support to the State of Israel”, and can be heard muttering in the Oval Office that “while I might not like the Jews all the much, they’re better than the goddamned barbarian Arabs.”

J. Edgar Hoover remains in charge at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which President Patton gives increasingly expansive powers, noting that “some sort of national police force isn’t exactly a bad thing.”  Andrew Walsh Dulles is selected as Attorney General, and Patton tells him to be ready to throw the book at “as many godless Communists as you can find.” 

For the Director of Central Intelligence, Patton pulls a surprise, and moves General Curtis LeMay to the position, on the promise that he’ll be able to do whatever it takes to undermine threats against the United States.  Not surprisingly, LeMay accepts. 

November, 1950

The Patton Administration is the most efficient White House is recent American history in terms of military and intelligence policy. The United States military has been give ruthless orders to put down insurgent groups in Russia and Europe, and soon the five Russian states of Siberia, Kazahkastan, Ukraine, West Russia and East Russia have puppet governments tightly controlled by the U.S.  The Marshall Plan is working in Europe as well, and the Communist parties there are given strong drubbings by more conservative movements.

At home, Patton rams through a bill keeping the national draft (“We need men to run this country, not boys!”), but little else, meeting with gridlock.  Patton isn’t used to not having his way, and at one point gets into a shocking flurry of profanity on live radio with Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. 

Patton also got the chance to nominate two Supreme Court justices, and names two ultra-conservatives to the bench.  After cutting some deals with Southern Dixiecrats, he got his way.  “We’re gonna make this country into the greatest little empire that ever lived,” Patton says to a smiling Secretary MacArthur shortly before the 1950 mid-term elections.

Although the Republicans didn’t quite reclaim the House, they picked up a 49-47 edge in the Senate.  Patton’s heavy crusading and get-out-the-vote efforts were widely acknowledged as the key to this success.

To commerate his victory, Patton orders a copy of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Ten Commandments to be placed visibly in all government building, and places his own “Monument to America” on the White House lawn.

March, 1951

Bob Taft’s anger with the Patton Administration continues, as Patton refuses his pleas to begin withdrawing troops from even some of the safer areas of the European theater.  “We’re not letting these men down.  They worked for too damned long to be pulled back and let Europe and Russia go back to hell in a handbasket!” the President announces at a rally in Albany, New York.  Rumors abound that Taft may challenge Patton, but even isolationist Secretary Lindbergh is still on board (“We may as well prevent future wars while we can.”) so his chances aren’t too likely.

Director LeMay is being a bit klutzy over at CIA, using a spectacular waste of resources to kill Communist guerilla leader Kim Il-sung and spectacularly failing.  Kim’s following is surprisingly strong, and more than two-thirds of the Korean peninsula is under his control by the end of 1951, and President Patton decides against using troops to destroy them…since even with the draft, it’s only bolstered America’s prescense in Europe and Russia…and it’s not enough for a full invasion.

There’s also worry over the ongoing Indian and Pakistani war over Jammu and Kashmir, which (because there is no United Nations) has been on-going since 1947.  Patton doesn’t give the matter much thought (“Let the Hindus and Mohammedans kill each other off.  Who cares?”), but it’s still the back of War Secretary Douglas MacArthur’s mind.

July 11, 1952

The Democratic field for the Presidency…well, it’s rather empty.  Nobody is all fired up about anyone, and in the end, Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia wins a surprise nomination over Senator Estes Kefauver.  Hubert Humphrey and the civil-rights folks of the Democratic party are understandably upset, but the nomination of Governor Adlai Stevenson had been expressly forbid by the governor himself, despite his strong keynote address.  For the vice-presidential slot, Russell takes Stevenson, who reluctantly accepts, considering that Patton’s going to win anyway.

July 26, 1952

Despite Bob Taft’s half-hearted attempt to challenge President Patton for the nomination, the President and Vice-President are re-nominated.  Taft threatens to walk out, but decides its best to fold his cards now.  A third-party campaign would have little effect at getting Taft elected President, and besides, Patton-Vandenburg has to be better than Russell-Stevenson. 

The campaign is pretty mild.  Patton continues the usual flag-waving bit, while Russell tries to break the President’s hold on the Midwest.  Unfortunately, Russell’s pro-farmer politics are swiftly trumped by Patton’s executive order granting American farmers even more federal backing. 

The economy’s booming (the Marshall Plan is doing quite well and Secretary Ford is proving an excellent administrator), we’re entrenched in Europe, but most Americans understand that withdrawing troops would be pointless, and Patton’s charismatic. 

No surprise then, that Patton wins a healthy landslide on election day.

November 4, 1952



George S. Patton/Arthur Vandenburg (R)   55.33%   382
Richard B. Russell/Adlai Stevenson (D)   44.58%   149

Following the election, President Patton takes a quick stock of matters.  Despite an extremely narrow victory in Texas (a touch over two thousand votes), the Democratic Solid South has remained in place.  Patton decides that courting the South with conservative justices and keeping the armed forces segregated has done him no help.  The day after the election, he signs an executive order integrating the armed forces and announces that he wants poll taxes declared unconstitutional.

(This has the added effect of further bolstering Patton’s support among poor white voters in the South, which doesn’t do much at first, but causes some consternation among Democrats, who remember how white impoverished Southerners backed FDR and his New Deal solidly.)

Director LeMay resigns in protest, as he’s been arguing that certain “radical” blacks could pose a threat to the United States.  Patton is privately glad at this, and surprises everyone when he appoints a quiet Wisconsin senator, Joseph R. McCarthy, to the post.  President Patton instructs Director McCarthy to work on methods of achieving improved surveilliance of American citizens, to insure national security, of course.

[DanielX]

Er... Henry Ford II was Ford's grandson ... his son, Edsel, died in 1943.

[George W. Hobbes]

Right.  I knew that!

Meh.

Close enough.

[Colin]

Don't worry it's really good anyway.

[George W. Hobbes]

January 25, 1953

President Patton has ruthlessly dealt with a few white supremacist riots in the Deep South by sending in the Army.  (“No man may ever compromise the security of the United States.  Period.”)   To further punish the Southern states, Patton decides to forcibly desegregate the public schools with another executive order. 

Mississippi quickly sues Patton, and the case makes its way through the courts. 

August 17, 1953

Gamal Abdel Nasser successfully overthrows King Farouk of Egypt, and installs his own government.  Nasser quickly begins accumulating power in the interest of expanding it…

September 8, 1953

Chief Justice Frederick Moore Vinson dies, opening up a vacancy on the Supreme Court.  President Patton decides to sprinkle a little pepper over the festering South.  There’s a candidate for judge on the Alabama Third Circuit named George Corley Wallace, who is a state’s rights man…but who seemed willing to go along with Humphrey’s pro-civil rights platform plank in 1948.  “Sometimes a PFC can do a general’s job,” Patton announces to the press when he nominates a somewhat shell-shocked Wallace.

January 5, 1954

With the Mississippi v. Patton case now at the doorstep of the United States Supreme Court, the Senate rejects the nomination of George Wallace.  President Patton isn’t surprised, but he appreciates that the divide and conquer tactic got both of Alabama’s senators to vote for their home boy.  Perhaps if Wallace had just had a little more experience?  Ah well, it’s time for a more serious choice.

February 19, 1954

Alfred M. Landon is approved as the new Chief Justice in a 54-44 vote by the United States Senate, the day he takes the bench, hearings begin in the Mississippi v. Patton case…

March 30, 1954

In a narrow 6-3 decision (with Patton’s two previous appointees siding with the minority), the Landon Court hands down it’s verdict in the Mississippi case.  Segregation is completely and totally banned within America, and the Court orders that desegregation be proceeded with “all due haste”.

That’s not a problem for the President, who announces to the nation that he’s more than willing to used “whatever it takes” to enforce the decision.  Riots erupt in the South, and are swiftly (and somewhat brutally put down) by the military.  CIA Director McCarthy and FBI chief Hoover have plenty of dossiers on major racist leaders, and President Patton decides to take on the Ku Klux Klan.

“I never planned to go this damn far with the bastards,” Patton wrote in his journal, “But when the troops refuse to go where they’re supposed too…well, time for a lesson.”

July 4, 1954

President George S. Patton announces that the Ku Klux Klan, which has spearheaded attacks against black citizens in the South, is a “clear and present danger” to Americans under the Fourteenth Amendment and the Schenck v. United States case.  Armed with information from McCarthy and Hoover, (it turns out Patton had managed to get successful FBI operatives to infiltrate the Klan since 1953, likely with this type of operation in mind).  Thousands of arrests and hundreds of Klansmen (plus a hundred or two civilians) are immediately killed in the carnage.  Within a few months, the major Southern cities are burning, but the Klan is effectively dead.

November, 1954

The South votes practically straight down the Democratic line, as do rural areas of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.  Patton has finally overstepped himself, and nobody is quite well with the apparent American dictatorship that civil libertarians believe Patton is forming around himself.  The President dismisses such concerns as (nonsense).

As a note, however, after the election Patton completes the virtual withdrawal of American troops from Europe, which is completed in March, 1955.  The troops are generally assigned to the South for the remainder of the year, and things are kept rather quiet down there.

Spring, 1955

At his home town in Ohio, former CIA Director Curtis LeMay announces his intention to seek the Presidency as a Democrat in 1956.  LeMay’s speech, which is drafted by segregationist Asa Carter, includes a famous line of “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!”

Two weeks later, Governor Adlai Stevenson also jumps in the Presidential fray, but his tone is more mild-mannered.  The speech is well-received, and most consider Stevenson the front-runner.

President Patton announces that he’d be willing to seek a third term if the Twenty-second Amendment were repealed, but few (even within the Republican party) are willing to step forward to support the movement. 

Senator Robert Taft also announces his intention to run for President, on an openly isolationist platform, including recalling all American troops from Russia.  In a speech on the Senate floor, Taft openly chides the President, “If you’ve brought them back from Europe, can’t we bring them back from Russia?  Mr. President, you need to finish the job and finish it now!”

California Governor Earl Warren also announces that he’s willing to run for the White House, and he presents himself as a supporter of the Patton foreign and domestic policies…without being too bombastic about it.  Having garnered a reputation as a moderate, Warren still breathes that image while supporting Patton’s police state tactics.

The war between India and Pakistan finally ends after Pakistani forces breakthrough Indian lines and gain over three-fourths of Jammu and Kashmir.  Indian forces surrender, the government falls, and a peace treaty delivers that land to Pakistan.

August 17, 1956

Two things happened on August 17th, 1956.  The first was that in Indochina, the communist guerillas finally overcame the French, aided coverty by Korean leader Kim Il-Sung and the charisma of communist leader Ho Chi Minh.  The Viet Minh forces quickly continue southwards, fighting off the native souther Indochinese that have not surrendered.

The second was that CIA Director Curtis LeMay pulled off a stunning fourth ballot victory for the Presidential nomination when Texas Senator Lyndon Johnson pulled his support from the third-wheel “anyone but LeMay and Stevenson” campaign of Stuart Symington.  The reason was pure self-interest, not any idealistic concern…Johnson didn’t think LeMay had a chance of winning and figured that attaching his name to the ticket (even though Johnson supported, somewhat more mildly than Patton, civil rights) would help him in 1960.

August 23, 1956

The Republican convention began with a stormy address by President Patton demanding that the party select someone of his “caliber and ideals” to lead the party.  Unfortunately, the speech probably hurt more than helped, as Bob Taft emerged as the leader after the first ballot, leading over Governor Warren by two hundred and fifty delegates.  Disgruntled, Patton demanded that Secretary of State Charles Lindbergh’s name be placed in nomination.  “If we’re going to nominate an isolationist son-of-a-[censored], at least let’s have him be our son-of-a-[censored].”

Lindbergh’s nomination immediately derails Taft’s support, and he makes a well-calculated address that seeks to drive a middle-ground between the Taft and Patton wings of the Republican Party.  On the ninth ballot, he gains the nomination.  For the vice-presidency, the convention decides on Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, a great orater and proponent of civil rights. 

November 6, 1956



Charles Lindbergh/Everett Dirksen (R)   49.85%   278
Curtis LeMay/Lyndon Johnson (D)      49.78%   253

Many pundits expected a LeMay victory, and a rather solid one at that.  First there was Senator Bob Taft’s announcement that he had become a Democrat and was endorsing the LeMay-Johnson ticket, putting a lock on Ohio’s twenty-five electoral votes.  Next there was the general fatigue against President Patton.  Despite having served as CIA director, LeMay manages to (correctly) claim that regardless of whatever CIA did abroad under his tenure, he never committed American troops abroad (ensuring isolationists not leave the Democrats) and that he never spied on American citizens (not quite true, but close enough). 

What killed LeMay was, well, LeMay.  During a press conference with just two and a half weeks left to go before the election, LeMay made a few comments concerning his criteria for using nuclear weapons, and in an attempt to peel off hawk votes from the Patton-supported Lindbergh-Dirksen ticket suggests he’d use nuclear weapons to “turn Korea and Indochina into a parking lot.”  Despite Truman’s destruction of Russia, the effects of this comment turn off enough isolationists into staying home…and unwittingly gives Lindbergh the margin of victory in Wisconsin, California, and Pennsylvania.   

[YRABNNRM]

We need more stuff like this in these forums instead of the stupid polls people make.

[ag]

However much I would have liked getting rid of the commies (though annihilating millions of people through A-bombing in my dearly beloved Petersburg and Moscow is not an appropriate price to pay), not remotely feasible.  USSR is still not demobilized - one thing that totalitarian regimes do well is operating in these circumstances.

The Soviet forces were in their strongest at the end of the war (and not really demobilized for 2 more years). The military output was at its highest, and the industry was highly decentralized geographically, so it was impossible to bomb away. Germans were unable to capture Moscow by the time cold season arrived in 1941, having attacked in June. Then the Soviet Army was totally unprepared (unlike in 1945). Early on, it is not unlikely that the Soviets would have better of it on many fronts (How about the Italian People's Government in Venice under the Soviet/Yugoslav protection?).

So, indeed, you'd need something like a nuclear attack to do the job before they'd be on the attack till the spring. However, USSR + Soviet-occupied area is just too big to hit anything much besides the two cities. Now, that would do a good job killing civilians.  Still, Moscow is a lot larger then Hiroshima, and even there many people survived.  It is unlikely even to kill the old Joe himeself - that guy was too paranoid to be caught off guard by smthg like that (especially, if you don't start by bombing Moscow in the first place). In any case, even if he were peacefully sleeping at home in Kuncevo, a single A-Bomb over the Red Square would not kill him (he had a few homes and he changed them rather frequently).  Add to this fairly reliable anti-aircraft facilities (hey, these cities have just gone through major bombing campaigns a couple years previously - and Moscow, at least, managed to avoid pretty much any bombing in the last 2 or 3 years of the war, despite all German efforts) - chances are a lot better than even, the planes carrying the bombs would have been hit before they get past Smolensk.  Chances are nearly 100% he would not be anywhere within the range of the explosion in the time it would have to fly to Red Square after being observed. After this government would be safely hidden in bunkers somewhere in Siberia. All the attack would do is to convince average Ivan of the American inhumanity.

Add to this, at the moment of the original attack the Japanese are still at war with the US (and not at war with the USSR). It would not have been the War's first shift in alliances, suddenly making available to the Japanese all the resources of the Russian Far East (making it unlikely they would surrender even after Hiroshima). So you'd still be fighting in the Pacific for another year or longer. Even if the Soviets were to suddenly collapse, parts of the Far East would be occupied by the Japanese (e.g., with the help of some Soviet Government in the Far East), not by the Americans - a nasty second front.

Another consideration: occupying the entire Soviet  + satelite area is simply impossible - it is just too large.  Even if the Soviet Army collapses on Sept. 2 there is just no time before it gets too cold to occupy even most of European Russia with any degree of thoroughness.  And you'd have rebellions galore to deal with (in a very hostile climate).

As of 1945 not only the Americans, but also most Europeans still have a benign view of the Soviets (except for the Germans, of course). You'd be surprised, not only Yugoslavs, but most of the other Slavs (other than Poles) would have voluntarily come out on the Russian side (Czech pan-Slavism was not dead until 1968; it was VERY MUCH alive in 1945), meaning that the hostile territory for the West would start from Triest and Plsen east. You might even have an uprising in parts of France and Italy!  If you know what the Ukrainian and Belorussian partisans were, you'd realize, that holding any territory in those parts would be tough (even the anti-Communists rebells in Western Ukraine would be a tough cookie - they fought Germans, they fought Russians, they would likely fight anyone else with a gun in sight).  You'd also be dealing with a serious ethnic hodgepodge nightmare, with everyone fighting everyone (sort of like in Iraq now, but on a 20 times bigger scale, with a lot more mutually unhappy groups). Dividing the old Soviet Union into "5 parts" by force and keeping peace there is a joke - the moment you start the division it disintegrates into many more parts, all of which are confident that the neighbors hold there land.

The people would not have rebelled against the regime en masse - they didn't in 1941, and in 1945 they did believe that things are going to get better, there were indications that Stalin would relax. In fact, the Russian nationalists were being encouraged by the government's new "Russophile" turn, while the non-Russians had not yet been discriminated against as they would be within 2-3 years (believe it or not, the pre-war USSR was, probably, the least anti-minority of the Russian governments before or after, inhuman as it was). While there was still a reasonably benign view of Americans there, replacing the Germans with Americans in the public mind would not have been difficult at all - they had efficient-enough propaganda system (they did it fast, i fact).

Does it all mean that in an all-out war with the Soviets the US wouldn't win? Possibly not, but, at best, it would have been a prolonged (3-4 years) and very bloody war, followed by an extremely difficult occupation. At worst, it would have been a bloody stalemate (during which the Soviets would have had the Bomb produced and, probably, used against American troups in Europe).  Given the lack of obvious provocation in June 1945, it is not clear the US voters would be willing to reward either outcome.

[DanielX]

The scenario is rather implausible... it's more likely the Soviets attack the Americans (or even more likely, a mix-up which leads to both sides thinking the other attacked) in May-June 1945. What happens? A Soviet offensive pushes the Americans and the allies back to the Rhine, where they are held until re-inforcements arrive. Then, a long and slow grind back across Germany and into Poland and Czechoslovakia, taking up the rest of 1945. The Bomb isn't used yet... Japan is under a naval blockade and the US waits until they can hit the Soviets safely (and preferably the US gets a couple more bombs). Probably in October or November 1945 the first bomb falls on Stalingrad (via Turkey) - strategically the Caspian/Caucusus oilfields are hit first in an attempt to make Soviet tanks go thirsty.

The war likely ends in 1947 or so. By that point, the US will have B-36's (a tad sooner then Our Timeline, but there's a war on), which can drop A-bombs in Siberia and fly higher then almost all Soviet airplanes.

[George W. Hobbes]

Eh, Daniel the military operation "Operation Unthinkable" was actually real.

Nukes are not totally feasible, sure, but it worked with where I was going.

[A18]

We need more stuff like this in these forums instead of the stupid polls people make.

We need more of the polls people make in these forums instead of stupid stuff like this.

[Colin]

We need more stuff like this in these forums instead of the stupid polls people make.

We need more of the polls people make in these forums instead of stupid stuff like this.

Eh, why don't you crawl back into the hole you came out of?