If the Cold War turned into a real war, who'd have won?

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daft

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Assuming that it's the year 1962. Soon after the Cuban Missile Crisis the Warsaw Pact moves it's troops into West Berlin. At the same time a firm warning is issued by Khrushchev about immediate retaliation to any nuclear threat from the West.
Secondly assuming that NATO chooses not to go the Nuclear route but fight a "standard" war, which army stood the best chance of defeating the other, and why?
 
In 1962 NATO would have had no option as far as fighting a 'standard' war goes. Kennedy's shift to a policy of being less reliant on nuclear response and more capable of matching up conventionally had not had time to bear fruit and the west would have been outnumbered two to one. The Soviet military showed no signs of not having the same mentality they had in WW2, so NATO could expect them to proceed from 'if we lose three for every two we get when they are all dead we will still have a quarter of our forces, and 75% is acceptable losses'. It would have been a steamrolling, period.

So it would have gone nuclear through lack of any alternative, and the Soviets knew it which is why it didn't happen. Given the capabilities of nuclear arsenals at the time Europe would effectively cease to exist. The Soviet Union would become an Asian state with basically nothing going for it. The citizens would not be embracing the localized leadership, and the higher leadership from the west would have disappeared. Civil wars, some useful pieces perhaps annexed by China or the US by proxy through Japan, end of the Soviet Union.

The rest of the world, with Europe removed, the US damaged, and a massive ongoing environmental crisis damaging everyone severely for the next century or so would muddle along in some very unpredictable fashion.
 
Yeah, the United States focused on nuclear superiority simply because they didn't have the edge in conventional military forces in Europe. It would make no sense for them to suddenly choose not to use nuclear weapons since that was their whole strategy.
 
Louis XXIV said:
Yeah, the United States focused on nuclear superiority simply because they didn't have the edge in conventional military forces in Europe. It would make no sense for them to suddenly choose not to use nuclear weapons since that was their whole strategy.
Click to expand...

Especially given the technology of the times. The US position was basically 'we will shoot nukes at you, and you can shoot back...mostly at our allies in Europe'. That's a deterrent.
 
Although this is post Cuban Missile Crisis. If the Soviets had first strike capability from Cuba (I can't remember if they could reach Washington DC, though) that would change the equation.
 
Louis XXIV said:
Although this is post Cuban Missile Crisis. If the Soviets had first strike capability from Cuba (I can't remember if they could reach Washington DC, though) that would change the equation.
Click to expand...

Errrrmmmm...the Cuban missile crisis actually started in October of 62, and the issue was sites being constructed in Cuba but there weren't any missiles actually there. For this move on Berlin to be post crisis and still in 1962 it is a 'winter surprise' and there are no missiles in Cuba. Even if the Soviets hadn't backed down they wouldn't be ready to go until sometime deep into 63.

The fact those missiles would have changed everything is why there was a Cuban missile crisis in the first place. With missiles in Cuba the US threat to respond with nuclear to a conventional attack on Europe would have been immediately hollowed out, because the nuclear retaliation wouldn't have been confined to Europe. In the most dangerous piece of brinksmanship ever performed on this planet Kennedy said that if the USSR attempted to remove that deterrent the US would respond as if the invasion of Europe had begun. Jump to my first post, starting at 'So it would have gone nuclear...'

It's funny how in the US there is a general sense of the nuclear standoff as if the big concern was Soviet first strike capability. In reality the only 'first strike' that anyone ever thought likely was a US nuclear strike in response to a conventional invasion of Europe...and the reason that was thought about was because the US frankly said they could and they would.

We'll never know, but I believe that if the Soviets had not backed down at Cuba 1963 would have arrived on time...but Europe wouldn't have been there to see it.
 
Yeah, I agree with most of the above. I don't think there would have been a winner. Curtis LeMay was still advocating his psychotic ideas of a winnable, preemptive nuclear war in '62, but it wasn't much longer before those silly, hide-under-the-desk nuclear drills and the construction of basement fallout shelters stopped. If you like the sci-fi idea of alternate realities, there's one (or more) that may look something like "Fallout 3."
 
EgonSpengler said:
Yeah, I agree with most of the above. I don't think there would have been a winner. Curtis LeMay was still advocating his psychotic ideas of a winnable, preemptive nuclear war in '62, but it wasn't much longer before those silly, hide-under-the-desk nuclear drills and the construction of basement fallout shelters stopped. If you like the sci-fi idea of alternate realities, there's one (or more) that may look something like "Fallout 3."
Click to expand...

It was psychotic...but if you apply a loose enough definition it was winnable. Launch from Turkey and Europe, annihilate the western end of the Soviet Union (in other words everything that controlled the rest anyway) and their only means of retaliation would be to annihilate Europe. Fallout lands mostly on China. As the US would be 'only' badly damaged while all competitors (enemy and allies alike) would be effectively removed from play the result would have to be considered a 'win'...by anyone who could put aside any trace of conscience.

Fortunately technology closed that option. As Kennedy predicted it became necessary to meet a conventional war with conventional means because range increases for nuclear weapons meant using them was a no win option.
 
What if the War erupted after the Soviets shotdown that Korean airplane in September 1983? Would the war have gone nuclear as well?
 
There's a good quote for this: "Football and nuclear war don't have winners, only survivors."
 
Timsup2nothin said:
It was psychotic...but if you apply a loose enough definition it was winnable. Launch from Turkey and Europe, annihilate the western end of the Soviet Union (in other words everything that controlled the rest anyway) and their only means of retaliation would be to annihilate Europe. Fallout lands mostly on China. As the US would be 'only' badly damaged while all competitors (enemy and allies alike) would be effectively removed from play the result would have to be considered a 'win'...by anyone who could put aside any trace of conscience.
Click to expand...
Honestly, that outcome isn't all that different from the last world war, just a lot quicker about it.
 
Timsup2nothin said:
Errrrmmmm...the Cuban missile crisis actually started in October of 62, and the issue was sites being constructed in Cuba but there weren't any missiles actually there. For this move on Berlin to be post crisis and still in 1962 it is a 'winter surprise' and there are no missiles in Cuba. Even if the Soviets hadn't backed down they wouldn't be ready to go until sometime deep into 63.

The fact those missiles would have changed everything is why there was a Cuban missile crisis in the first place. With missiles in Cuba the US threat to respond with nuclear to a conventional attack on Europe would have been immediately hollowed out, because the nuclear retaliation wouldn't have been confined to Europe. In the most dangerous piece of brinksmanship ever performed on this planet Kennedy said that if the USSR attempted to remove that deterrent the US would respond as if the invasion of Europe had begun. Jump to my first post, starting at 'So it would have gone nuclear...'

It's funny how in the US there is a general sense of the nuclear standoff as if the big concern was Soviet first strike capability. In reality the only 'first strike' that anyone ever thought likely was a US nuclear strike in response to a conventional invasion of Europe...and the reason that was thought about was because the US frankly said they could and they would.

We'll never know, but I believe that if the Soviets had not backed down at Cuba 1963 would have arrived on time...but Europe wouldn't have been there to see it.
Click to expand...

My understanding is that it has since been confirmed that there were in fact tactical nuclear warheads in Cuba at the time of the crisis, if not for missiles then for rocket artillery/planes?
 
Arwon said:
My understanding is that it has since been confirmed that there were in fact tactical nuclear warheads in Cuba at the time of the crisis, if not for missiles then for rocket artillery/planes?
Click to expand...

What they got caught doing was constructing the launch platforms. There may have been warheads present. They would have arrived separately from the missiles. Whether some, or even all the parts were there, that kind of intermediate range missile needed a pretty stout launch facility to get it on its way. Getting those built takes time and isn't easy to hide.

The dramatic standoff embargo was a fine way to make an immediate statement, but the real crux of the issue would have been whether the US would launch a first strike before completion of the launch facility would provide the USSR with serious retaliatory capability. We'll never know, but I'd say Kennedy would have seen it as a 'no choice' situation and done it. Fortunately the Soviets recognized they really had him backed into a corner and opted not to test him.

Given what the US could have launched from Europe and Turkey that first strike would have done a lot more damage to Russia than world war two did...and even though they couldn't have gotten much on US targets the USSR could have leveled Europe, as in literally nothing left of at the very least Germany, England, France and the low countries. Even though the delivery systems were still lacking range warhead yields were already in the 'fifty times Hiroshima' range and there were plenty of them on both sides.
 
It was a good thing that USSR eventually developed capability to make effective retaliatory strike on U.S. mainland. It made MAD possible and generally decreased probability of an all-out nuclear war.
 
Indeed, SLBMs have genuinely made the world a better place.
 
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