"What if nuclear weapons were never invented?" Topic

Interesting question…

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Amicalement
Armand

I think we would STILL be fighting Japan!

Yep …

operation downfall

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No nukes would be great. I remember "duck and cover" as a kid in school. SAM and AAA batteries in the parks. As a preteen coming to the realization that we could all be dead in a matter of minutes. Now I look at North Korea, Russia, and our president and some of the old chills come back.

Without nukes would chemical and bio weapons have stepped in to take their place? That might be worse.

Still fighting Japan? Don't think so. Attrition, exhaustion, industrial shortages would have ended the war. Perhaps in a negotiated peace without Japan losing face as they would from a surrender. Even so the Pacific would certainly be a different place.

Soviet army in Paris for an official holiday during the late 1940's after the Americans returned home.

Indeed, Japan was making overtures before the bomb – all that really stood in the way was the Unconditional Surrender demand.

I doubt the overtures were sincere. Too much face to lose. Conventional invasion with horrendous casualties on both sides.

I remember the "duck & cover" drills too waaay back then.

And pzivh43, I agree … It was the only way to save not only Allied lives but many Japanese lives, as well, in the long run …

Massacring the populations of cities to encourage the surrender of other cities or even kingdoms/countries has a long history of success.

And is a very pragmatic method of reducing casualties.

Sadly … all true …

Notice … seems there have been no World Wars after the use of Nukes. Maybe just a very good unintended consequence. As WWIII might really have been the "war to end all wars" … and much of humanity as well.

After WWII wars have been smaller and localized … e.g. Korea, Vietnam, the series of Arab-Israeli Wars, etc. etc., …

Hard to say because no nukes does not mean no weapons of mass destruction. Even with no nukes what the USSR and USA could have done do each other with biological and chemical weapons was almost as scary. As far as Japan is concerned the US may have justified the use of biological and chemical weapons based Japanese actions in China.

I don't think that Soviets aggression post WWII was only stopped by US atomic weapons. Neither side was in a position to wage an offensive war. The Allies could not have overcome the numerical superior of the Soviets and the Soviets would not have made it far after lead lease would be ended, they did not have the logistics to push into France (IMO).

Come 1950 NATO and the USSR could have clashed with a possible hope of victory but it is hard to say what kind of deterrent long range rockets with nerve agents would be.

Either way I don't think either side would have taken that conflict lightly.

Chem and Bio weapons are not always easy to use/deploy/dispense. Temperature, wind, weather, etc. considerations. And they generally are not as quick or lethal as Nucs. And Nucs are much more deadly in killing very, very, high numbers, very quickly … for better or worst … We all know this.

But those that are effected by chem or bio generally will not die an easy death, per se, e.g. Syria's use of Chem weapons today.

Man is the most efficient mass killer on the planet as we know.

If chemical and biological weapons weren't used in significant amounts in the majority of major wars since WW1, I have my doubts they would be used in WW3.

And again, generally chem & bio are harder to deploy and could also be weather dependent in some cases …