More likely than not we'd have ended up with one big war that was more or less the continuation of World War II with the Western Allies fighting the Soviets, Europe facing another round of devastation and Communism falling quite a bit sooner, and one blood soaked hell of a war.

The US would have invaded Japan and would have been in no shape to help out South Korea. It would have either fallen or be much smaller than it is today.

What would become NATO would be smaller, what with US military rebuilding from Operation Downfall. The Soviets would have been bold enough to try messing with Italy. A much smaller Marshal Plan as the cost of the Japanese occupation would nearly break the War Department.

Assuming that the US military would somehow rebuild in time to fight in Korea and then recover...there would be a much smaller "Baby Boom" as US causalities from the occupation of Japan would put a dent in US demographics.

Eventually, NATO and the Warsaw Pact would have come to blows. Without MAD, it would be easy for cross border incidents to escalate into something much larger.

SAC had already trained for the bombing campaign of Europe, so a conventional war would be right up their alley. No, 50% casualties to muck up the war planning.

As a commander of a conventional air force unit, Stanislav Petrov would have gotten a firing squad instead.

Without MAD, the USSR would have been much more bold in suppressing democracy as Eastern Europe tried to break away. No, "what would the American's do", since there is no fear of NATO nukes.

All those US spy over fights and Soviet subs off the American coast would have been gunboat diplomacy instead of brinksmanship.

Communism would not have been contained and instead of growing to discredit itself, it would have been like World War One. A large meatgrinder in Europe and then "peace" for a few decades then repeat.

Tl;dr - nuclear weapons kept the cold war from going hot, and keep many nations from starting something..

edited 22nd Mar '15 12:02:33 AM by TairaMai

To add on to the list of reasons for why we keep nukes around... Nukes are actually useful if the enemy military is so entrenched and stubborn on their homeland that the total death toll and financial costs from a conventional invasion/assault to dislodge them would be so vast that it'd be more economical to just drop a nuke on them. Imperial Japan and the proposed Operation Downfall is an exemplary case; North Korea is liable to follow a similar path if it actually invades the South again.

Though North Korea, sans China, could probably be dealt with via large amounts of conventional arms in the same fashion. Once it's artillery is destroyed the entire country becomes one large target for the USAF, and anyone else helping.

edited 22nd Mar '15 6:03:03 AM by Rationalinsanity

I still think that the end of the Cold War without a nuclear confrontation was basically winning the lottery in terms of odds. It's not something that could have been counted on and certainly not an inevitable conclusion. My point with bringing up Mr Petrov was that we were teeteringly close to accidental nuclear annihilation on several occasions, perhaps far closer than a deliberate one. Obviously, there's no evidence in counterfactual scenarios, but I think that this complacent attitude that MAD will always prevent a nuclear war between rational state actors is dangerous because there are so many other factors in play than two (or more) sets of human beings who broadly speaking don't want nearly everyone to die.

edited 22nd Mar '15 8:44:34 AM by pagad

Wee, just spent a weekend attending a Civil Air Patrol training thing. Learned lots of stuff about working with cadets, running meetings, some of the opportunities available, etc.

Found out about a couple of Emergency Services training camps I want to try to go to, but the ones I'm most interested in I most likely schedule-locked from due to work.

Kinda sorta related to this discussion.

I've been playing Clash of Clans recently. And it taught me something.

Sometimes the best way to tell others that you want to be left alone is through big guns.

Completely unrelated to this discussion... though I'll still bring up Les Militaribles for the heck of it:

The actual reason I'm coming here is to crosspost this little piece: The CIA Just Declassified the Document That Supposedly Justified the Iraq Invasion.

This is gonna be fun.

I've already seen some of the apologia being flown around the internet. Great stuff.

So they've basically admitted that the entire war was a load of bollocks based mainly around Bush Jr's power fantasies?

I can't find a direct link to the report in the article

The eldest has agreed to wait until after family vacation to sign up. Whoot! And here's to military flights, lest I could never afford to take the monsters anywhere.

I had no idea that Drew Carey and Rob Riggle were Marines... And they say leathernecks don't have a funny bone!

Nah, some of the funniest military folks I've met have been Marines. They just have a very particular (dry offensive self deprecating) sense of humor.

Meanwhile, in the Air Force, we have claim to Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Chuck Norris, and the guy who paints the happy trees on PBS.

Bob Ross!

BOB FUCKING ROSS!!

The US Army has Elvis (He was in the 3rd Armored Division and served under Colin Powell), several rock and metal singers, and Jimi Hendrix.

Relevant.

Taira: And Leonard Nimoy was also in the Army.

Air Force had Johnny Cash too.

Mel Brooks was in the US Army Corps of Engineers. He met Bob Hope on a USO tour. I say he "met" Bob Hope, but he actually grabbed Bob Hope by the ankle and refused to let go until he got an autograph.

Militarily accurate space opera (not original to MZW, just posted on his site)

Still doesn't feel right giving his site hits.

Bowe Bergdahl will be charged with desertion, looks like.

edited 25th Mar '15 11:27:17 AM by Mars444

The dumb lads screwed now.