What If #3-Truman's Dilemma

[vtbub]

Around suppertime on the evening of July 16, 1945 in Potsdam, Germany, President Harry S. Truman receives word that the test known as Trinity has failed miserably in the desert around Alomagordo, NM. The plutonium bomb was a dud, and the uranium bomb, that was recently completed, needs major inspection. General Groves wires the President that it will be a lengthy delay to figure out what went wrong and to correct the flaw. This immediately pushes deployment of the A-Bomb past Truman's invaison date of Japan of November 1st.

The task here is two-fold. First, what does Truman do, and what are the consequences. Second, If nuclear weapons are not used to end the war, when, if at all, are they fired in anger.

[Fritz]

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/giangrec.htm

If nothing else, it moves your date a tad

[Fritz]

dola,

I think nuclear weapons would have certainly been used. They almost had to be used once.

(Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH? )

Most likely, they would have been used during the Korean war. Either early, say around July 1st, or during the first Chinese counter offensive.

[vtbub]

Great stuff, Fritz.

Wonderful read.

[SirFozzie]

If there's no nuclear bomb. Japan fights on grimly, and the war in the Pacific stretches on for another 18 months till an exhausted US Armed Forces take the last island from the Japanese. There is no resconstruction, and with so many more lives lost from the war, the US does not have the ability/national will to enter the Korean War, and Communism spreads over the Pacific, and the forces of Democracy realize that they have ejected one great evil (the empire building Japanese) to allow a greater evil (combined Korean/Chinese Communist front) to take its place. Cue the Cold War times 5.

[JPhillips]

The worst outcome would be a divided Japan along the lines of Korea. The USSR would have been needed to invade Japan as the casualties for the Allies started to mount. The Soviets would have taken a large chunk of Japan and would not have agreed to hand over what they captured. I suppose they might have been willing to trade part of Japan for part of Korea, but Japan is/was certanly more valuable than Korea.

With a divided Japan, the Korean War would have been a disaster. We only barely held on long enough to stabilise the front as it was. With a continuing need for troops along the Japanese DMZ the NK troops would have wiped us away and reached Pusan before we could launch an Inchon invasion. At that point Truman would have to decide whether or not to drop the bomb on Pyongyang. The stakes now, though, are much higher, now the Soviets have their own bomb.

Over the long haul I'm not sure this would change history much. Millions of Japanese, Allied troops and Soviet troops would be dead, but Japan under partial Soviet domination would eventually break free from the Communists, even if it wasn't until the early nineties. China wouldn't benefit from a Soviet North Japan and the US would still be the dominant power on the globe.

[BigJohn&TheLions]

So basically if the A-bomb had not been dropped, there would still be Chevys, Fords & Plymoths in every driveway across America instead of Toyotas & Hondas...

[Surtt]

Nothing would have happen with Japan. We would have continued the embargo and let them stave.

World War 2 would have gone on to phase two - the west against the Soviet Union.
Look at the way the Soviet Union acted knowing we had "the bomb." Without it, they, with their massive army in place, would have started a war with us so they could occupy the rest of Europe.