If the Nuclear arms race had happened prior to 1938, do you think WW2 would still have happened

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Another interesting issue: if World War II does break out over Poland, and stays conventional at first, it likely goes nuclear during the Battle of France if France is still in danger of collapsing.

Which mean we get a scenario where most of Western Europe is glassed, the USSR may or may not be glassed (depending on how the Allies interpret the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in a "Nuclear Armageddon" scenario)...and the US/Japan stay mostly intact.
I don't think the nuclear fission bombs are powerful enough to speak of "glassing" even if they are used a lot across western Europe.

First of all, the scenario of impending French collapse due to invading German armies would not cause France to drop the bombs on German cities, rather they'll try to bomb the German troops and their logistics which means rural towns in eastern Belgium and southwestern Germany get bombed.

Secondly, the explosive effect of Hiroshima type weapons is not so big that you could "glass" cities even if you hit them more than once. It's not going to be very different from large scale conventional bombing. Given the enormous economic cost of nuclear programs, none of the European countries would actually be able to afford a production of more than a handful of nukes per year if it comes on top of the economic cost of all the other armament programs.
 
As others have said war in Europe was inevitable. Peace hinged only in the willingness of France to shield the newly independent Eastern European from Germany's aggression. As none of the other allies were willing to defend those countries as the USA basically washed their hand on Europe and the UK was only willing to defend France and Belgium territorial integrity and cared little to what happened east of the rhine.

Hitler was merely "lucky" to have been in power after French support inevitably waned in an increasingly Fascistic Europe with the logical rise of multiple regional conflicts.

So yes, they would have been war. At the very least Germany would invaded Poland. As Berlin had made plans for that almost since the inception of the Weimar Republic. So what regime the country was under mattered little in their willingness to cut the Poles to size. Probably again with the USSR support. As that division of Poland also predated the Nazi rise of power.

Poland aside, it's more difficult to make a judgement. Germany attitude with Czeckoslovakia was more ambivalent. As the Czech were seen as almost aryan worthy unlike the Poles so a less aggressive regime may have chosen a more diplomatic approach. Same with Austria which also had Italy as defender.

Whether the UK and France were willing to engage in a nuclear war with Germany is the biggest question here. And it's a question almost impossible to answer. More importantly it also has butterfly effect with the USSR as well. Would Germany invade a nuclear Russia?
 
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As others have said war in Europe was inevitable. Peace hinged only in the willingness of France to shield the newly independent Eastern European from Germany's aggression. As none of the other allies were willing to defend those countries as the USA basically washed their hand on Europe and the UK was only willing to defend France and Belgium territorial integrity and cared little to what happened east of the rhine.

Hitler was merely "lucky" to have been in power after French support inevitably waned in an increasingly Fascistic Europe with the logical rise of multiple regional conflicts.

So yes, they would have been war. At the very least Germany would invaded Poland. As Berlin had made plans for that almost since the inception of the Weimar Republic. So what regime the country was under mattered little in their willingness to cut the Poles to size. Probably again with the USSR support. As that division of Poland also predated the Nazi rise of power.
If only France (and the UK) managed to enforce Poland and Czechoslovakia to the mutual cooperation against Germany there wouldn't have been the WW2. At least as we know it. And yes, I also blame Poland for being blind on the possibility of such alliance.
Whether the UK and France were willing to engage in a nuclear war with Germany is the biggest question here. And it's a question almost impossible to answer. More importantly it also has butterfly effect with the USSR as well. Would Germany invade a nuclear Russia?
Nothing has changed actually. What is the difference between France and the UK in the 1930s and the USA today about engaging in the nuclear war over some periferial countries? But Putin hasn't dared to check it out yet...
 
Well France and Italy had tried to reconcile Poland and Czechoslovakia and made the former join the little Entente but it did not work out. Later on after the Nazi came into power they were some talk of a joint French-USSR guarrantee on both Poland and Czechoslovakia but that also failed trough. And for that one everyone but the Soviet have some share of the blame.

The UK tough did not really care until after the Anschluss. Only then, did they start to gradually to consider Germany to be a threat. Altough that did not prevent them (or France) to sell out Czechoslovakia in Munich. But before that, their attitude to France's containment attempt was more hostile than helpfull.
Yes, even after the Nazi took power.

In fact the early 30's were a big diplomatic mess for Paris, where France was trying to jungle between the UK, Italy, and the USSR. All of them more or less hostile to Nazi Germany expansionism but hating each others just as much. And France always eventually choosing the worst of the three, The UK. That stubbornly refused to do anything about Germany until well, 1939.
 
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Some points:

Given Germany's economic position in the 20s and 30s, I doubt they (or any of the other powers) could have funded atomic weapons.

But, if they had, the probability of use depends on how many the various countries possess, and whether or not atomic weapons are included in the ban on gas weapons, a ban which Germany followed (at least on the battlefield).

So if there are only a handful of bombs in British, French and German arsenals, then using them is both easy and hard: easy because you cannot face total annihilation in return, and hard because you are expending a precious and rare resource.

But if they are used... how long does the war go on without London, Manchester, Paris, Lille, Berlin and Essen? How long can it last if Britain and France have, presumably, twice as many bombs as Germany?

And last: given that the German generals were seriously considering a coup against Hitler before the historic outbreak of war in 1939, how much more likely is a coup if Germany is threatened by nuclear weapons?
 
What if Poland had nukes as well? :)
Poland doesn't have nukes in this scenario for two reasons:
1: Germany wasn't afraid of the Polish military in real life, so giving the Poles nukes is a bit like giving the Poles a massive army, it fundamentally changes the dynamic of the war and which powers were strong.
2: unlike France and Britain who only half-heartedly committed to the war when it started (why die for Danzig?, appeasement, ect...), the polish government put fighting the war above its own peoples safety. The Government and high command issues orders to continue fighting and spread radio propaganda about fake victories in order to boast moral and do damage to the Germans and later Soviets, while they themselves fled across the Romanian border to safety. They refused to surrender even though defeat was inevitable. So at least to me to the question of what would happen if Poland had nukes is obvious, they would have used them.
 
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Poland doesn't have nukes in this scenario for two reasons:
1: Germany wasn't afraid of the Polish military in real life, so giving the Poles nukes is a bit like giving the Poles a massive army, it fundamentally changes the dynamic of the war and which powers were strong.
2: unlike France and Britain who only half-heartedly committed to the war when it started (why die for Danzig?, appeasement, ect...), the polish government put fighting the war above its own peoples safety. The Government and high command issues orders to continue fighting and spread radio propaganda about fake victories in order to boast moral and do damage to the Germans and later Soviets, while they themselves fled across the Romanian border to safety. They refused to surrender even though defeat was inevitable. So at least to me to the question of what would happen if Poland had nukes is obvious, they would have used them.
Absolutely.
That's why I put a smiley to the post :)
 
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Some points:

Given Germany's economic position in the 20s and 30s, I doubt they (or any of the other powers) could have funded atomic weapons.

But, if they had, the probability of use depends on how many the various countries possess, and whether or not atomic weapons are included in the ban on gas weapons, a ban which Germany followed (at least on the battlefield).

So if there are only a handful of bombs in British, French and German arsenals, then using them is both easy and hard: easy because you cannot face total annihilation in return, and hard because you are expending a precious and rare resource.

But if they are used... how long does the war go on without London, Manchester, Paris, Lille, Berlin and Essen? How long can it last if Britain and France have, presumably, twice as many bombs as Germany?

The premise of the thread is:
Lets assume that every major power, except China, had cold war stockpiles of ICBMs at the start of 1938, before the Munich Agreement.
Major Powers at the brink of WW2 would be basically the main combatants of WW2, so:
France, UK, Germany, USSR, Japan, USA and China. The latter is ruled out as per "thread rule". All the other have "cold war stockpiles of ICBM". So you can assume that it's a MAD scenario, not only a few bombs here and there. Talking about "how many nukes" ist moot, as the answer is: Enough.

However: In 1938 the Second Sino-Japanese war was already going. We know that Japan used C weapons quite deliberately in that theatre and researched on B weapons. As per scenario rules they DO have nukes but China hasn't.
So can we assume that Japan already did have used nukes there? Would this make it "easier" or "harder" for others using nukes?
Would Hitler and maybe even his general staff see it and conclude that if noone retaliated for China so noone would retaliate for Poland?
 
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If its about cold war levels of MAD then obviously war between the major powers would be deterred. Deterrence worked during the cold war so why wouldn't it work during the 1930s if similar weapons were around.

Contrary to some popular belief, ww2 didn't happen because people went insane for a while and then became normal again after 1945. Many aspects of nazism and fascism were declared to be insane after 1945 but the events of our current time show, that in fact these things can repeat and people may more or less willingly, pushed by circumstance, go down the same route again and dive major nations again into fascism.

Reversely if nukes were around in 1939 then a lot of the thinking of the cold war would be invented rather quickly to cope with the problems of deterrence. Nazi Germany will for obvious reasons not attack France as directly at they did in 1940 if this is likely to invite MAD the moment the Germans break through towards Paris. And Germany will not attack Britain with aircraft or missiles if this puts Britain into a situation where such attacks cannot be distinguished from a nuclear first strike, thus inviting MAD on Germany.

Poland though, unless the British and French put serious trip wire forces there, will get crushed as in OTL. As Russia wished to crush Ukraine. France and Britain could theoretically declare that they would invoke MAD but that's very hard brinkmanship, too hard for the domestic political tolerance of such things in both France and in Germany.

In fact if it looks as if Germany was to declare war on Poland, France and Britain might well not ally with Poland as they did in OTL. They might consider the risks inacceptable just like nato in 2022 found the risks associated with no fly zones or things like that unacceptable in Ukraine.

But they might openly ally Romania, move troops and aircraft and even nuclear weapons into Romania, and thereby draw a line there. Romania doesn't border Germany so it's a place where they can draw a line and still have some room for preventive measures and escalation control. And because Romania (pee 1940) has a border with Poland, they can help the polish army escape, provide bases to them in Romania, and keep up a guerilla war in Poland, using Poland as a proxy against Germany.

Stalin would not move against Romania if Romania were covered by a solid Franco British guarantee and military bases there.

A direct German conventional attack on France is made unlikely by the nuclear deterrence. Almost impossible. Almost. But if you think about how close the distances in Europe are, how short the flight time of missiles, and how little strategic depth even a country like (metropolitan) France has if viewed through the lens of nuclear strategy then it's not entirely impossible for Germany to dare an extremely risky move and strike fast, and hard, into France. The idea being (similar to some thinking about west Germany during the cold war) that the French were suddenly and unexpectedly put into a situation where German troops were already deep in French territory, they would "blink" and hesitate to nuke themselves.

Kind of difficult to envision though. Because the moment Poland gets crushed by Germany, Belgium will definitely get much worse panic about their security than in OTL and choose to seek a fast and direct alliance with France, inviting French troops and nukes onto their soil. And then the Ardennes strike idea becomes more even risky for Germany so they might not dare it.

Thinking about France again - France has colonies in Africa. This does give them some strategic depth in that they can put ICBMs into Algeria and Tunisia which can glass Germany but which Germany cannot touch with conventional weapons. They would definitely do this, I think. They would also do the kind of doomsday planning that the otl cold war powers did, war gaming nuclear Armageddon over and over, and figure out that for political reasons they can't move the capital away from Paris but they definitely can prep ahead of time for a huge government bunker complex to be built in the mountains south of Algiers. If conflict looks likely to erupt in Germany, they'll move the vice premier and parts of the government over to Algiers as a backup.

Germany has no such luxury, their strategic depth is almost nonexistent. Missile flight time to any point in the greater German Reich is short. Once they gobble up Poland and border the USSR, they're going to be quite paranoid about having a backup. Historically during WW2 they moved a lot of industry into Thuringia, Bohemia and Silesia as those places were more distant from the British and American air forces than the Ruhr, Stuttgart or Berlin.

Given the constellation of powers and with nuclear deterrence in play, I could see Germany drifting into the position of a Soviet client over time? Like today's Russia to today's China. Purely materially they are decent partners for each other - Germany has a very highly developed industrial and military technology, the USSR has very rich resources. The USSR with nukes, and with the extremely low hesitancy to destroy parts of their territory, will be impossible for Germany or anyone else to directly attack without near certain destruction. Definitely no Barbarossa.

The Baltic countries are a goner, as is Finland. Bolshevism it is for them.

Scandinavia - proxy war?? Germany might try to invade Denmark but not Norway (too easy for Britain to cover them, so the risk won't be worth it). But Sweden, that's doable. So, Sweden might learn the joys of national socialism. Norway then might become theater of a proxy war. Or not, if they keep a tight lid on domestic security and preemptively arrest all the nazis and communists.

Italy with nukes will want to conquer Greece like in OTL. Mussolini does a Putin: "Anyone-a who meddles with us-a, is-a gonna see-a conseguenze the like of which-a you have not-ah seen!" And it might go over as well as it did for Putin, with the expected quick victory not materializing (as per OTL). He'll be pushed back to his border as French and British supplies to Greece empower them even more than IOTL. After all, with conventional deterrence in France being slightly less critical due to nukes, France and Britain can afford to spare with more stuff to Greece (on top of what they give to the Polish underground via Romania)

The world might settle into a confrontation with USSR and Germany forming, by necessity, an unholy Eurasian alliance, and Britain/France standing on the defense across Europe. Without direct attacks on each other, the full military might of birth sides will be funneled into proxy wars in Poland, Sweden, Greece, and then other places too. Basically everyone who's not a nuclear power, and not credibly protected by one, will suffer nightmare levels of destruction. Romania might actually avoid it due to their unique position. Yugoslavia is a goner, though. Carved up between Germany and Italy and then turned into a gigantic proxy battle ground. (Sounds eerily like OTL though...??)

The overseas colonies of France and Britain might become battlegrounds as the USSR will see it in their direct interest, there as IOTL, to push decolonization and spread weapons far and wide.

As a cold war constellation it actually looks very bad for France and Britain! USSR plus Germany is a formidable monster of an alliance, and without the USA on their side the two are going to face a difficult uphill struggle defending their positions. Decolonization is almost a certainty to happen sooner than IOTL because of the pressure.
 
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There's is no chance that the USSR is going to be an ally of Germany if the latter isn't communist. And the chances of a war is still possible if the Nazi lead the country.

Unlike popular beliefs, Stalin was ideologically driven. So after Germany had expended their usefulness by giving up territory in the east, it's very unlikely that any kind of alliance will last. Just like he dropped his other allies after WWII for the good of the revolution.
And that was in a world where only the US had nukes for a time.

Even geopolitically speaking, Germany is the only major threat to Russia in this scenario. Even with Nuke involved. Which makes it unlikely even without the ideological constraint of Nazism and Communism. And impossible with either or both.
 
A hypothetical scenario in which a nuclear arms race occurred before 1938 would represent a significant change in the course of history. The development of nuclear weapons so early in history could have influenced world events and political relations in many ways.
 
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The premise of the thread is:

Major Powers at the brink of WW2 would be basically the main combatants of WW2, so:
France, UK, Germany, USSR, Japan, USA and China. The latter is ruled out as per "thread rule". All the other have "cold war stockpiles of ICBM". So you can assume that it's a MAD scenario, not only a few bombs here and there. Talking about "how many nukes" ist moot, as the answer is: Enough.

However: In 1938 the Second Sino-Japanese war was already going. We know that Japan used C weapons quite deliberately in that theatre and researched on B weapons. As per scenario rules they DO have nukes but China hasn't.
So can we assume that Japan already did have used nukes there? Would this make it "easier" or "harder" for others using nukes?
Would Hitler and maybe even his general staff see it and conclude that if noone retaliated for China so noone would retaliate for Poland?

Does Japan have to have nukes? This scenario seems to be focused mainly on Europe.

There's is no chance that the USSR is going to be an ally of Germany if the latter isn't communist. And the chances of a war is still possible if the Nazi lead the country.

Unlike popular beliefs, Stalin was ideologically driven. So after Germany had expended their usefulness by giving up territory in the east, it's very unlikely that any kind of alliance will last. Just like he dropped his other allies after WWII for the good of the revolution.
And that was in a world where only the US had nukes for a time.

Even geopolitically speaking, Germany is the only major threat to Russia in this scenario. Even with Nuke involved. Which makes it unlikely even without the ideological constraint of Nazism and Communism. And impossible with either or both.

Agreed. Stalin was planning on backstabbing Hitler in OTL - he was just beaten to the punch. Furthermore, a popular target of the Nazis was the Communists. If both of those countries had nukes... it might become a cold war for a while? Nationalists vs. Communists? Even so, I don't think such a scenario is tenable long term. Eventually, something would've set it off, and nuclear war would happen. Germany and the USSR are neighbors, and there were enough close calls with nukes in OTL when the two superpowers were separated by an ocean.

A hypothetical scenario in which a nuclear arms race occurred before 1938 would represent a significant change in the course of history. The development of nuclear weapons so early in history could have influenced world events and political relations in many ways.

This is also a good point. How would Germany have gotten nukes? Versailles limited their weaponry, and they found ways around that, but there is no way the other powers of the world would let them have nukes. In OTL, they got tanks from the USSR, but there is no way the Soviets would give the Nazis nukes, much less ICBMs.
 
A hypothetical scenario in which a nuclear arms race occurred before 1938 would represent a significant change in the course of history. The development of nuclear weapons so early in history could have influenced world events and political relations in many ways.
This is also a good point. How would Germany have gotten nukes? Versailles limited their weaponry, and they found ways around that, but there is no way the other powers of the world would let them have nukes. In OTL, they got tanks from the USSR, but there is no way the Soviets would give the Nazis nukes, much less ICBMs.
for this scenario, I don't think it will be interesting to answer the question of how each nation ended up with the money and technology to do this, as quite simply if Nukes had been invented prior to WW2, there is no way Germany would have been allowed to obtain them.
Does Japan have to have nukes? This scenario seems to be focused mainly on Europe.
People are talking about Europe, but the situation in the far east was just as volatile and ultimately helped start WW2, but I don't see Japan launching nukes at China before a war in Europe starts anyway. Japan heavily downplayed how large its conflict was with China in order to stay out of war with Britain and America for the first period of the war.
 
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The most important question, for me, is whether or not there is a treaty similar to the one prohibiting the use of poison gas, and is there an case of a nuclear weapon being used which could deter future use?

The second-most important question is, will the German generals activate their coup attempt before the invasion of Poland, and as a corollary, have the allies put Poland under their nuclear umbrella or reserved that for attacks on France and Britain proper?

If Poland falls and the 1940 invasion of France proceeds as in our history, then I do think someone in France or Britain is going to use nukes. The Soviets will then eventually occupy a Europe devoid of major cities, population, food and transportation networks. Imagine a Europe without its fifty biggest cities.

If Japan has nukes, Japan will use nukes in China, just as they used chemical and biological weapons.
 
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