Why did WWIII never happen?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

In the period of the Cold War, 1945-1991, the USSR never went into a war with the USA, and the only time US and Bolshevik forces fought was during the Russian Civil War. There were, however, clashes during individual proxy wars between US forces and Soviet advisors/pilots, and vice-versa during the USSR's own issues. Why did the superpowers never push the Red Buttons in all that time, whether by accident or by some other cause?

Personally I think it was more to do with the USSR wishing to first rebuild and then to amass the ability and capability to "win" a general nuclear exchange (leaving aside that practically the only winners are the cockroaches in that situation and maybe the chimpanzees), and that in practical terms it never managed both until its own problems that led to its collapse were too ossified for such a war to ever happen. While for its part the USA is extremely unlikely, outside the perimeter of a Crack!TL to up and start the war by itself.

I think it also had something to do with the USA and USSR at some level realizing that if the only winner of a war are cockroaches then perhaps it's a good idea to leave that war purely in the realm of theoretical events and counterfactuals.

Comments

[telemann.livejournal.com]

One reason we're even able to have this conversation is because of this guy, Stanislav Petrov:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

True, and that to me simply illustrates the point further.

[pofigistiks.livejournal.com]

World War II did not begin between the two most powerful states.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You're right, it began between one of them allied with two others against an overmighty continental power that kept thinking it was a world power.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Three magic letters:

M.A.D.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

Good god... we agree!

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Pretty much.

I'd also argue that we've had the equivalent of many "world wars," given UN involvement in many conflicts, and 40+ countries signing on for extra-UN alliances for various battles. We just don't call them world wars anymore.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, that is certainly an argument I'd accept. OTOH, there's instances like the Berlin Airlift where the Soviets deliberately engineered crises when they knew more about the (complete and total absence of a) nuclear arsenal of the USA than Truman did and where no war happened.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

Alas, because I am a wordey son-of-a-bitch, I just can't let it go at "I agree!"

So...

Agents enter into conflict or refrain from conflict based on selfish assessments of what is to be gained, and what is to be lost. Sometimes the assessments are deeply delusional, but agents endeavor to make them nonetheless.

But this point of view begs the question: Why have nations entered wars when the conflict was so obviously (at least to armchair diplomats) not in their best interests? Some people answer this by pointing out more or less rightly how hindsight is 20-20, no one can know all variables, yadda yadda yadda.

But a more important point, I think, is that Nations are not agents. Nations don't make decisions. Nations don't weigh consequences. People do those things, and it is entirely possible for some people to make decisions in their own interest which do not serve the hypothetical 'national' interest of which they are an ostensible part. Political elites in North Korea spring to mind as extreme examples.

So nations may 'decide' to do stupid, destructive things because those things serve the more limited interests of a subclass which is able to more effectively direct national action.

M.A.D. doesn't really change the equation per say... it just weighs one side of it so very heavily, that whenever nuclear war is a possibility, all decision making agents within the nation actually share an interest. Many may profit from a limited conventional war; many may profit from preparing for nuclear war; but its very hard to imagine any sane person counting on profiting from a nuclear exchange itself.

[caerbannogbunny.livejournal.com]

I think the main reasons are an increase in data availability about the opposition--influencing the surety of strategic assessment--as well as a general institutional understanding of the increased risks of combat on a nuclear battle field all contrasted against a somewhat more open international trade environment.

We'll run those sort of backwards.

Warfare is a tool to resolve resource access in the face of conflict. While ideological wars have been fought, most are based on the perception of risk to a particular group's access to resources (land, water, religious power based on location, etc.) in perceived conflict with another group. The decision to attack and initiate a war is usually only when either desperation sets in or the assessment of the cost/benefit/risk of going to war is seen as a higher net-value option than other choices.

In the case of the Cold War, the after affects of establishing positive control of trade routes internationally during the war as well as trade agreements between the superpowers was somewhat capitalized on in much of Europe and the Middle East through the continuation of use of trade routes and agreements initially set up during the war. What this did was increase the availability of non-land and non-location specific resources in general and increased the value of non-warfare options.

The other two factors--data availability and the risk of nuclear war--influence the option to go to war. We'll address the risk first.

Both sides created many, many small nuclear devices including artillery shells, Jeep-launched rockets, small demolition devices at great expense and in complete contrast to the idea of "mutually assured destruction" as a driving factor in the psychological decision to go to war. These devices illustrate a belief in the possibility of a limited or tactical nuclear battlefield. What essentially kept these in check and reduced the likelihood of a small, limited exchange going large scale is probably the risk assessments for each potential battle. Basically the question of "If we engage at location A with forces B against opponent units C, can we succeed and continue to fight?"

What continuously influenced those decision was most likely the increased access to data on the opposition from espionage (often trade-related) as well as new reconnaissance systems such as better quality cameras, satellites, aircraft, and communication devices allowing a more "thorough" assessment of enemy capabilities. When combined with knowledge gathered through battle assessments from proxy warfare--such as Vietnam, Ym Kippur 1973, etc.--where data about the actual effectiveness of US and Warsaw Pact equipment and even tactics could be gathered and disseminated, it becomes much more difficult to "pull the trigger" on a war based on a lack of knowledge about your enemy.

So, less surprises like German Blitzkrieg tactics or the real effectiveness of battleships for ship-to-ship combat, etc. When you know what the hit-per-shot fired ratio is for ATGM's or SAM's and you know the enemy does too (or think you know), it's hard to create a situation for a clearly decisive win unless there's an element of desperation involved.

Which was reduced and/or removed in many situations through international trade.

But, that's just my opinion...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, leaving aside that modern historians have shown Blitzkrieg was a postwar invention to rationalize German concepts of war that didn't exist at the time, and that the only power to go into WWII with an actual combined-arms *war*fighting concept was Stalin's USSR, whose execution er.....hardly lived up to the concept, it's not really arguable to speak from WWII analogies in terms of the Cold War. The moreso since the two superpowers wound up acting in ways that didn't reflect on WWII for either.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

It's a complex answer involving the precise state of quantum reality at the moment of the Big Bang.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

We just got lucky and ended up in the "no WW III" timeline.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Not for lack of Curtis LeMay trying, that's for sure.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Wasn't the guy who came after him even crazier than LeMay was?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Who later went on to be George Wallace's VP pick in the 1968 Presidential election.

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

My Marxian theory is that the people who run the world, IE: the rich, want to own and control everything, not destroy everything. What's the point of being in charge of a ruined empire?

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

It's impossible to own every square millimetre of the pie when it's the size of the globe. But reduce the size of the usable land mass somebody could own it all

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

There could be some money made in supplying clubs and axes - to prepare for World War Four.

[caerbannogbunny.livejournal.com]

"My Marxian theory is that the people who run the world, IE: the rich, want to own and control everything, not destroy everything. What's the point of being in charge of a ruined empire?"

Honestly?

The rich?

I mean, sure, it makes sense in a way because most people are rich based on economic and political arrangements with the "rest of us" based on trust. If those arrangements are broken, they lose the means to acquire cooperation and therefore resources. So, yeah, that would make sense in a general way to avoid that sort of conflict.

However, the irony in your "Marxian theory" is that it infers the rich resisting the will of the poor to go to war and essentially destroy everything. Which is funny, in a way, because which is more advantageous to the poor at that point: To have their own way with accompanying disorder and destruction or to let the rich think for them and protect them from themselves?

How about this...

Dump your conventional definition of "rich" and "poor" and simply redefine the rich as "those people who are invested in a politico-economic system and derive wealth from it"? The poor can become "those who do not successfully derive wealth from the politico-economic system they are in".

[theplanfailed.livejournal.com]

That's interesting.
I always thought we didn't have a WW3 because there wasn't a big enough war to garner the name.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Which is true in one sense, though given how many modern wars end up involving multiple states indirectly and sometimes directly, it's questionable if there's been a major war since the 1840s that's seen two states fighting alone by themselves.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

A deleted journal. I wonder if the parents pulled the plug.

[foolsguinea.livejournal.com]

MAD worked, I think.

Also, war is about gaining advantage more than just killing one's enemies. Turning the other side of the planet into a wasteland is not desirable per se, even without the threat of reprisal. Neither side really had much reason to nuke the other, nor to invade the other. More attractive to keep up the rhetoric and really just play the Great Game of colonialism.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The Cold War was WW-III. It was a global conflict waged at a low intensity. People died, mothers cried.

The closest the two powers came to throwing nukes at each other was over Cuba. The military was far more willing to go that route than were the Kennedy brothers. The outcome was considered a victory by one group in the US and a defeat by another.