What would have happened if the old USSR and the US had went to war with each other?

Question

During the cold war there was a fear of a clash between the two superpowers and it was generally believed that an all out clash between the two countries and their allies would have led to the end of civilisation as we know it. What course do people think a war of this nature would have took and what the results would have been at the end of it?

Cheffy D. The thing is that if the USSR was being torn apart they would have felt that they had no choice but to use nukes on the US and they had the means to hit every major city in the US and countries like Britain, France, West Germany etc.. if they wanted. This would have provoked the US to then nuke every city in Russia in return. About the technology gap you talk of, the Germans also had technological gap over the Soviets but their equipment was useless during the Russian winter. How much better could the American equipment have coped during the Russian winter ?

Answer 1

I do not think it would have been as devastating as many think. I doubt the exchange would have been more than a few initial rounds. The targets would be military. The destruction that both sides quickly saw on their own soil would likely bring a quick end.

Millions would have died. Billions and trillions of dollars of infrastructure would have been destroyed. And twenty years later it would be a point in history but not a terminal one.

Both humans and civilization are more resilient than most realize. We are also more prone to exaggerating our own demise. In the 60’s and 70’s it was nuclear holocaust. In the 80’s and 90’s it was the imminent plague of some new disease sharing the soon to impact asteroid. Today it is global warming.

To be sure, the threats we perceive are not trivial. A nuclear exchange would be devastating. But we would survive.

What will take out humans is likely to be something we never see coming.

Answer 2

There was no "all out clash" as you call it, but there was indeed a war. In fact there were numerous small wars that involved the old soviet regimes and the USA.

The USA backed Russia both financially and with weapons. The so-called "cold war" was used as an excuse to commit huge sums of American tax money to the military industrial complex. The limited or "controlled skirmish" doctrine guarantees that they use up old munitions and have to buy more.

The net result of this pernicious propaganda of 'cold war' was that real war continued throughout the 60's 70' and 80's.

Then the republican pawns for the military industrial complex created newer, more frightening enemies by financing Middle-Eastern despots, most notably, Saddam Husein.

The entire concept is very much like bowling...
First you set up the pins,
then you knock them down.

The only people who really "win" are those who own the bowling alley and the pins.

Those are the facts regarding the actual wars that did happen.

As far as an 'all out' clash?
Well, obviously America has more weapons and would have prevailed. They could have easily wiped them, or any other country off the map.

However, that was never the objective. Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?

The objective of fictional cold-war is to make actual wars sustainable and containable, therefore more profitable.

America is still doing that in Iraq.

Every war since World War I, has been manufactured for the benefit of the mega-rich bankers that control governments.

It isn't opposing ideologies that start war.

Rather, opposing ideologies are inflamed and despots are created to justify the profitable business of war.

The cold war was never in danger of becoming "hot." If it had, we would have destroyed the mysterious enemies that justified enormous military spending.

Answer 3

All we can do is guess. I think that as long as the military plan was sane and did not consider using nukes, the USSR would have been torn apart, and the war would have been a total disaster for everyone in the world.

There was a huge technology gap in the weapons between US and USSR. I would describe it more as the USSR was maintaining a military facade while trying to keep pace with the US because they didn't have the wealth to perform all the Research and Development.

In the end, the world would have had to rebuild and it would look very similar to what it does now. Except perhaps Cuba would be a democracy.

Answer 4

If we had gone to war with the USSR, it most certainly would have led to the use of nuclear weapons which would have meant more or less the end of civilization as we know it. Most of the Earth would have been radioactive.

Answer 5

The cockroach would in herit the Earth

Answer 6

There would have been a lot of dead around the world. The ones left alive would have been very sick.

Answer 7

It would have been a life ending event for planet Earth except for a few bacteria.

Answer 8

Most people call the theory of what would have happened MAD, mutually assured destruction.

Answer 9

You wouldn't be asking this question.

Answer 10

we would be dead and the bugs would win...