It's hard to believe this hasn't been turned into a crappy Harry Turtledove book

[james_davis_nicoll]

Operation Unthinkable was a code-name of two related plans of a conflict between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. Both were ordered by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1945 and developed by the British Armed Forces' Joint Planning Staff at the end of World War II in Europe.

The first of the two assumed a surprise attack on the Soviet forces stationed in Germany in order to "impose the will of the Western Allies" on the Soviets and force Joseph Stalin to honour the agreements in regards to the future of Central Europe.
[...]

The Chiefs of Staff were concerned that given the enormous size of Soviet forces deployed in Europe at the end of the war, and the perception that the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was unreliable, there existed a Soviet threat to Western Europe. The Soviet numerical superiority was roughly 4:1 in men and 2:1 in tanks at the end of hostilities in Europe.[...] The Soviet Union had yet to launch its attack on Japan, and so one assumption in the report was that the Soviet Union would instead ally with Japan if the Western Allies commenced hostilities.

The hypothetical date for the start of the Allied invasion of Soviet-held Europe was scheduled for 1 July 1945.[...] The plan assumed a surprise attack by up to 47 British and American divisions in the area of Dresden, in the middle of Soviet lines.[...] This represented almost a half of roughly 100 divisions (ca. 2.5 million men) available to the British, American and Canadian headquarters at that time.[...]

Comments

Re: Operation Unthinkable

[disassembly_rsn]

One could argue that it forms part of Dean Koontz' book Lightning.

That's a time travel book in which history is rerouted several times, if you haven't read it. Something like this scenario is implied to have happened near the end of the book.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I've run an RPG in that setting.

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

The NZ Division spent VE Day staring down the communists in Trieste - scary times.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

Well it was supposed to have been on the 1st of July 1945, but Churchill kept stalin...

[(Anonymous)]

Give this man a trophy.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

There are people out there who are deeply disappointed that the Western Allies never did anything like this.

[(Anonymous)]

Well arguably it would have been the right thing to do. There already were reports of the atrocities the Soviets were commiting in the conquered territories.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

Which part of "The Soviet numerical superiority was roughly 4:1 in men and 2:1 in tanks at the end of hostilities in Europe." did you not read?

Basically Churchill was planning to do to the Soviets what Hitler had tried to achieve with Operation Barbarossa a few years earlier, with less of an element of surprise, a devastated Europe short on everything lying behind them and with the Soviet military production lines still going full blast safe behind the Caucasus mountains. Kicking off this invasion in July would have meant fighting through the winter in western Russia, assuming they got anywhere to start with. Now who else made that mistake? Hmmm let me see..

And folks wonder why the Soviets positioned so many troops in Eastern Europe after the war.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

"The right thing to do" in the sense of giving the Soviets even more of Europe to control after the exhausted Anglo-American forces collapse against overwhelming force? And if your answer is, "use nukes," it's unlikely the bombs available would've made a difference, and not using them against Japan while not having sufficient forces present to implement Downfall would ensure the continued existence of Imperial Japan.

So, yeah, great premise for a dystopian alt-history.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

"It's hard to believe this hasn't been turned into a crappy Harry Turtledove book"

Ooops - he heard you. "The War That Came Early" series does have Allied troops invading the USSR.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Different branch point, though. Well, two: the war starts early and then, the people of the 1940s realizing a truncated war could cost Turtledove $$, the Brits and French change sides.

Damn good reason to deny anonymity

[florbigoo.livejournal.com]

James, do you think this poster would have posted this had it had to put its own identification to the statement?

Re: Damn good reason to deny anonymity

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

More interesting would be a utopian alt-history based on that premise -- no Cold War with treasure spent on defending the Rodina from the Western capitalists and their millions of troops poised to invade Eastern Europe and no need to clamp down on the Warsaw Pact satellites quite so hard could have led to the Triumph of Socialism originating in some hotbed of left-wing idealism like Paris or Rome. Mack Reynolds played with this idea in a few stories as I recall.

Re: Damn good reason to deny anonymity

[(Anonymous)]

I happen to be from an country of the former Warsaw pact, with a let's say, less than stellar track record on surveillance of people's online activity, whose politics are still heavily influenced by Russia. Excuse me for being less than enthusiastic on disclosing my identity. Mr Nicoll can confirm that by my IP.

Re: Damn good reason to deny anonymity

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

I've seen far, far worse under people's real names. Wanting to fight the Soviets after WW2 isn't even crazy, just poorly thought out.

Re:

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

And then they switch sides again in the next book. Chutzpah, he's got.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

"No need to clamp down on the Warsaw Pact satellites quite so hard"? Yes, I'm sure the people who crushed the '53, '56 and '68 uprisings were actually nice people pushed to extremes by circumstances.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Winston Churchill, military genius. This is even worse than his obsession with the "soft underbelly of Europe." It would make the Dardanelles look like a mishap in a sandbox. (Happy belated Anzac Day, y'all!)

[nojay.livejournal.com]

As far as the Old Men in the Kremlin were concerned those revolts were the Western-inspired precursors to yet another invasion of the Soviet Union, something that had already happened several times since their war of liberation from the corrupt monarchy in 1917 -- France, Britain and America provided troops and support for the pro-monarchy White Russian forces in the civil war in the early 20s, the Japanese invaded the east in the early 30s and latterly the Fascist invasion of the 1940s. The Western Powers were poised ready for another invasion with millions of troops, artillery and armour positioned at the Inner German Border ready to take their chance if the loyal Socialists of the Warsaw Pact powers could be overthrown.

What, you didn't see the situation like that? The Old Men, veterans of the fight against the Fascists and earlier did and they had tens of millions of dead bolstering their point of view.

Re: Damn good reason to deny anonymity

[(Anonymous)]

I find it interesting that just after I posted a reply, explaining that I'm from a former Warsaw pact country still under Russian influence (and recently there have been wiretapping of top politicians scandals, and it seems to be the norm), and that's the reason I want to be anonymous for this comment, and in the comment, also mentioned the words "Russia" and "politics", this livejournal started giving out "503 unavailable" errors to this (public) computer, about five minutes later. I also mentioned Mr Nicoll can confirm this by looking up the IP address I posted it from. And Livejournal are a Russian company. My guess is there were some trigger words.

Otherwise, I agree it might have been unwise (although I am unsure how much pure numerical superiority might have helped the Soviets); "the right thing to do" might not have been the best way to phrase it.

Re: Damn good reason to deny anonymity

[(Anonymous)]

I guess I'm just emotional about it, having had members of my family killed after the Soviet occupation, others put in labor camps. It might have been crazy, maybe not, numerical superiority is not everything.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

It's more likely that kicking off that invasion in July would have meant fighting through the winter in western Spain.

Re: Damn good reason to deny anonymity

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

No, it's another Russian thing, which is that their ability to keep LJ stable is sub-par.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

I would suggest that the sort of people who invaded Poland in cooperation with the Nazis, perpetrated the Katyn massacre, occupied the Baltic States, and installed puppet governments throughout Eastern Europe were as much interested in their own imperialism as concerned about that of the West. The idea that Stalin and "the Old Men of the Kremlin" would've been nice blokes if not for Western posturing is the sort of nonsense Orwell was always rattling on about.