WI: Fascist vs. Communist Cold War

[Delta Force]

Fascist regimes will never accept even a mutually assured destruction status quo. Any fascist regime with nuclear weapons will be a regime that uses their nuclear weapons. There is no cold war in such a situation, only the brief pause before the fascists get the arsenals they feel are necessary.

The Germans were well ahead in the development of chemical weapons but they thought they were actually at parity with the Allies and refrained from using them. Germany also refrained from using chemical weapons because it would have risked contaminating friendly forces and disrupting logistics for their maneuver warfare. On a more strategic scale, it also doesn't make sense to devastate land desired for resettlement by using long lasting weapons such as chemical and nuclear weapons.

Another issue is that you are assuming that the scientists working on the program actually want it to succeed. If they think that the weapons are actually going to be used, especially for genocidal purposes, they might deliberately slow things down. This is something Werner Heisenberg may have done with the German nuclear program.

The Commonwealth/United States and Soviet nuclear programs didn't have those problems because they were working under the assumption that Germany was well ahead and wouldn't hesitate to use them first. As the Cold War developed many of those same scientists tried to slow the arms race. J. Robert Oppenheimer opposed the development of thermonuclear weapons and Andrei Sakharov later became a prominent dissident due to the implications of his work.

Because fascism values things like the cult of action and race over their own lives.

Apartheid South Africa is the only state in history to abandon a domestically developed nuclear weapons capability. To clarify, I don't mean that they were working on nuclear weapons and gave up, I mean they had a factory producing Little Boy gun type nuclear bombs and had aircraft capable of delivering them.

The South African nuclear weapons program wasn't just the creation of the Apartheid state, but intended as an insurance option for it. Instead of using the nuclear option the Apartheid government decided to dismantle the program (without so much as a confirmed test) and begin the transition to democracy.

 

[Catalunya]

Regarding the Free French, you might get a split? The London based ones will join in the liberation but a lot of the colonial administrators will refuse to follow what they see as a soviet puppet (rightly or wrongly, doesn't really matter).

Were the Free French really that anti-communist though? The Parisian regime will have a lot of legitimacy, and in the ‘worst case scenario’ it would be led by the communists, but not exclusively governed by them. I can’t imagine Stalin immediately putting the hammer and sickle on the French flag, to state it like that, or the British allowing that to happen for that matter.

 

[Nyvis]

Were the Free French really that anti-communist though? The Parisian regime will have a lot of legitimacy, and in the ‘worst case scenario’ it would be led by the communists, but not exclusively governed by them. I can’t imagine Stalin immediately putting the hammer and sickle on the French flag, to state it like that, or the British allowing that to happen for that matter.

The French left had a very strong presence in the resistance on the ground though. With them rising up to meet the soviet as they push in, I expect this means Stalin won't have to try that hard to have them dominate the new republic. And sure, it won't all be Moscow aligned communists, but it'll still be socialists.

Meanwhile the Free French are mostly career military and colonial administrations, not great demographics for left wing sympathy.

 

[Catalunya]

The French left had a very strong presence in the resistance on the ground though. With them rising up to meet the soviet as they push in, I expect this means Stalin won't have to try that hard to have them dominate the new republic. And sure, it won't all be Moscow aligned communists, but it'll still be socialists.

Meanwhile the Free French are mostly career military and colonial administrations, not great demographics for left wing sympathy.

That doesn’t mean they’ll align with the Americans, who left them at the mercy of the Germans, without any support of the metropole. Furthermore, the Free French would still be aligned with the Brits, who’d want the two French forces to rejoin. I’d wager the Free French would go to Paris, and enter politics, to shift the nation to the right. Possibly ending with a failed coup like the May 1958 crisis.

 

[Nyvis]

That doesn’t mean they’ll align with the Americans, who left them at the mercy of the Germans, without any support of the metropole. Furthermore, the Free French would still be aligned with the Brits, who’d want the two French forces to rejoin. I’d wager the Free French would go to Paris, and enter politics, to shift the nation to the right. Possibly ending with a failed coup like the May 1958 crisis.

There's no way a France liberated by the soviets would let them set up enough to do such a failed coup.

I never said they'd all split away. As I mentioned before, the London based free french forces probably goes back as part of the liberation. The ones I'm skeptical about is the colonies.

 

[Catalunya]

There's no way a France liberated by the soviets would let them set up enough to do such a failed coup.

I never said they'd all split away. As I mentioned before, the London based free french forces probably goes back as part of the liberation. The ones I'm skeptical about is the colonies.

The Free French would be even more closely joined by the hip to the British than IOTL. They’ll help liberate both Italy, and North Africa. Also by the time the Soviets enter Warsaw, there will have to be allied forces on the beaches of West France. The French liberation ITTL will probably resemble more closely that of Yugoslavia, with Axis troops going to the defense of Berlin, making it easier for the Resistance to liberate the country, though I could still see the Soviets cross the French border, but not the Seine.

 

[Nyvis]

The Free French would be even more closely joined by the hip to the British than IOTL. They’ll help liberate both Italy, and North Africa. Also by the time the Soviets enter Warsaw, there will have to be allied forces on the beaches of West France. The French liberation ITTL will probably resemble more closely that of Yugoslavia, with Axis troops going to the defense of Berlin, making it easier for the Resistance to liberate the country, though I could still see the Soviets cross the French border, but not the Seine.

The UK alone is totally not going to storm French beaches. At least not before the soviets are into Germany proper and forcing a redirection of most of the forces in France back to the home front.

I could see the soviets and British forces meeting in Paris. Though you have to account for the fact that Paris attempted to rise up OTL so they may have to scramble to avoid a repeat of Warsaw. Which should be doable since the longer grind for the soviets would have required even more German divestment away from France.

Not sure if the British have enough to do a liberation of Italy in addition to this either. Though North Africa definitely happens, yes.

It's also possible you see a higher rate of recruitment from the colonies by the free french due to the longer conflict, which could force them into a decolonial position earlier. That'd be a way to square it?

 

[Catalunya]

The UK alone is totally not going to storm French beaches. At least not before the soviets are into Germany proper and forcing a redirection of most of the forces in France back to the home front.

I could see the soviets and British forces meeting in Paris. Though you have to account for the fact that Paris attempted to rise up OTL so they may have to scramble to avoid a repeat of Warsaw. Which should be doable since the longer grind for the soviets would have required even more German divestment away from France.

Not sure if the British have enough to do a liberation of Italy in addition to this either. Though North Africa definitely happens, yes.

It's also possible you see a higher rate of recruitment from the colonies by the free french due to the longer conflict, which could force them into a decolonial position earlier. That'd be a way to square it?

By the time the Soviets near Germany proper, the Atlantic Wall will be the last of the German’s concerns, which should make it easier for the British Empire to storm the French beaches.

I think both the French, and British would call upon more (colored) men from their empires, which would have all kinds of interesting ramifications, on top of both nations probably losing more men, and needing more rebuilding due to a longer war, you could have much higher immigration to the two countries.