What if every Cold War POTUS is SI’ed from their last day as POTUS to inauguration day

raharris1973

Well-known member
Option 1. Hot Take:
For each One from Truman to Bush I, consider What if every Cold War POTUS is SI’ed from their last day as POTUS to inauguration day

Option 2. Long Take:
For each President from Truman to Bush, SI them from their last moments of living reasonable memory, and cognitive awareness to their Inauguration Day.

For Truman this is from 1972.
For Eisenhower this is from 1969
For Kennedy obviously nothing changes
For Johnson this is 1973
For Nixon this is 1994
For Ford this is 2006
For Reagan this is some date substantially before his physical expiration in 2004
For Bush I this is 2018
For Carter this is now or honestly could have happened in the last couple years

Option 3. All Cold War Presidents, are SI’ed from the present day- if deceased, their ghosts who have been accurately perceiving history unfold are the consciousnesses that do the SI to Inauguration Day.
 

Atarlost

Well-known member
Option 3 is the simplest. All of them except Carter would be horrified at the delayed success of soviet demoralization operations against the US and Europe.

So the first thing that happens is that Truman tells Churchill that Japan's teeth are pulled and it can stew behind a submarine blockade while they carry out Operation Unthinkable. And demonstrate atomic bombs on the largest concentrations of Russian troops in Germany.

And after Mothra, further speculation is fruitless.

Truman might do something like this in all of the scenarios. Averting MAD by destroying the Soviet Union before it can assure mutual destruction would probably tempt most people and 1953 Truman knows what the window for doing so is. 1972 Truman is even more likely to do so because he's seen the Vietnam anti-war movement.
 
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ATP

Well-known member
Option 1. Hot Take:
For each One from Truman to Bush I, consider What if every Cold War POTUS is SI’ed from their last day as POTUS to inauguration day

Option 2. Long Take:
For each President from Truman to Bush, SI them from their last moments of living reasonable memory, and cognitive awareness to their Inauguration Day.

For Truman this is from 1972.
For Eisenhower this is from 1969
For Kennedy obviously nothing changes
For Johnson this is 1973
For Nixon this is 1994
For Ford this is 2006
For Reagan this is some date substantially before his physical expiration in 2004
For Bush I this is 2018
For Carter this is now or honestly could have happened in the last couple years

Option 3. All Cold War Presidents, are SI’ed from the present day- if deceased, their ghosts who have been accurately perceiving history unfold are the consciousnesses that do the SI to Inauguration Day.

1.Truman - 1.nothing change.2.destroy soviets3.destroy soviets and kill american leftists.
2.Eisenhover - 1.maybe support Hungary in 19562.Certainly support Hungary3.Burn soviets and kill leftists in USA.
3.JFK - 1.get better security2.the same3.the same,burn soviets in 1961 and kill leftists in USA.
4.Johnson - 1.Maybe widraw from Vietnam2.Certainly widraw from Vietnam3.send weapons to Vietnam and special forces,and let generals wage war there.Stop "great society" nonsense.
5.Nixon - 1.try help Vietnam2.try help Vietnam,do not spy on democrats.3.the same,try save american schools from leftists
6.Reagan - 1.Nothing change2.Fuck soviets more, made them widraw from Europe till 1988 and real elections there.3.The same,and try do destry leftist influence in USA.
7.Bush older - 1.Notching change 2.Do not try save soviets,made honest elections in Poland in 1990.3.The same,and try do destroy leftist influence in USA.
8.Carter - notching change,everything is fine.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Option 3 is the simplest. All of them except Carter would be horrified at the delayed success of soviet demoralization operations against the US and Europe.

So the first thing that happens is that Truman tells Churchill that Japan's teeth are pulled and it can stew behind a submarine blockade while they carry out Operation Unthinkable. And demonstrate atomic bombs on the largest concentrations of Russian troops in Germany.

And after Mothra, further speculation is fruitless.

Truman might do something like this in all of the scenarios. Averting MAD by destroying the Soviet Union before it can assure mutual destruction would probably tempt most people and 1953 Truman knows what the window for doing so is. 1972 Truman is even more likely to do so because he's seen the Vietnam anti-war movement.

Operation Unthinkable would involve a lot of US casualties, no?

Option 1. Hot Take:
For each One from Truman to Bush I, consider What if every Cold War POTUS is SI’ed from their last day as POTUS to inauguration day

Option 2. Long Take:
For each President from Truman to Bush, SI them from their last moments of living reasonable memory, and cognitive awareness to their Inauguration Day.

For Truman this is from 1972.
For Eisenhower this is from 1969
For Kennedy obviously nothing changes
For Johnson this is 1973
For Nixon this is 1994
For Ford this is 2006
For Reagan this is some date substantially before his physical expiration in 2004
For Bush I this is 2018
For Carter this is now or honestly could have happened in the last couple years

Option 3. All Cold War Presidents, are SI’ed from the present day- if deceased, their ghosts who have been accurately perceiving history unfold are the consciousnesses that do the SI to Inauguration Day.

LBJ might decide not to escalate the Vietnam War if given a second chance. Nixon would destroy the Watergate tapes, obviously. Or just not do Watergate at all. Eisenhower might avoid pressuring the Anglo-French over Suez. Truman I think would tell his generals to stop at the Taedong River in Korea rather than to advance all of the way up to the Yalu River. A great defensive line can be built on the Taedong River, I would suspect. Ford has a chance of not pardoning Nixon, though I'm unsure about this. Bush Sr. I would presume would refuse to allow Saddam Hussein to use his (Iraq's) helicopters in/after the ceasefire agreement for the 1991 Gulf War. And he would also make it crystal-clear to Saddam Hussein that the US will militarily intervene if Saddam Hussein will attack and conquer Kuwait.
 

Atarlost

Well-known member
Operation Unthinkable would involve a lot of US casualties, no?
Compared to the civil war that looks like it's coming in scenario 3 or the nuclear exchange that looks like it's coming in all of the scenarios 1 and 2, no. It'll make Truman a one term president, but he'll be able to live with himself.

And possibly not as many as you think. Unthinkable uses the Germans to absorb the initial casualties and Russian manpower is often exaggerated. It's not actually limitless like in the memes and they've spent an awful lot recently without actually having had enough time to fully recover from the First World War and their civil war and Stalin's engineered famines.

Furthermore, I believe Unthinkable was originally planned without nukes, but the first nukes are available by the time Truman is inaugurated. I think Russia's rail network runs through only a few cities and they're in B-29 range of England. 2900 miles is a long ways. I think the major rail nexi were Stalingrad and Moscow. Both are within range from England. Moscow also has political significance and might be a decapitation strike, though we probably aren't so lucky.

If the rail network is cut off I would not expect the Red Army to remain mechanized for long. Their tanks and trucks are more reliable by this time than the Germans, but they still need fuel that's back in the Caucasus, which incidentally are close enough to British Iraq that the Brits were thinking of bombing them with their early war bombers back when Hitler was buying oil from Stalin and France was still a continental ally to take advantage of the fuel supply disruption.

The worst case is pretty bad, but there is a chance to get lucky and failing to crush the USSR before Stalin can put his stolen nuclear secrets into practice looks a lot worse than even the worst case.
 

ATP

Well-known member
Compared to the civil war that looks like it's coming in scenario 3 or the nuclear exchange that looks like it's coming in all of the scenarios 1 and 2, no. It'll make Truman a one term president, but he'll be able to live with himself.

And possibly not as many as you think. Unthinkable uses the Germans to absorb the initial casualties and Russian manpower is often exaggerated. It's not actually limitless like in the memes and they've spent an awful lot recently without actually having had enough time to fully recover from the First World War and their civil war and Stalin's engineered famines.

Furthermore, I believe Unthinkable was originally planned without nukes, but the first nukes are available by the time Truman is inaugurated. I think Russia's rail network runs through only a few cities and they're in B-29 range of England. 2900 miles is a long ways. I think the major rail nexi were Stalingrad and Moscow. Both are within range from England. Moscow also has political significance and might be a decapitation strike, though we probably aren't so lucky.

If the rail network is cut off I would not expect the Red Army to remain mechanized for long. Their tanks and trucks are more reliable by this time than the Germans, but they still need fuel that's back in the Caucasus, which incidentally are close enough to British Iraq that the Brits were thinking of bombing them with their early war bombers back when Hitler was buying oil from Stalin and France was still a continental ally to take advantage of the fuel supply disruption.

The worst case is pretty bad, but there is a chance to get lucky and failing to crush the USSR before Stalin can put his stolen nuclear secrets into practice looks a lot worse than even the worst case.
All true.
Add few facts - 50% of oil come from Baku,which would be destroyed in one raid.Becouse soviets do not have working nightfighters,or fighters capable of schooting B.29.
So,after few weeks they would fight using horses.

Their airpower sucked - to the point,where they could not prevent germans from bombing their forces with Ju87 when they had 8:1 numerical advantage.
Against Allies? it would be turkey schoot.I see tons of new allied aces.

They need constant delivering of american trucks to continue offensive.Not going to happen.

All in all - Allies only need to defend in germany using german soldiers for 2-3 months,wait till soviets would be out of oil,and send Navy to Baltic- poles there waited for that.Then cut soviet army in germany,and demand capitulation.
nuking one soviet city per month till they agreed.

Since soviets had maybe 10 cities in which important stuff was made,nuking them mean soviet fighting with rocks and sticks.
So,@WolfBear ,americans had nothing to fear.
 

Atarlost

Well-known member
All true.
Add few facts - 50% of oil come from Baku,which would be destroyed in one raid.Becouse soviets do not have working nightfighters,or fighters capable of schooting B.29.
So,after few weeks they would fight using horses.

Their airpower sucked - to the point,where they could not prevent germans from bombing their forces with Ju87 when they had 8:1 numerical advantage.
Against Allies? it would be turkey schoot.I see tons of new allied aces.

They need constant delivering of american trucks to continue offensive.Not going to happen.

All in all - Allies only need to defend in germany using german soldiers for 2-3 months,wait till soviets would be out of oil,and send Navy to Baltic- poles there waited for that.Then cut soviet army in germany,and demand capitulation.
nuking one soviet city per month till they agreed.

Since soviets had maybe 10 cities in which important stuff was made,nuking them mean soviet fighting with rocks and sticks.
So,@WolfBear ,americans had nothing to fear.
I'm not quite that optimistic myself. The Germans probably need some American and British stiffening and I didn't think the nuke production rate got that high for a few years, but the conclusion is pretty much inevitable. Nukes are an OCP at this point. It's rough on the Germans, but I have finite sympathy. It's rough on the Poles and Ukrainians and Chinese and Russians, but not as rough as letting Stalin stay in power and help Mao win the Chinese Civil War.
 
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ATP

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I'm not quite that optimistic myself. The Germans probably need some American and British stiffening and I didn't think the nuke production rate got that high for a few years, but the conclusion is pretty much inevitable. Nukes are an OCP at this point. It's rough on the Germans, but I have finite sympathy. It's rough on the Poles and Ukrainians and Chinese and Russians, but not as rough as letting Stalin stay in power and help Mao win the Chinese Civil War.
True.soviets at best would come to french border.
 

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