What if the Cold War never happened?

[TrashMammal2019]

I'm not sure if this was answered or even asked, but instead of "What if the Cold War never ended?" it's going to be "What if the Cold War never happened?"
Let's say, after World War II, the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union just didn't go at each others throats, and the Cold War never started and never happened.
How does America and the World would look like?

 

[Craig]

I'm not sure if this was answered or even asked, but instead of "What if the Cold War never ended?" it's going to be "What if the Cold War never happened?"
Let's say, after World War II, the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union just didn't go at each others throats, and the Cold War never started and never happened.
How does America and the World would look like?

Perhaps the question is 'Can a USSR that hadn't been run by an industrializing psychopath over the previous 20 years have won the Great Patriotic War?'

 

[GSD310]

I'm not sure if this was answered or even asked, but instead of "What if the Cold War never ended?" it's going to be "What if the Cold War never happened?"
Let's say, after World War II, the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union just didn't go at each others throats, and the Cold War never started and never happened.
How does America and the World would look like?

I'm just wondering how difficult it is to avoid a Cold War. In OTL, you had liberal democracy, fascism, and communism; liberal democracy aligns with communism to defeat fascism; now liberal democracy and communism are the two left behind. I'm just wondering if the gap (in terms of values and otherwise) are too great to be overcome.

I'm just considering the other possible 3-way scenarios (Communism and fascism aligns to defeat democracy, communism and fascism are left; liberal democracy and fascism aligns to defeat communism, liberal democracy and fascism are left). and wondering whether whichever 2 ideologies/political systems left behind are destined to become rivals.

 

[Lalli]

I just can't see avoiding Cold War with any post-WW2 POD. Stalin was going to push his influence over Eastern Europe and was serious threat for Europe and USA wasn't going to return to isolationism and it had already taking anti-Communist stance. It just was inevitable. Even if Stalin dies at end of WW2 this hardly would change anything.

Probably only way to avoid Cold War is that Barbarossa is even worse to Soviets and they can just barely expel Germans from Soviet Union but can't take Poland and Eastern Germany and such Allies liberate Poland and Czechoslovakia and take Romania and Balkans.

Or then on some reason Hitler doesn't launch Barbarossa on some reason but it probably would require France not fall in Spring 1940.

 

[Cudymcar]

It just was inevitable

Nothing is inevitable until it happens.

 

[Lalli]

Nothing is inevitable until it happens.

Depends POD. With 1945 POD it was going to happen. But POD during early WW2 or even before WW2 could butterfly Cold War away.

 

[Bougnas]

Or then on some reason Hitler doesn't launch Barbarossa on some reason but it probably would require France not fall in Spring 1940.

Agreed on that one, or just Entente win in a Munich war or even before. Beyond Barbarossa directly involving the USSR and traumatizing it even more than WW1, the Fall of France forced the remaining neutral countries in central and eastern europe to be involved in the war only to be crippled and occupied or liberated by the USSR as well.

No Fall of France means the European front can end with the USSR making inroads in the Baltics, Poland and maybe Czechoslovakia at best, while keeping relatively strong but disunited european countries (Entente, Italy and friends, Balkan/eastern european nations). Probably too strong for the USSR to contemplate any war, but also far fewer fears of the West coming to get them. Much like pre-WW2.

 

[Cudymcar]

With 1945 POD it was going to happen

Still doable. For example:

Even if Stalin dies at end of WW2 this hardly would change anything

This can change everything. Molotov is Stalin's undisputed successor as Prime Minister, and he was clearly against his boss' adventurous policy in Iran. So the Iranian crisis is prevented, and it was the Iranian crisis IOTL which triggered initiation of the Truman doctrine.

 

[Garrison]

I'm not sure if this was answered or even asked, but instead of "What if the Cold War never ended?" it's going to be "What if the Cold War never happened?"
Let's say, after World War II, the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union just didn't go at each others throats, and the Cold War never started and never happened.
How does America and the World would look like?

Well the key question is how? The USA and the USSR had conflicting strategic interests in 1945, and lets not forget the USA and the other Western democracies were hardly warm towards the USSR before WWII. you would need a very different set of circumstances between 1933 and 1945 to avert the Cold War. No Nazis and no war is the obvious one, or the USSR is forced into a massive retreat in WW2 and the Western Allies make to the borders of the Ukraine and Byelorussia some time after 1945. Obviously those examples create very different worlds from OTL.

 

[DCC1966]

The first question is: Why does the Cold War not happen?

I agree that it was very likely to happen, but that”s not what OP asked. But, it makes a difference if no Cold War because the US goes Communist, or because the USSR is too busy fighting a civil war, or because everyone decides to be nice, or whatever.

 

[Kronistry]

A Cold War was not inevitable. We could have seen the two blocks isolate themselves from each other without entering into indirect conflict. If the USSR decides to be strictly isolationist (possible as long as Stalin lives because in 1946 he was not interested in a further expansion of Soviet influence but he wanted to consolidate what he had just gained). Then, upon his death, his successor could simply try to reform the economy (especially if Lavrenti Beria becomes the new leader) and maintain friendly relations with the US. The US themselves may well fall back into isolationism (some Republicans favored this IOTL) and decide only to ensure that communism does not infiltrate Western Europe and America proper.

 

[The Link]

I'm just wondering how difficult it is to avoid a Cold War. In OTL, you had liberal democracy, fascism, and communism; liberal democracy aligns with communism to defeat fascism; now liberal democracy and communism are the two left behind. I'm just wondering if the gap (in terms of values and otherwise) are too great to be overcome.

I'm just considering the other possible 3-way scenarios (Communism and fascism aligns to defeat democracy, communism and fascism are left; liberal democracy and fascism aligns to defeat communism, liberal democracy and fascism are left). and wondering whether whichever 2 ideologies/political systems left behind are destined to become rivals.

The Soviet Union cooperated not only with the west, but also with the axis: in 1939-1941 the cooperation between the III Reich and the USSR was fruitful, they cooperated economically and allowed themselves for the expansions in spite of the objections from the west. It even came to the situation that during that period Stalin forbade the Comintern to act against the axis. So yeah, the existence of third player is a major factor. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the west became the one against whom Stalin forbade the foreign communists to act. And once ww2 came to an end, Stalin reactivated the communist fifth columns in the west.

The Soviet Union could coexist with the west after ww2 only if there was some kind of western-soviet version of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact against the third world. But then again, the third world wouldn't be "noone's land" if the Soviets hadn't been igniting there the anti-western movements in the first place.

 

[Bellacinos]

A good start would have been to have a different president in 1916 who avoids intervening in the Russian civil war.