Brad Warbiany wonders how the past 60 years might have been different if nuclear weapons had never been developed.

Here’s a few scenarios that I think are quite likely:

1. The Invasion of Japan

Without the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or a coup in Tokyo (which seems unlikely), the Allies would have been required to invade the Japanese home islands in order defeat Japan. Plans for such an invasion were in the works prior to the end of the war and estimates at the time of more than 1 million casualties and over 200,000 deaths on the allied side and as many as 5 to 10 million on the Japanese side. And that’s assuming things went according to plan, which they often did not in World War Two.

The post-war consequences of such an invasion are unclear, but it’s obvious that Japan would have been far more devastated than it was in September 1945, and would have taken far longer, if ever, to bounce back. The role that Japan has played in the Post-WW2 world would have been far different.

Source: Below the beltway