On nukes and speaking Russian
In response to my previous post, someone on a message board replied to the primary question ("What might have been?") with, "We would be speaking Russian." And another commenter also indicated he believed the Soviets would or could have developed nuclear weapons first and conquered the world in the absence of the Manhattan Project. In this particular example, the blame appears to fall back on the Manhattan Project itself, since Stalin didn't have a nuke program until he heard about the one in the U.S.
But I think a more important point for the general case is that a free society, unencumbered by destructive taxation and regulation, would be extremely wealthy and highly versatile. Such a society would have people and firms that would have total mastery over information gathering and would know about a foreign power's weapons plans in short order. The idea that a wealthy, free, and fiercely independent people would not spontaneously organize to prevent the development or use of such a weapon is absurd. Not to mention that a society that had eliminated the state or reduced it to the point that it was not engaging in military adventures (and the resultant weapons development) would not even represent a threat meriting the creation of a civilization-endangering weapon by a foreign state.
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May 1st, 2010 - 14:58
What “threat” were any of the East European nations to the Soviet Union after WW2? “Threats” are not the only motivators of military actions – tempting opportunities for easy aggrandizement to acquire wealth and resources, and aggressive ideology are just as common (if not more so).
May 1st, 2010 - 22:59
Well, I would tend to agree, but that’s not what I said. I referred to a “threat meriting the creation of a civilization-endangering weapon by a foreign state.” I’m not arguing here that a Soviet Union in a nuke-free alternate universe would somehow refrain from aggressing against its non-threatening neighbors; my point was just that such dynamics would not tend to lead to the development of a nuclear weapons program by the aggressor.