Suez Crisis would the USSR have used nukes?
- Thread starter Euroman26
- Start date
No. Khrushchev was not serious about supporting Nasser and was counting on Eden listening to Eisenhower. If they had pressed on Khrushchev would have ended up looking like an idiot and it's entirely possible that he would be murdered by some hardliners. Georgy Malenkov and the rest of the anti-party group tried anyway the year later, if the crisis develops as you say Khrushchev might actually get ousted.
That could, indirectly lead to WW3 of course, being that some hardline communist nutjobs were in office after that chain of events, but from the crisis alone, no.
Would a removal of Nasser during the Suez-crysis have prevented future arab/israeli wars? Because we know that Nasser was the driving force in every war between Israel and the arab states. With him removed what then?
NOPE.
In my opinion if there had been no Nasser in power in Egypt in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s the Middle East would have been much more peaceful.
I would have to agree with the others that the USSR isn't likely to use nukes over Egypt. On top of the points others have brought up, the nuclear balance of power in 1956 is very much not in the USSR's favor.
The USSR simply didn't have the capability to intervene militarily during the Suez Crisis with either nukes or conventional weapons. Nikky K may have been boasting that he had ICBM's rolling off the production lines "like sausages" but in reality at that time the first R-7 missile was being prepared for it's test flight, which subsequently failed. However Western Intelligence had no idea as to the true state of Soviet strategic forces hence the famed but erroneous " missile gap."
As was said above, Nasser wasn't regarded particularly well in Moscow, certainly not enough to risk WWIII. Khruschev took a risk and was lucky when Ike unintentionally spared his blushes. Despite his popular image Khruschev knew the USSR was weaker than America which is why he used the space program to create an image of greater strength so as to ward off NATO.
As was said above, Nasser wasn't regarded particularly well in Moscow, certainly not enough to risk WWIII. Khruschev took a risk and was lucky when Ike unintentionally spared his blushes. Despite his popular image Khruschev knew the USSR was weaker than America which is why he used the space program to create an image of greater strength so as to ward off NATO.
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Khruschev had gone through the second world war and his policy had always been to avoid a third. Prior to Suez he'd make references to wiping Paris or London off the face of the Earth for one reason or another, but during the crisis he made it a point to not threaten the states openly and directly.
How so? He started no aggressive wars against Israel, tried (but failed) to promote some pan-Arab unity. Hell, his most aggressive action towards Britain and France was the nationalization of the Suez Canal, which isn't too bad, seeing as how it was on Egyptian territory and all.
To be fair, there were plenty of people in the West who knew that the missile gap had no basis in fact, but went along with it anyway because it was a politically convenient piece of fiction.
Wolfpaw
Banned
The Hardliners were actually the ones leading the opposition to helping Egypt. Molotov was particularly horrified that Khrushchev was willing to "go out on a limb" for Nasser.
There is 0% that the Soviets would use nuclear weapons to support a dictator with who they have lukewarm relations and only a year ago were denouncing as "fascist."
So what would happen if Suez goes Eden's way but the Americans still didn't back Britain and France.
What would that mean for Eisenhower and British politics?
The 'Special Relationship' suffers some serious damage. At worst the UK becomes as hostile to the US as France does/did, at best things warm up substantially when Eisenhower leaves office.
Wolfpaw
Banned
Chillier relations between the US and the UK for a bit. The issue with Suez is that a Tripartite victory means that Britain probably becomes the major Western power in the ME (for a time) and likely clings to its African holdings a bit longer, so a slower decolonization there. The Baghdad Pact expands to include Egypt and eventually Jordan and Lebanon before falling apart of its own accord.
What would that mean for NATO and American politics since Eisenhower now has some egg on his face?
Wolfpaw
Banned
Doesn't mean much. Eisenhower (and Dulles especially) never had the best working relationship with Eden, and NATO is too important to let fall apart due to a policy disagreement in the ME.
The major thing is how such a success effects the mindset of Britain (which remains moored to its imperialism), France (who is mired in North Africa), and--of course--the Arab world.
Britain will delay decolonisation by about a decade but unless it's economy starts to perform significantly better in the following years then it is eventually going to have to start reducing it's overseas commitments from the late 60's onwards. The main reason why Britain quit East of Suez wasn't because of pressure from the nations it was in, governments like Malaysia and Singapore actually wanted Britain to stay, it was because Britain couldn't afford to fund those commitments. So unless Eden sets in place a new economic policy then the result is going to be the same as OTL only later.
That's hardly surprising. My father was working for "Free Europe Press", a subsidiary of "Radio Free Europe" with Ferdinand Peroutka (BTW an early Alternate History author, he wrote a novel about the rescue of Joan of Arc) in the 1950s and always said that his CIA contacts were complete morons who had no idea what to make of the intel he was supplying them. The soviets were more than busy putting down the Hungarian revolution and the west could have easily demanded a carte blanche from them in Egypt for granting it (as they did) in Hungary.
depends on who comes to power. But probably not. Even without Nasser, there still would've been a lot of bloodshed. But I'm pro-Nasser, so I thinnk of him pretty highly