WI: No Bomber Gap Fiasco?

Berra

The Bomber Gap, the belif that the Soviets had more bombers then the Americans, was in some ways funny. The Soviets flew each bomber over the Red Square multiple times during parades thus making the Americans belive that the Soviets had more bombers.

However, cold war logic dictated that the Americans should build more bombers to close the gap. Thus saying that the Soviets where better of due to their little trick is hard.

So say the Americans have some good spies within the Soviet establishment, the Soviet intelligence realize what is about to happen and make the Soviet arms intustry more open.

Then what? Early detente?
 

Orville_third

Banned
Less expenditures on weapons by both sides. (With hawks screaming bloody murder...) The US and USSR can now compete more in Spying, foreign Aid and Sports... And, of course, proxy wars...
 

Linkwerk

As I understand it, the "Bomber Gap" was always known by the US intelligence community to be bunk. It was, however, a useful political tool to scare up funding for the USAF. The logic used to justify the bomber gap were based on a whole series of assumptions about unseen factories and hypothetical Long-Range Aviation regiments. Even if the information became more widely known, through earlier spysats or more aggressive U-2 flights, or even just somebody using plain logic to look at Soviet industrial capacity, there would still be enterprising politicians looking for an issue to prove their national security credentials, and there would still be ambitious generals jockeying for their branches. Something like the bomber gap was very easy to sell in 1950's America.
 

Jukra

Berra said:
So say the Americans have some good spies within the Soviet establishment, the Soviet intelligence realize what is about to happen and make the Soviet arms intustry more open.

Then what? Early detente?
Click to expand...

Not at all. US intelligence "realizes" that the Soviets have hidden all those bomber regiments inside vast caves in Urals. In the meantime the Soviet military-industrial complex screams bloody murder about giving secrets of The Decisive Weapon System to capitalists. Smartest members of Politburo also remember that USSR always has to have external threats to survive.:cool:
 
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