Solution Unsatisfactory

"Solution Unsatisfactory" is a 1941 science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein - predicting the development and conclusion of the then ongoing Second World War and the post war world, making it a retroactive alternate history . It describes the US effort to build a nuclear weapon in order to end the ongoing World War II, and its dystopian consequences to the nation and the world.

The story was first published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, with illustrations by Frank Kramer. In November 1940, Astounding editor John W. Campbell had suggested that Heinlein write a story about the use of radioactive dust as a weapon, proposing a detailed scenario. Heinlein discarded Campbell's scenario, and wrote a story he called "Foreign Policy", submitting it to Campbell in December 1940 with the comment "I turned the original idea upside down, inside out, shook it, and have turned out an entirely different story". Campbell quickly accepted the piece, changing the title to "Solution Unsatisfactory"; it appeared in the May 1941 issue, under Heinlein's "Anson MacDonald" pseudonym. "Universe" appeared in the same issue under Heinlein's name.

The story is collected in The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein in 1966, Expanded Universe in 1980, and the Science Fiction Book Club omnibus Off the Main Sequence: The Other Science Fiction Stories of Robert A. Heinlein in 2005. An Italian translation appeared in 1967 and a German translation in 1972.

The 1972 collection Myths and Modern Man noted

It is strange how, among all the justified praise heaped upon Heinlein, what should have counted as one of the most brilliant successes of his entire career is very much overlooked. I talk, of course, about the 1940 story "Solution Unsatisfactory". At the time when the Second World War just got seriously going, the United States and Soviet Union had not yet become directly involved and the world's attention was riveted on the unfolding Battle of Britain, Heinlein was four or five steps ahead of everybody. More than a year before Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Project, Heinlein correctly foresaw that: a) The President of the US would initiate a secret project to develop nuclear weapons and employ scientist refugees from Nazi Europe; b) By 1945, the US would have a weapon able to destroy an entire city in one blow from a single airplane—and would use that weapon to end to war; c) That with the US having thus won the war, the world would become aware of the realities of a nuclear arms race—without using the term, Heinlein predicted and described in detail the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction; and d) Concretely, the main issue on the agenda in the post-1945 years would be whether the Soviet Union would obtain nuclear arms, and if it did—would the Soviets try to launch a surprise nuclear attack on the United States. For having predicted all that in 1940—even to accurately predicting the remorse and guilt feeling of the scientists involved—Heinlein deserves much plaudits. In my view, this should have counted for more than the Future History—which is entertaining but widely off the mark as, well, future history.