the economic cold war

[Straha]

Dave Howery
Posted on Saturday, July 27, 2002 - 06:19 am:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's usually thought that the west won the cold war by outspending the Soviets; developing exotic military technology, higher levels of aid to important countries, and the very attractive consumerism life in America in general. Meanwhile, the Soviets were burdened with money draining lumps like Cuba and North Korea. What if this strategy had been realized and acted on earlier, say the 50's or so? In this ATL, the west adopts a strategy of letting the Soviets have all the miserable 3rd world useless countries they want (with the idea that such places will be a drain on their treasury), while the west fights like hell for all the places that have valuable resources (oil nations, south africa, etc.), strategic value (Iran, Thailand), or that we are just morally obligated to protect (Isreal). Would this have shortened or lengthened the cold war? made it less or more tense? I see no vietnam conflict, although a possible one in THailand. America would have run bigger deficits earlier. Plus, the Soviets tended to build big armies in those miserable dirt poor countries they did support (think cuba and nicaragua). thoughts?