The Fifty Years' War

[WestVirginiaRebel]

WI the Cold War had been an actual armed conflict (not just proxy wars) lasting at least fifty years? With battlefields in Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East and campaigns that lasted for years on end?

What effect (assuming it didn't lead to a new dark age or humanity's extinction) would this have on, say, Western Europe, popular culture, and politics in the U.S.? Would there have been a civil war in the U.S. in the 1960s, for example, as the baby boomers rebelled against getting drafted to fight what many of them see as their parents' war?

[DSS]

This is one of those scary things I can actually see happening... a war between Russia and America from 1940 to 1990. I've often thought about a war between America and Russia just before WWII, and what I think would be extremely interesting is how we could get Russia to declare war on America (or the other way around) the day before Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, I can't see anything like that happening.

To be completely plausible, though, I don't see any way we can get in a war with the USSR before Barbarossa.

But then again, here's another interesting scenario... Perhaps not entirely plausible, but just something to think about.

Somehow, we get Germany to win the Battle of Stalingrad with minimal casualties. They advance far and capture the Caucasus and its oil fields that are so vital to the Russians. It's then that Stalin really wants oil, and (perhaps we should have an earlier POD to get rid of Pearl Harbor, make things easier) invades Alaska for its oil fields. Of course, the Americans fight back, and there we have it - a Soviet-American War in 1941.

But as far as a war lasting for fifty years, I don't think it would happen. One of the latter would happen:

1. After many casualties, the Americans surrender Alaska and sign a peace treaty.

2. The Americans invade Russia, and occupy them.

3. Stalin comes to his senses and tries to arrange a treaty with America sometime in 1943/44; whether he succeeds is a different question.

4. If no peaces are made by November 1944, President Roosevelt, running on a continue-the-war-against-tyranny platform is defeated by a peace candidate, much like 1968 Nixon vs. Humphrey. Following his inauguration (Dewey? Willkie? Perhaps Stassen?), the president arranges a peace with the USSR. Again, like #3, whether he succeeds or not is a different question.

That's just my take on it.

[juanml82]

The USA and the USSR couldn't go to war for fifty years, nukes would prevent it

[nbcman]

DudeAlmighty947

Major oil production in Alaska did not begin until the late 1950s.

Also, how is Russia going to invade Alaska without transports and sufficient logistic shipping to supply the invasion?

Sorry, it just not plausible enough to have the SU invade the US after Barbarossa-or before Barbarossa-or ever.

A more plausible option is to allow Patton and Churchill to push back the Iron Curtain after WWII. But I can't see the war lasting for 50 years since someone will use the Bomb eventually.

[CanadianGoose]

Are USA willing to take 10% population loss (comparable to OTL Soviet WWII losses) in order to wage successful war?

[superkuf]

Originally Posted by CanadianGoose

Are USA willing to take 10% population loss (comparable to OTL Soviet WWII losses) in order to wage successful war?

Probably no, but we shouldn't udnerestimate humanitys ability and willingness to kill itself. How big were the losses during ACW?

A 50 year long war would demand either bigger blocks and thereby larger resources and space (like the Long War in The Years of Rice and Salt), far lower technology level (like WW1 and defenetly no nukes) or a very defensive mindset (both sides is looking over the Maginot line at each other).

Any war after 1945 would fairly quickly lead to either a loss or nuclear war. The Soviet Union was running on fumes after four years war with Lend-Lease. The same for UK.

What is the longest real war that a) involved industrialised countries and b) was a continous war, without truces?