US and USSR war against PRC 1969

[Jeb Bush]

The USSR had 1,800 warheads at the time, so let's say that it launches 500-600. The fallout alone will kill tens of millions of people in the countryside. Direct detonations in major cities will kill, as you mentioned, about 10-20% of China's population.

So, just to recap, we're looking at:
-Hundreds of millions dead (200-300 million doesn't seem unreasonable)
-Total destruction of all infrastructure
-Total destruction of all industry
-Long term radiation which will kill millions more
-Irradiated crops, which lead to famines, which will kill even more people

I'm not saying that all Chinese people would cease to exist. I'm just saying that the PRC government would be completely obliterated, and that the nation of China itself would take many decades, if not a century, to fully recover from the war.

And this is assuming that the USSR doesn't attempt to balkanize the country or fund local warlords after the war ends.

First part I agree, yes widespread destruction, etc etc all that nuclear holocaust.

Last part? I can assure you, after what you described in the first part, that should someone be stupid enought to associate, let alone work with the Soviets, he and his family will be lynched by an angry mob within seconds.

 

[Jeb Bush]

Nobody is fanatical enough to not surrender when every major city in China has been nuked twice. In this scenario, the PRC would cease to exist. Its entire power structure would have been destroyed, along with most of the workforce and all of the infrastructure. The entire command structure has just been turned to ash (if they're lucky) or will soon be dead of radiation poisoning. There is no army left to fight the "Soviet Imperialist" in this scenario. There are no more railroads to transport troops, no more factories to make weapons, no more central government to maintain order.

As for the territorial integrity of China itself: at the very least, the USSR would establish protectorates in Xinjiang and Manchuria. Tibet would regain independence. I wouldn't be surprised if Taiwan made an ill-advised attempt to retake the mainland.




PRC Military Strategy Meeting, 1969

Mao: "...and that is why I have no fear of nuclear warfare."
Party Official A: "You think we should tell him?"
Party Official B: "Tell him what?"
A: "You know, about the radiation, the disease, the famines, all that stuff."
B: "Screw that, I don't want to get sent to a work camp."

Tibet? *sigh* if you picture Tibet Pre-1949 as Shangrila than there is no point in explaining.

Xinjiang is the only potential Soviet territory.

Manchuria? Seriously, I sound like a broken record....Allow me to explain Manchuria is Manchu in name only, in fact even the name itself is outdated and it is more Chinese to China, than California is to the United States, if the Soviet are stupid enough to try and set up a "protectorate" in that region than it will face a region with a population 15 times larger than it's entire territory east of the Urals. Of that population depending on how many died in the days following the Soviet attack, every single man, women, and child will hate the Soviets more than the Jews hated Hitler, enforcing Soviet rule in that region? There is a better chance of Ugandan warlords ruling New York.

Allow me to explain what I believe is going to happen in this Vlad Tepas award scenario.

 

[CthulhuFhtagn]

Tibet? *sigh* if you picture Tibet Pre-1949 as Shangrila than there is no point in explaining.

Xinjiang is the only potential Soviet territory.

Manchuria? Seriously, I sound like a broken record....Allow me to explain Manchuria is Manchu in name only, in fact even the name itself is outdated and it is more Chinese to China, than California is to the United States, if the Soviet are stupid enough to try and set up a "protectorate" in that region than it will face a region with a population 15 times larger than it's entire territory east of the Urals. Of that population depending on how many died in the days following the Soviet attack, every single man, women, and child will hate the Soviets more than the Jews hated Hitler, enforcing Soviet rule in that region? There is a better chance of Ugandan warlords ruling New York.

Allow me to explain what I believe is going to happen in this Vlad Tepas award scenario.

Tibet was not a paradise. But being a shitty place doesn't stop it from gaining independence. Plenty of oppressive, authoritarian regimes are independent today. Just look at the PRC.

Also, I know that Manchuria hasn't been ethnically Manchu since the 19th century. But when most of the inhabitants are corpses, the Soviets can call it whatever they want.

Edit: Also, local strongmen could (and probably would) arise even without Soviet assistance. When central authority is completely removed, regional governments tend to spring up.

 

[Namayan]

Well, what do you mean by war? If total war, then whomever is stupid enough to get bogged down in a fanatical China will have a really, really bad time.

Chances are the PRC according to the People's War doctrine will give up the coast/fringe territory perhaps even Beijing and retreat into the interior. From Gansu to Shanxi in the north to Yunnan in the South, they will turn it into a meat grinder for the Soviet and/or American army. Keep in mind they will not fight a conventional war, rather the best way to compare is Vietnam, except with a more fanatical and devoted military and civilian population and on a much bigger scale.

Comparing China to Vietnam is very far fetched. In OTL, China never had the same doctrine as the Vietnamese. If they had, they should known what the Vietnamese were doing when China invaded Vietnam 1979 and won a total victory instead of losing that war.

The last nation who fought both USSR and USA at the same time was Nazi Germany. This aint 2014 OTL, this is 1960s where China is not a match for both.

If we do entertain guerrilla warfare, PRC accepts losing all the populated areas which in turn loses the manpower and financial aspects of the war. This means Kuomintang can return to power who are also Chinese.

During this time period, China never won a war without any support of USSR or USA or any great power. Regardless of how you put it, control of the populated areas as well coastal areas requires conventional warfare. Not everyone will welcome a guerrilla warfare in behalf of Mao's party especially if the one controlling that is Chiang Kai Shek during a time when you have disastrous Great Leap Forward done by PRC.

 

[Namayan]

Tibet? *sigh* if you picture Tibet Pre-1949 as Shangrila than there is no point in explaining.

Xinjiang is the only potential Soviet territory.

Manchuria? Seriously, I sound like a broken record....Allow me to explain Manchuria is Manchu in name only, in fact even the name itself is outdated and it is more Chinese to China, than California is to the United States, if the Soviet are stupid enough to try and set up a "protectorate" in that region than it will face a region with a population 15 times larger than it's entire territory east of the Urals. Of that population depending on how many died in the days following the Soviet attack, every single man, women, and child will hate the Soviets more than the Jews hated Hitler, enforcing Soviet rule in that region? There is a better chance of Ugandan warlords ruling New York.

Allow me to explain what I believe is going to happen in this Vlad Tepas award scenario.

Really, Communist China propaganda again? You can call it nowadays populated by Han Chinese, but this was not the case historically.

I am sure you can concoct Taiwan and Tibet being predominantly Han Chinese before 16th Century.

 

[Driftless]

If Mao was truly not afraid of nuclear warfare, then he must have been completely insane. The long-term effects of a nuclear exchange devastating enough to kill half of China would leave the country irradiated for at least a century. Refugees would flee the country en masse in the years immediately following the conflict. Crop yields would take decades to recover, leading to large scale famines, which would kill even more people.

If the USSR and PRC had gone to war in 1969, China would probably be poorer than India today, and far less populous. That's assuming that China would even exist as a unified state, and not return to warlordism.

Even well into the decades following a significant nuclear attack, whatever mutated cropps could grow, pull the radiation from the soil into their tissue. Humans or animals eat the crops, the cycle continues.

The US had a testing station in El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico that was used to evaluate the problems of potentially using nukes to create a Post WW2 trans-oceanic canal across Nicaragua. The experiments in Puerto Rico showed the idea was an utter non-starter.

http://graduados.uprrp.edu/inventio/vol4_1/studies_rain_forest.htm

 

[Shard]

On the guerrilla warfare: Why?

I mean, if China is an irradiated wasteland, or most of it is, especially when the most valuable and strategically important parts are non-value areas, in which radiation will kill more soldiers than the locals ever would, and in which the occupiers know this, why?

After nuking China, and converting it into a giant Afghanistan, why would you need to take bits of it?

Breaking up Tibet and the outlying areas shouldn't be too hard when there isn't a government, nobody to supply the soldiers, and nothing stopping them from declaring Independence. Heck, seeing as both the USA and the USSR hate China,they'll find this far easier than it normally would be.

Summary: No need to send in soldiers when everyone is happily doing your dirty work for you.

 

[Goobo]

I have seen some good posts so far and many people have good points about the Chinese hating the US, USSR and any other country that joined on their side.

The Soviet Union might try to set up protectorates in Manchuria and west China. The US and its allies might give much of mainland China to Taiwan(it probably wouldn't be called Taiwan anymore). The population would be extremely hostile to the occupiers. ROC would probably be seen by many as a enemy because of its alliance with the US. Hundreds of millions dead is a reasonable estimate. With the extremely hostile population, many of those that weren't to focused on trying to survive would rebel if they lived in a place that was occupied. If revolts kept happening, perhaps with terrorist attacks, the occupiers might give up one day.

Thanks for all the replies, anyone else have any ideas?

 

[Divergent54]

I'm actually afraid in might escalate into nuclear proliferation. The USSR and China are both toast. They literally are so damn close to each that they share borders. I don't know if the continental US will get hit. This is the 1960s so I don't think the PRC can hit that far across the Pacific to the continental US. Maybe Hawai'i.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

If Mao was truly not afraid of nuclear warfare, then he must have been completely insane. The long-term effects of a nuclear exchange devastating enough to kill half of China would leave the country irradiated for at least a century. Refugees would flee the country en masse in the years immediately following the conflict. Crop yields would take decades to recover, leading to large scale famines, which would kill even more people.

If the USSR and PRC had gone to war in 1969, China would probably be poorer than India today, and far less populous. That's assuming that China would even exist as a unified state, and not return to warlordism.

This is pretty much the crux of the issue. China was the one conceivable enemy that the Soviet Union could not defeat with its overwhelming manpower (India being the other, though India was pretty consistently pro-Soviet). The likelihood that the USSR would use nuclear weapons in a theoretical conflict with China is extremely high IMHO. Depending on what objectives the Soviets have in the war, I figure it would either be a case of using nuclear weapons to back up huge advances into Manchuria and other major border areas, or in the event of all-out war with the intent of destroying China beyond a shadow of a doubt as a threat to the Soviet Union well... That last scenario is pretty apocalyptic to delve into.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

I'm actually afraid in might escalate into nuclear proliferation. The USSR and China are both toast. They literally are so damn close to each that they share borders. I don't know if the continental US will get hit. This is the 1960s so I don't think the PRC can hit that far across the Pacific to the continental US. Maybe Hawai'i.

China only conducted its first nuclear test in 1964, by which time the Soviet Union had thousands of warheads in its stockpile, a number which had increased significantly five years later in 1969. There was never anything close to a reasonable parity between China and the Soviets in this era. An all-out nuclear exchange between the two would have resulted in regional devastation for the USSR but the PRC would have been destroyed as anything resembling a modern state.

 

[Namayan]

I'm actually afraid in might escalate into nuclear proliferation. The USSR and China are both toast. They literally are so damn close to each that they share borders. I don't know if the continental US will get hit. This is the 1960s so I don't think the PRC can hit that far across the Pacific to the continental US. Maybe Hawai'i.

Siberia aint heavily populated. Moscow or the heavily populated Russia is too far to hit for the Chinese. On the other hand, the Soviets can hit any Chinese city in 1969.

China's longest ICBM range in 1969 is Dongfeng 2 with 1,250 km range and 15-20 kt nuclear warhead.

It is just dreamworld to even compare China and the Soviets in 1969 in even terms during the time of Great Leap Forward when China was a Sick Man of Asia. China could not even maintain a month's invasion in Vietnam in OTL nor win that OTL war. For OTL comparison, Soviets lasted almost a decade in Afghanistan which is almost the same length as USA in Vietnam.

Only the USA can outmatch Soviets in 1969.

 

[Jbenuniv]

Yes, because Mao is going to sit in his bedroom when war begins. The leaders of the CCP were not idiots and like the US would have made much preparation for a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, control over the core territory would not be lost, One thing which the CCP has done that the KMT dreamed of was control over local officials, and loyalty among the masses.

Are you a Chinese propagandist or something? What kind of warning do you think China gets when the Soviet Union launches a nuclear strike? China's got a few minutes between launch and impact of nuclear armed IRBMs on any targets the Soviets deem worthy. And while I admit unfamiliarity with the state of Chinese early warning radar in 1964, I doubt its utility in such a situation even if it gave warning the moment the launches occurred.

 

[andyheong]

Based on the fact that the scenario is to go nuclear before China even have nukes, is there even a need for a discussion? The only question is how much the rubble bounces when the Soviets are done. It does not matter how fanatical the Chinese would be if most of the cities and farmland are nuked. Of course, then they would not be much spoils for the Soviets to pick up

That being said, any thoughts about how public opinion will influence US policy if the Soviets go nuclear? Would the US public happily cheer the Soviets or will they see the fact that the Soviets are able to nuke another country (even an enemy) without restraint as a threat to the US? Would the rest of the world let the Soviets go that far or they wouldn't care?

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

Based on the fact that the scenario is to go nuclear before China even have nukes, is there even a need for a discussion? The only question is how much the rubble bounces when the Soviets are done. It does not matter how fanatical the Chinese would be if most of the cities and farmland are nuked. Of course, then they would not be much spoils for the Soviets to pick up

That being said, any thoughts about how public opinion will influence US policy if the Soviets go nuclear? Would the US public happily cheer the Soviets or will they see the fact that the Soviets are able to nuke another country (even an enemy) without restraint as a threat to the US? Would the rest of the world let the Soviets go that far or they wouldn't care?

The problem is I don't really know what can meaningfully done in such an event to actually stop the fighting short of an intervention. Sure people will call for mediation/ceasefire the whole way through but by the time it goes to all-out Sino-Soviet war, it's probably way too late for that.

Such an event would, in any case, be pretty much a win-win situation for the Western powers. As I recall, when the Soviets point-blank asked Kissinger what would happen if there was a Sino-Soviet War, Kissinger's reply was that the United States would sit back and watch the two communist titans go at each other until the cows came home. In a cold, realpolitik sense, such a thing could be played greatly to US advantage because a devastated China and a spent USSR are in no position to oppose the US on the global stage. It's quite possible that something like this could result in the US really turning up the heat in the decolonizing world.

 

[andyheong]

The problem is I don't really know what can meaningfully done in such an event to actually stop the fighting short of an intervention. Sure people will call for mediation/ceasefire the whole way through but by the time it goes to all-out Sino-Soviet war, it's probably way too late for that.

Such an event would, in any case, be pretty much a win-win situation for the Western powers. As I recall, when the Soviets point-blank asked Kissinger what would happen if there was a Sino-Soviet War, Kissinger's reply was that the United States would sit back and watch the two communist titans go at each other until the cows came home. In a cold, realpolitik sense, such a thing could be played greatly to US advantage because a devastated China and a spent USSR are in no position to oppose the US on the global stage. It's quite possible that something like this could result in the US really turning up the heat in the decolonizing world.

I do agree that it's more likely the US government will cheerfully sit back and cheer both sides on. It's like that given attitudes back then, the US public would not give two hoots about the commies wiping each other out. But without Chinese nukes, would the USSR be exhausted? Spend 200 nukes on China and that leaves around 1,500 or more just in case the US gets itchy.

I just remember something, would the Soviets even dare redeploy so much of their forces against China without some sort of tacit agreement with the US? Can anyone come up with any plausible scenarios for this? Would be interesting to see if it is possible to make this scenario plausible

 

[Shard]

Regarding the invasion of China, i think it's pointless and self defeating consider massive amounts of guerrillas and economic pain to hold it down while not getting anything out of the deal. Conquering it is not viable without extreme actions(read: war crimes that shall not be spoken about).

On the other hand, conversion to a non-factor is infinitely easier:

Blockade the coast, and it's isolated with no chance of reprisals.

Bomb the cities conventionally and goodbye economy and Military.

Fuel independence campaign for size-cutting/instability.(Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Xingiang...)

Nuke China and it's worthless.


Take your pick of China-Neutralization.