AH Challenge: End Cold War by 1986

1948: A Soviet Aircraft crashes into an American Aircraft during the Berlin Airlift. Curtis LeMay's idea of sending a military convoy to Berlin and daring the Soviets to Fire on them goes forward--and gets fired upon.

The Soviets suffer Withering Nuclear Attack against their armed forces in Central Europe, as well as hits to Moscow, Leningrad and other cities, in desperation the Politburo kills Stalin, and is forced out of Eastern Europe ala-Brest-Litovsk, while similar losses are inflicted against the ChiComs in the Far East and against North Korea.

The Soviet Union is in no position to challenge American Might, Cold War over by 1950.

The convoy wasn't LeMay's idea, the convoy was General Lucius Clay's idea.

LeMay's only part in it was to fly air cover in the event of the convoy taking fire, something even LeMay didn't figure the Soviets would do.

LeMay and Bradley had it figured out, the Soviets wouldn't need to fire on the convoy to stop it; they could simply close a road in front of it, raise drawbridge behind it and then where would the convoy be?
 
Lets the USA avoid Vietnam. Lets the money sunk in tropical swamps invest instead in the superiority of the US armed forces. Avoid the first oilpriceshock (propably because nobody want to mess around with an USA which still have a untarnished reputation)
So the USA is in the seventies still undisputed Nr. 1, but the Soviets lack the hard currency surplus, which the higher oilprice gave them. This could lead to an earlier collpase of the USSR.

First oil shock resulted from falling US production and therefore US inability to control global oil prices and increasing US/US ally dependence on foreign oil imports than Vietnam per se. Much better would be something like:

* A TheMann-type "Interstate Highway" Act is passed in the 1950s that also provides substantial funding for improvements to US railways (not too hard, just have Ike remember the yeoman's labor US railways put forth in WWII).
* Nuclear power is seen to be the wave of future (especially with breeder reactors), while oil is obviously limited, so US starts investing heavily in nuclear power and nuclear technology in the '50s (more than IOTL--this is hard, we were already doing a lot and it's really hard to get people to understand resource limitations that early. Maybe make it a strategic calculation--more and more of global oil reserves are located outside the US and allies, while a lot of the global uranium reserves are in the US, Canada, and Australia.
* Together, railroads invest in electric power in many areas of the US (denser areas), powered by nuclear electricity fueled by US/Canadian sources. So there's a declining need for oil in the Western states (especially the US), and so the "oil shock" is just a blip, although it causes Europe and Japan to step up their investments in nuclear (especially witnessing how little the US was affected by it). The USSR can't get enough money to support itself a decade earlier, and goes out with a whimper instead of a bang.
 

The Dude

Banned
Soviet spies in the Manhattan Project are discovered and captured before they can relay any information. The Soviets don't have nukes by the Korean war. Truman decides to listen to MacArthur and nuke China. When the SU declares war, they are nuked to oblivion. Cold war over, we win.

(Yes, I know it's ridiculously implausible, but I came up with it in two minutes.)
 
* A TheMann-type "Interstate Highway" Act is passed in the 1950s that also provides substantial funding for improvements to US railways (not too hard, just have Ike remember the yeoman's labor US railways put forth in WWII).

Aha the famous TheMann Act concerning transportation across state borders.:)
 
In 1960's ABM systems are introduced to the world. The USSR and USA faced with this new 'wonder weapon' realize that with the other side able to shoot missiles right out of the sky, those missiles they were hording instead of sharing with their friends wernt really so useful after all. Treaty to reduce nuclear arms, time goes by and both nations generally start relaxing.

Cold War ends.

One decade later some military thoughttank realizes that if an ABM system can block 50 missiles, they can be overcome by 500 missiles. Arms race begins anew, so does the Second Cold War.
 
Top