AHC: a proxy war in name only

SealTheRealDeal · May 28, 2020

There were a lot of proxy wars during the Cold War. For most of these the superpowers limited their involvement to economic/material aid and advisors. However there are a couple instances of the super powers deploying large expeditionary forces to intervene on behalf of their side in a proxy war. The US did this twice, in Korea and Vietnam, and the Soviets did this in Afghanistan.

Could there be a scenario where both the super powers send substantial forces into a proxy conflict? Would it spiral into WWIII or could some legal fiction of "only at war in theatre" be spun up and maintained?

The closest we came iOTL was during the Korean War, where thousands of Soviet pilots covertly bolstered the air power of the Chinese and North Koreans. However, the Soviets left all the fighting on the ground to their allies.

Minchandre · May 28, 2020

The easiest that comes to mind for me would be for China (or the USSR) to send forces into Vietnam to support the North. Actually, one cool thing could be both. The Sino-Soviet split occurred during the Vietnam War and OTL the Vietname communists tried to play China and the USSR against each other to get more support. It's tricky, but the Vietnamese might be able to escalate this rivalry even more, with each side goaded into sending substantial forces into Vietnam by the presence of the other. The result would be a weird two-and-a-half side war, with US forces backing the South Vietnamese while Chinese and Soviet forces back the North Vietnamese while simultaneously engaging in rivalry and perhaps low-intensity conflict against each other. As the Chinese and Soviets try to one-up each other with support for the Vietnamese, the US will be forced to step up its own presence.

The possibilities are great, with say the Soviets pretending to be Americans in order to attack Chinese forces, or the US doing the same! The whole thing could turn into a giant unholy mess!

SealTheRealDeal · May 28, 2020

Minchandre said:
The easiest that comes to mind for me would be for China (or the USSR) to send forces into Vietnam to support the North. Actually, one cool thing could be both. The Sino-Soviet split occurred during the Vietnam War and OTL the Vietname communists tried to play China and the USSR against each other to get more support. It's tricky, but the Vietnamese might be able to escalate this rivalry even more, with each side goaded into sending substantial forces into Vietnam by the presence of the other. The result would be a weird two-and-a-half side war, with US forces backing the South Vietnamese while Chinese and Soviet forces back the North Vietnamese while simultaneously engaging in rivalry and perhaps low-intensity conflict against each other. As the Chinese and Soviets try to one-up each other with support for the Vietnamese, the US will be forced to step up its own presence.

The possibilities are great, with say the Soviets pretending to be Americans in order to attack Chinese forces, or the US doing the same! The whole thing could turn into a giant unholy mess!

That would be interesting.

However the North Vietnamese did their damnedest to minimize direct Chinese involvement. Additionally, most the historical cases of Vietnam fighting for its independence, which much the DRV's propaganda alluded to, was a matter of Vietnam desperately trying to escape Chinese imperialism. So hosting a sequel to the People's Volunteer Army would be rather unpalatable for the government in Hanoi.