AHC: Both the US and USSR collapse

.... I think bioweapons could do the trick?

If some nightmare scenario happens within either of those countries where a bioweapon is released or somehow an NGO gets a hold of some kind of super-disease then you can have a (relatively) blameless internationale crisis that destroys both the USSR and USA without anyone going to war.

Just on account of the population loss.
 
I really doubt you could get a US collapse. Perhaps by electing rabid racists you could push the blacks so far to start a mass insurgency, but that really seems ASB.

I can envision a scenario of a collapsed USSR, reformed communist European bloc and an isolationist USA, but what broke the USSR was separatism. USA doesn't have that.
 
The US doesn't really have any of the things that caused the USSR to collapse:

-Religious devotion to an ideology that ultimately produced cynicism with the country's long-term vision
-A political structure that recognized the political status of minorities without granting self-determination (until they ultimately did so and the republics all left without a second thought)
-A command economy that prioritized heavy industry over consumer goods, causing waste and food shortages

If the US were to "collapse", it would have to be for entirely different reasons, like war, plague, or some sort of extreme social pressure that wasn't really there in the late 20th century.
 
I mean perhaps a different equal rights movement in the 60s, or perhaps a much greater backlash over US involvement in various foreign wars in the 60s and 70s. All of this would involve a massive stretch.
 
If the US were to "collapse", it would have to be for entirely different reasons, like war, plague, or some sort of extreme social pressure that wasn't really there in the late 20th century.

What about the national debt, which was already a serious concern in the '80s? It's far fetched of course but maybe some kind of investor panic could've led to a depression, and mass upheaval--haves vs have nots, whites vs blacks etc.
 
One question i have is, what would replace the US after its hypothetical collapse? OTL’s USSR was replaced by a plethora of mostly poor republics, i can’t see the US fracturing among similar lines.
 
Perhaps some kind of southern strategy on steroids that terrorizes most of the country with far right social engineering safeguarded by the FBI and justified by a far more vicious cold war. The USSR collapses on schedule, but after they do, the Pacific and northeastern states break away with no more Soviet union to justify the terror.
 
Do asteroids count as nukes?

Family of loosely-bound asteroids (think Shoemaker-Levy-9, but bigger) coming from very high above the orbital plane. Strike in a line marching right over the north pole from Moscow to San Deigo. Wouldn't get everything, but multiple 10GT+ strikes would smash enough to really distract the rest.
 
I think you would need the United States to transition into a fragile dictatorship in order for it to collapse at the end of the Cold War.
 

Kaze

Banned
You forget about Oklahoma City bombing inspired by a rabid racist rhetoric, the LA riots (inspired by "driving while black" and police brutality), the housing crisis and collapse of the S&L's, and Branch Dravidian attack - the seeds were there, but the road was not taken for a US collapse.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
One question i have is, what would replace the US after its hypothetical collapse? OTL’s USSR was replaced by a plethora of mostly poor republics, i can’t see the US fracturing among similar lines.


Pacific states (likely occupying up to the Rockies for military purposes) splits and forms Cascadia or the Pacific Republic, Texas, "The Confederacy", and everything else stays as "The United States".
 
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