AHC: USSR wins Cold War with U.S. collapsing in 90's
- Thread starter d32123
- Start date
Yes, but the chances of it happening are as remote as the oort clouds are from the sun.
A much much more authoritarian USA? That, along with someone reform-minded in the USSR (maybe Beria taking out Stalin, although that creates massive butterflies). The USA slowly declines under a quasi-McCarthyite regime of anti-Communist terror, with an even longer war in SE Asia draining the Treasury. At the same time, the USSR, having reformed itself and (partially) democratized, as well as opened up its economy, has won major strategic victories, such as dominance of the Mideast, a re-integration of Yugoslavia into the Soviet Bloc, as well as maybe Turkey. The USA finally splinters into warring statelets after a military coup goes wrong, and a series of domestic nuclear blasts destroy Chicago, DC and San Francisco.
ASB, I know.
ASB, I know.
Are you kidding me? It's very possible. If the Soviets managed to insert agents as president or at least candidate, or in high levels of the military with the capability for a coup. And the Soviet economy would've been far stronger without having to rebuild many of the most valuable parts of their territory after WWII. Communist victories in French or Italian elections. No Sino-Soviet split. If two or three of these happened, the USSR may well have won the Cold War.
FDR dies at his desk, shortly before Pearl Harbor: (For All Time)
List of Presidents:
Henry Wallace
Robert Taft
Thomas Dewey
Joe Kennedy Jr.
Robert La Follette, Jr.
Clark Gable
Barry Goldwater
Joe Foss
George McGovern
Jim Jones
By 1980, Jim Jones has created prison camps for dissidents in the United States, ignored massive violations of federal power by states, and has visions of a nuclear doomsday leading to a better future.
Two of those State Leaders opposing Jones are Charles Manson and Lyndon LaRouche; in FaT, things slightly improve with the United States removing Jones through a cabinet coup. Instead, suppose that Manson wins the election of 1980.
Manson, of course, is a deep believer in solving America's racial problems through violence. He's an autocrat with a demonic charisma; if Hitler had a personal harem he'd not be too far off what President Manson would be.
It's hard to think in terms of being worse than Jim Jones, but Manson wouldn't be spaced out for long periods of time and woefully negligent in his vision. Having inherited prison camps for dissidents from Jones and a multitude of social maladies to apply them to, Charles Manson probably confirms my suspicion that he would be a still worse president than Jim Jones.
By 1990, the United States would probably be close to complete collapse. Manson may well have retired, but given the cherrypicking of PoDs, it's not hard to see someone like Rodney Alcala taking the helm further onto the rocks.
The USA collapses from FaT level abuse. The Soviet Union wins the cold war!
List of Presidents:
Henry Wallace
Robert Taft
Thomas Dewey
Joe Kennedy Jr.
Robert La Follette, Jr.
Clark Gable
Barry Goldwater
Joe Foss
George McGovern
Jim Jones
By 1980, Jim Jones has created prison camps for dissidents in the United States, ignored massive violations of federal power by states, and has visions of a nuclear doomsday leading to a better future.
Two of those State Leaders opposing Jones are Charles Manson and Lyndon LaRouche; in FaT, things slightly improve with the United States removing Jones through a cabinet coup. Instead, suppose that Manson wins the election of 1980.
Manson, of course, is a deep believer in solving America's racial problems through violence. He's an autocrat with a demonic charisma; if Hitler had a personal harem he'd not be too far off what President Manson would be.
It's hard to think in terms of being worse than Jim Jones, but Manson wouldn't be spaced out for long periods of time and woefully negligent in his vision. Having inherited prison camps for dissidents from Jones and a multitude of social maladies to apply them to, Charles Manson probably confirms my suspicion that he would be a still worse president than Jim Jones.
By 1990, the United States would probably be close to complete collapse. Manson may well have retired, but given the cherrypicking of PoDs, it's not hard to see someone like Rodney Alcala taking the helm further onto the rocks.
The USA collapses from FaT level abuse. The Soviet Union wins the cold war!
Dude, that was in a movie. I doubt you could get a real Manchurian candidate in real life.
Well...
1. Lenin's NEP continues in the '30s, and mass famine is avoided while industrialization continues at a moderate pace. Let's say Bukharin takes over from Lenin (Trotsky would isolate the USSR too much by trying to stir up revolution everywhere).
2. The USSR doesn't purge its army but still makes a version of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. However, Bukharin is a sneaky bastard and joins the Allied cause just as France falls. The Soviet army, with popular support from the people of Eastern Poland and the Baltics (they're clearly the lesser of two evils in this TL), holds on a defensive line for much of 1940, after initial advances bog down. Once the Germans move mass troops East, they do make some headway, driving the Soviets out of Poland and back to Smolensk by mid-1941. But without the loss of the industrial and agricultural heartlands (admittedly smaller without Stalin's brutal pace of industrialization) and driven to fight by both Nazi brutality and support for their government, the Soviets stage devastating winter counterattacks and blunt the Wehrmacht's attack. By Christmas 1943, with the aid of (later much regretted) American Lend-Lease and other Allied action, the Soviets have won the war in Europe. By 1944, they've established themselves as the major player in China, and are helping Chiang Kai-Shek establish full control of the country in return for the annexation of Sinkiang. Though the USSR assisted in the invasion of Japan, they gave up all claims to an occupation zone there in return for recognition of their new government in France.
3. In the postwar period, the United States reacted badly to the new geopolitical situation, cutting off all trade with the Soviet bloc and sliding into millitarism and authoritarianism. No sacrifice was too much to maintain military parity with the Red Menace, and no dissent was tolerated on the American side. Sweden officially joined the Soviet bloc after a failed CIA sponsored coup against the Labor Party, and even the UK was not willing to follow the American lead in all its brushfire wars and colonial adventures. Many nations that OTL were fairly staunch US allies became part of the Non-Aligned Movement, and several prominent Non-Aligned nations OTL - Ghana, India - joined the Soviet economic and political alliance structure. With the intellectual and industrial resources of two continents, without the massive devastation caused by OTL WWII, and with a socialist system that was willing to innovate and allow for differning points of view, the boom times of the '50s occured primarily in the Soviet Union.
4. By the 1980s, it was clear to everyone except KGB officers looking for more funds that the USA was on its way out. Its economy was crumbling under a permanent mobilization, its tradition of democracy had faded to a Prussian worship of military necessity, and technological progress had ground to a near-halt. The USSR was the first nation to create a public computer network - a project the US could have easily matched, but refused to for reasons of "information security". In 1993, the Army refused to fire on the latest protests in New York City, and the whole structure began to topple. Today, in the year 2000, the United States is an isolationist and massively decentralized nation working to rebuild its economy after 50 years of military priority and ideological purges, while scholars in the USSR and the Socialist Coal and Steel Community (currently with 100 member states comprising 80% of the world's population) ponder whether this is the "end of history" and how soon true Communism will come to pass.
1. Lenin's NEP continues in the '30s, and mass famine is avoided while industrialization continues at a moderate pace. Let's say Bukharin takes over from Lenin (Trotsky would isolate the USSR too much by trying to stir up revolution everywhere).
2. The USSR doesn't purge its army but still makes a version of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. However, Bukharin is a sneaky bastard and joins the Allied cause just as France falls. The Soviet army, with popular support from the people of Eastern Poland and the Baltics (they're clearly the lesser of two evils in this TL), holds on a defensive line for much of 1940, after initial advances bog down. Once the Germans move mass troops East, they do make some headway, driving the Soviets out of Poland and back to Smolensk by mid-1941. But without the loss of the industrial and agricultural heartlands (admittedly smaller without Stalin's brutal pace of industrialization) and driven to fight by both Nazi brutality and support for their government, the Soviets stage devastating winter counterattacks and blunt the Wehrmacht's attack. By Christmas 1943, with the aid of (later much regretted) American Lend-Lease and other Allied action, the Soviets have won the war in Europe. By 1944, they've established themselves as the major player in China, and are helping Chiang Kai-Shek establish full control of the country in return for the annexation of Sinkiang. Though the USSR assisted in the invasion of Japan, they gave up all claims to an occupation zone there in return for recognition of their new government in France.
3. In the postwar period, the United States reacted badly to the new geopolitical situation, cutting off all trade with the Soviet bloc and sliding into millitarism and authoritarianism. No sacrifice was too much to maintain military parity with the Red Menace, and no dissent was tolerated on the American side. Sweden officially joined the Soviet bloc after a failed CIA sponsored coup against the Labor Party, and even the UK was not willing to follow the American lead in all its brushfire wars and colonial adventures. Many nations that OTL were fairly staunch US allies became part of the Non-Aligned Movement, and several prominent Non-Aligned nations OTL - Ghana, India - joined the Soviet economic and political alliance structure. With the intellectual and industrial resources of two continents, without the massive devastation caused by OTL WWII, and with a socialist system that was willing to innovate and allow for differning points of view, the boom times of the '50s occured primarily in the Soviet Union.
4. By the 1980s, it was clear to everyone except KGB officers looking for more funds that the USA was on its way out. Its economy was crumbling under a permanent mobilization, its tradition of democracy had faded to a Prussian worship of military necessity, and technological progress had ground to a near-halt. The USSR was the first nation to create a public computer network - a project the US could have easily matched, but refused to for reasons of "information security". In 1993, the Army refused to fire on the latest protests in New York City, and the whole structure began to topple. Today, in the year 2000, the United States is an isolationist and massively decentralized nation working to rebuild its economy after 50 years of military priority and ideological purges, while scholars in the USSR and the Socialist Coal and Steel Community (currently with 100 member states comprising 80% of the world's population) ponder whether this is the "end of history" and how soon true Communism will come to pass.
Yes and no. A lot of the issues attributed to the USSR economy can be traced back to things Stalin did, who created the system that generated mass corruption, and forced the USSR to stick to command economics.
For a comparison, lets look at Chile. It became a laize-fair Fascist dictatorship for decades, caused by a CIA coup, and supported by people like Milton Friedman. It had the lowest growth in South America, had its inflation fixed by government economic policies later, and was also forced to do bailouts from laize-fair doing such extensive economic damage.
My point? If the USA had become laize-fair, it would've collapsed in less time than the SU probably, even if propped up with an authortarian dictator. It's that intolerable.
For a comparison, lets look at Chile. It became a laize-fair Fascist dictatorship for decades, caused by a CIA coup, and supported by people like Milton Friedman. It had the lowest growth in South America, had its inflation fixed by government economic policies later, and was also forced to do bailouts from laize-fair doing such extensive economic damage.
My point? If the USA had become laize-fair, it would've collapsed in less time than the SU probably, even if propped up with an authortarian dictator. It's that intolerable.
50 years of intense militarization and the utter devastation of the U.S.S.R demographically and economically during WW2 didn't help.
The U.S.S.R 'splanned economy was shambolic at times but it worked after a fashion and its most negative aspects were put in place by Stalin and then reinforced by the effects of WW2. It also grew rapidly until the point where central plannen became impossable.
ITTL alternite leadership leads to alternite outcomes. A reformed Soviet economy could perform well with a little luck & foresight by the CPSU.
@ Urban fox- I concur Stalin's forced industrialization distorted economic planning for decades emphasizing heavy industry and militarization of the economy.
Where I see the main problems in the Soviet economic system is the closed feedback loop of the command economy.
As to what economic liberalization could have made the Soviet Union competitive and surpass the USA's, you'd have to get Gosplan back off by stages to be more like MITI and go ordoliberal once business law, tax collection structures, capital markets, and so forth come into being.
You'd have to have lots of Soviets studying abroad and inviting foreign experts in the USSR teaching business management, capital markets, and so forth doing internships with Western companies learning the dark arts of competing for market share, customer satisfaction, and process improvement.
By 1975, an entrepreneurial class would emerge that ran internationally-competitive businesses, and transformed Russian civilian culture as folks'd have to get used to a more capitalist way of doing things. Employees have rights and privileges. Employment would no longer be a right.
I'd imagine Jugoslavian-style co-operatives would be a popular model for a while.
Agriculture would go from rural-employment scheme to more competitive co-ops where choice of crops and who to sell to gets a lot broader. Russian aerospace becomes very competitive in long-haul airliners, as well as short-haul/rough-strip aircraft. Imagine Ekranoplans as ferries!
Long and short of it, the Soviets open up economically to the rest of the world, unleash spectacular growth in the civilian sector of their economy not unlike the Wunderwirtschaft from 1960 on. Dubcek inspires a Russian Spring in 1968 that prompts political liberalization as well and a largely bloodless coup against Brezhnev and conversion of the Warsaw Pact into a strictly defensive organization and stand-down in posture.
Soviet troops leave the DDR in droves. Checkpoint Charlie goes from bar
bed wire and machine-guns to a single border guard on the "Soviet" side.
Negotiations begin for removal of NATO troops from Germany as the Berlin Wall is dismantled in 1969. The US balks. The UK backs them up to a point, but France, Germany, and Italy, faced with massive student protests, insist on listening to Soviet proposals.
A neutralist German SPD government under Willy Brandt comes into power, and the Bundestag votes on whether to stay in NATO. To the US's shock and horror, votes tally 275-221 to leave NATO in 1970 based on demonstrated Soviet "good faith", withdrawal of combat troops from the border, even from the DDR itself, allowing inspections by NATO troops and foreign journalists of former Soviet bases to establish no more nukes, tanks, or artillery are pointed at the FRG.
ITTL, LBJ was re-elected in 1968 by "getting tough in Vietnam". Tet just made him more stubborn, and told Uncle Walt he was full of it. Allegations of ARVN troop massacres of civilians are rampant as pictures filter out of killing fields of suspected VC/NLF villages come to light. Project Phoenix is given 10X the resources and full presidential backing regardless of Westmoreland's feelings that search and destroy by uniformed troops is the way to victory.
Westmoreland tries to pull a MacArthur and gets relieved and replaced by Creighton Abrams as MACV CO, who vastly changes US tactical conduct in Vietnam. Instead of bombing the bejesus out of the HCM Trail, he makes a full armored assault of Cambodia and airborne assault on Laotian areas of the HCM trail as well as amphibious strikes up the Mekong.
Sinhanouk screams bloody murder but gets executed by Lon Nol, starting a Cambodian civil war. However, with plenty of US and ARVN troops on the ground in concert with Lon Nol's forces, the Khmer Rouge are quickly rounded up and executed. Casualties are high, 3500 US dead, 18000 wounded, but the Ho Chi Minh trail has been shut down. NVA/VC dead are roughly 25000, Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge casualties are 12000 and 18000 respectively, eliminating them from the field.
You'd think these crushing tactical victories would yield goodwill at home.
However, student protests of the casualties to US troops as well as civilian casualties become even more fervent. Some of the press after seeing Water Cronkite dissed by LBJ, goes out of their way to embarrass the US government in SE Asia and at home. A press blackout of the war zone only exacerbates the antagonism between some elements of the press and the federal government.
LBJ is a broken man by 1972. All of his political credibility is gone. Congress has threatened impeachment proceedings for LBJ invoking sedition laws to muzzle inconvenient critics. COINTELPRO is revealed to be largely a goon squad going after political enemies rather than chasing Soviet spies and subversives. J Edgar Hoover conveniently dies of heart failure before being subpoenaed to testify before HUAC.
"Deep Throat" Mark Felt, openly testifies before Congress about the diversion of FBI resources and specious criteria for investigation, arrest, and harassment by COINTELPRO operatives.
If you think Watergate shattered American confidence in government, seeing half of the command structure of the FBI under arrest for civil rights violations galore, as well as the CIA getting gutted over its shenanigans on US soil might have an even worse effect.
Basically, US loses all credibility over trying to win Nam, nearly bankrupts themselves, and most alliances start unraveling once the scary Soviet bear becomes considerably more cuddly. YMMV whether that's possible or likely. The USSR continues to progress in savvy and prestige, as well as soft power. The US becomes a self-doubting neurotic mess swinging between extremes of self-flagellation and jingoistic silliness and having an economically competitive USSR as well as Japan and Germany, among others further underscores the slippage in American industrial and commercial might in the 1980's. US can't agree on what to have for breakfast, much less make a coherent economic policy. By the Oughts, most American firms have been bankrupted or bought out by foreign concerns.
Where I see the main problems in the Soviet economic system is the closed feedback loop of the command economy.
- Information flowed from the top down
- Anything new had to fight several layers of bureaucracy to see it carried out, unless it was a spiffy new military system.
- The civilian economy was treated as irrelevant except as it fed to "state" (Military) needs until the mid-1950's and even during de-Stalinization, it was as much for propaganda value as meeting real needs and wants. By the the 1980's the civilian economy was in sorry shape from decades of neglect and corruption and the defense buildup 1970-1990.
- The Soviet Union tried to be relatively isolationist from the international trade network for a variety of reasons. This led to what I call the toy-train nature of the Soviet economy. They exported to folks getting it dirt-cheap or for so much raw materials. Neither recipient nor donor cared terribly much about the quality of goods, and internal consumers were stuck with whatever rattled down the pipe instead of voting with their rubles for the best products.
As to what economic liberalization could have made the Soviet Union competitive and surpass the USA's, you'd have to get Gosplan back off by stages to be more like MITI and go ordoliberal once business law, tax collection structures, capital markets, and so forth come into being.
You'd have to have lots of Soviets studying abroad and inviting foreign experts in the USSR teaching business management, capital markets, and so forth doing internships with Western companies learning the dark arts of competing for market share, customer satisfaction, and process improvement.
By 1975, an entrepreneurial class would emerge that ran internationally-competitive businesses, and transformed Russian civilian culture as folks'd have to get used to a more capitalist way of doing things. Employees have rights and privileges. Employment would no longer be a right.
I'd imagine Jugoslavian-style co-operatives would be a popular model for a while.
Agriculture would go from rural-employment scheme to more competitive co-ops where choice of crops and who to sell to gets a lot broader. Russian aerospace becomes very competitive in long-haul airliners, as well as short-haul/rough-strip aircraft. Imagine Ekranoplans as ferries!
Long and short of it, the Soviets open up economically to the rest of the world, unleash spectacular growth in the civilian sector of their economy not unlike the Wunderwirtschaft from 1960 on. Dubcek inspires a Russian Spring in 1968 that prompts political liberalization as well and a largely bloodless coup against Brezhnev and conversion of the Warsaw Pact into a strictly defensive organization and stand-down in posture.
Soviet troops leave the DDR in droves. Checkpoint Charlie goes from bar
bed wire and machine-guns to a single border guard on the "Soviet" side.
Negotiations begin for removal of NATO troops from Germany as the Berlin Wall is dismantled in 1969. The US balks. The UK backs them up to a point, but France, Germany, and Italy, faced with massive student protests, insist on listening to Soviet proposals.
A neutralist German SPD government under Willy Brandt comes into power, and the Bundestag votes on whether to stay in NATO. To the US's shock and horror, votes tally 275-221 to leave NATO in 1970 based on demonstrated Soviet "good faith", withdrawal of combat troops from the border, even from the DDR itself, allowing inspections by NATO troops and foreign journalists of former Soviet bases to establish no more nukes, tanks, or artillery are pointed at the FRG.
ITTL, LBJ was re-elected in 1968 by "getting tough in Vietnam". Tet just made him more stubborn, and told Uncle Walt he was full of it. Allegations of ARVN troop massacres of civilians are rampant as pictures filter out of killing fields of suspected VC/NLF villages come to light. Project Phoenix is given 10X the resources and full presidential backing regardless of Westmoreland's feelings that search and destroy by uniformed troops is the way to victory.
Westmoreland tries to pull a MacArthur and gets relieved and replaced by Creighton Abrams as MACV CO, who vastly changes US tactical conduct in Vietnam. Instead of bombing the bejesus out of the HCM Trail, he makes a full armored assault of Cambodia and airborne assault on Laotian areas of the HCM trail as well as amphibious strikes up the Mekong.
Sinhanouk screams bloody murder but gets executed by Lon Nol, starting a Cambodian civil war. However, with plenty of US and ARVN troops on the ground in concert with Lon Nol's forces, the Khmer Rouge are quickly rounded up and executed. Casualties are high, 3500 US dead, 18000 wounded, but the Ho Chi Minh trail has been shut down. NVA/VC dead are roughly 25000, Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge casualties are 12000 and 18000 respectively, eliminating them from the field.
You'd think these crushing tactical victories would yield goodwill at home.
However, student protests of the casualties to US troops as well as civilian casualties become even more fervent. Some of the press after seeing Water Cronkite dissed by LBJ, goes out of their way to embarrass the US government in SE Asia and at home. A press blackout of the war zone only exacerbates the antagonism between some elements of the press and the federal government.
LBJ is a broken man by 1972. All of his political credibility is gone. Congress has threatened impeachment proceedings for LBJ invoking sedition laws to muzzle inconvenient critics. COINTELPRO is revealed to be largely a goon squad going after political enemies rather than chasing Soviet spies and subversives. J Edgar Hoover conveniently dies of heart failure before being subpoenaed to testify before HUAC.
"Deep Throat" Mark Felt, openly testifies before Congress about the diversion of FBI resources and specious criteria for investigation, arrest, and harassment by COINTELPRO operatives.
If you think Watergate shattered American confidence in government, seeing half of the command structure of the FBI under arrest for civil rights violations galore, as well as the CIA getting gutted over its shenanigans on US soil might have an even worse effect.
Basically, US loses all credibility over trying to win Nam, nearly bankrupts themselves, and most alliances start unraveling once the scary Soviet bear becomes considerably more cuddly. YMMV whether that's possible or likely. The USSR continues to progress in savvy and prestige, as well as soft power. The US becomes a self-doubting neurotic mess swinging between extremes of self-flagellation and jingoistic silliness and having an economically competitive USSR as well as Japan and Germany, among others further underscores the slippage in American industrial and commercial might in the 1980's. US can't agree on what to have for breakfast, much less make a coherent economic policy. By the Oughts, most American firms have been bankrupted or bought out by foreign concerns.
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Hkelukka
Banned
Not easy, but possible.
Here is how I see one possibility.
Soviet economy is much closer to facism, in that it allows small scale competition and local capitalism, similar to China.
Soviet union is far less militarily devoted and instead focuses on diplomacy.
Soviet union focuses on, and wins the space race.
Soviet union focuses on building and developing smaller and accurate nuclear weapons, providing them with a large 2nd strike capability and a reserve.
Following that it is a little bit more of a even game. But still will probably lead to a US victory.
So, in other words, A soviet union that is close to modern day China with a large network of allies and puppet states which doesnt waste its money on pointless large conventional armies and instead focuses it in improving the livelyhood of its people and developing as much space related technology as possible. That way there is a real chance of them winning, small but its there.
Here is how I see one possibility.
Soviet economy is much closer to facism, in that it allows small scale competition and local capitalism, similar to China.
Soviet union is far less militarily devoted and instead focuses on diplomacy.
Soviet union focuses on, and wins the space race.
Soviet union focuses on building and developing smaller and accurate nuclear weapons, providing them with a large 2nd strike capability and a reserve.
Following that it is a little bit more of a even game. But still will probably lead to a US victory.
So, in other words, A soviet union that is close to modern day China with a large network of allies and puppet states which doesnt waste its money on pointless large conventional armies and instead focuses it in improving the livelyhood of its people and developing as much space related technology as possible. That way there is a real chance of them winning, small but its there.
wolf_brother
Banned
You don't need a surviving USSR for them to win the Cold War; simply have the USA be much, much worse. More authoritarian, more militaristic, more paranoid, and more laissez faire and the entire thing would come crumbling down. Without some major reforms the USSR isn't long-lived for the world afterward, but historians will still remark that the communist Russians won the Cold War against the capitalist Americans. And that alone unleashed a hail of butterflies.
Perhaps have the US back down over Cuba? Its a stretch but you could argue that the government loses the backing of the American Public and the Soviets could get cocky. Honestly there would have to be a lot of POD's to create a USSR victory. Another path you could take is Russia claiming most of Europe after WWII. Say from a failed Normandy? This would create an isolated US state.
Thank you Hkelukka
I like your continuation of my thoughts. I was hinting that the USSR become a member of the European Community economically and make its CSCE include all of Europe.
For the Soviets to triumph in the cold war, they don't have to have superior firepower, they just have to be trusted and valued partners by as many major players as possible so they don't have to maintain a huge military.
Enough of a flexible nuclear deterrent to keep the Americans or other hostiles honest and effective when they do have to flex their muscles.
Anyhow, I thought I'd chime in again.
I like your continuation of my thoughts. I was hinting that the USSR become a member of the European Community economically and make its CSCE include all of Europe.
For the Soviets to triumph in the cold war, they don't have to have superior firepower, they just have to be trusted and valued partners by as many major players as possible so they don't have to maintain a huge military.
Enough of a flexible nuclear deterrent to keep the Americans or other hostiles honest and effective when they do have to flex their muscles.
Anyhow, I thought I'd chime in again.