AHC/WI: USA approaches the USSR instead of China.

That would only happen if the PRC is seen as more of a threat than the USSR, and it is very hard to see why that would be the case.

1) The USSR had the larger and more advanced economy by far.
2) The Red Army was considered much more dangerous than the PLA.
3) Europe was considered much more important to American interests than Asia.
4) Our European allies were directly adjacent to the Soviet bloc, while our Asian allies were mainly separated from PRC by the ocean.
5) The lingering postwar issues in Europe required a lot more involvement/competition/negotiation with the Soviets than anything comparable in Asia (the status of Berlin, continued occupation with Austria, division of Germany).

China is simply not capable of being a bigger threat than the USSR during the period of the 1950s-1980s. Not only would you need Mao to act crazy and aggressively, you also need the Soviets to be much more accommodating. The only thing I can think of is that Khruschev is able to achieve some kind of breakthrough with Eisenhower that dramatically lower tensions in Europe while he is still able to retain power against hardliners, and eventually a complete change in Soviet foreign and domestic policies come about. In response, Mao becomes more aggressive in denouncing the Soviets as revisionists and more bold in aggression against his neighbors.
 
Kennedy lives as focuses on a joint US USSR space program. Joint attack on PRC Nuclear Program. K succeeded by Kosygin not Leanoid Prague spring tolerated. The checks are left alone.
 
Kennedy lives as focuses on a joint US USSR space program. Joint attack on PRC Nuclear Program. K succeeded by Kosygin not Leanoid Prague spring tolerated. The checks are left alone.

And Mao pulls more stunts like the British Embassy seizure. Maybe tries to annex Hong Kong thirty years ahead of schedule.
 
I've heard that Khrushchev put the US on edge through his "We will bury you!" speech at the UN. Supposedly that was a bad translation, and he was actually meaning to say, "We will be present when you are buried," which is a Russian idiom akin to, "It's your funeral." Had that not happened, could the US, especially under Kennedy, have been more inclined to work with Khrushchev against a hostile Mao, especially if Kennedy lives?

And if that happens, does the USSR turn to more pragmatic approaches instead of hardline Communism, thereby becoming a more fearsome economic competitor even after - or if - the USSR collapses, leaving China as a bewildered, untouchable state? What then of China's defense of the DPRK?
 
No chance post 1953.

Earlier PODs that would help include:

1) No Russian nukes
2) Stalin is gone before the purges => capable post Stalin leaders unlike the clowns they had
3) Poland, East Germany, and Czech Republic have free and legit elections post WWII.
4) Peaceful ascension by the Bolesheviks => less ideological/more flexible regime
5) No Berlin Airlift, no Korean War or its a Korean War led by Chinese at the start and renounced by Soviets
 
The only way I can see this happening is if the USSR gets replaced by a leader that seeks a more favorable relationship with the US and China gets more hostile with the US and the West. Perhaps if the Gang of Four were to retain their power and somehow dispose their opponents (including Deng) and if someone like Kosygin takes over the USSR, then maybe that would do the trick.
 
This is a hard ask, primarily because one could argue that the US is hostile to any "second power" that is its closest rival (yay for 'Realist' approaches to geopolitics *rolls eyes*), but there might just be a way to pull this off.

JFK was particularly worried about the Chinese, especially regarding their nuclear programme. Somehow have the Russians agree with them about the need to bomb the Chinese nuclear facilities in Western China and this would mean a Russian-American alliance of convenience against Mao. Double this if the Russians for whatever reason stop supporting Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese. Give the impression of greater Chinese expansion through an intensified communist campaign in the Philippines and seizure of power in Indonesia by the PKI. Get some more radical and violent action by the Black Panther Party (which often espoused Maoist doctrine) and university students (during this period, also quite often Mao fans) to put the White House on edge about Chinese involvement. Double down on that with the FBI fabricating evidence connecting the PRC to black nationalist groups in an attempt to get more government support, funding etc. Combine this with the Sino-Russian border clashes and you've got a powder keg.

The biggest problem is getting the Russians to allow the US to use Russian bases to hit the Chinese nuclear sites. The lack of trust means the Soviets are going to thing that the US is trying to spy on Soviet military facilities, and that they're trying to start a war between the USSR and China to bleed both sides. The KGB especially is going to think this is an 'imperialist plot'. The Russians would undoubtedly win a large-scale conventional confrontation with the Chinese, but it may prove a pyrrhic victory given the amount of men and materiel the Chinese theatre will absorb. It will also affect Soviet power projection elsewhere and give the Americans breathing space. This is likely the reason they refused OTL. Geopolitics is about relative power, and the Soviets have more to lose than the Americans.
 
Didn't Nixon try to talk detente with the Soviets before approaching China? He was largely rebuffed, but he tried IIRC. And there's the apocryphal stories about Brezhnev offering Ford a deal to divide the world into spheres of influence and end overt Cold War competition so the US and USSR could focus on keeping the rising powers down... so it seems possible with the right constellation of leaders.
 

Deleted member 94708

Unlikely. China even today lacks the military piwer projection or soft power to truly constitute a threat to the US, more than fifty years later. At the time, the US rightfully viewed the USSR as the only potential threat to its interests and even its existence. China, by comparison, was barely even able to fight the US to a standstill in its own periphery.
 
So with a POD after Korea, technically this did happen, granted it's the Cold War so it's complicated as crap. The U.S and USSR went for peaceful co-existence, this among many other things were what the Chinese rejected when the Sino-Soviet split happened. After the Cuban Missle Crisis, the Domino Theory changed to one of we have to stop the spread Communism as this monolith to we have to prevent the Chinese ideology from spread it could embolden the Chinese and panic the Soviets into being more aggressive.

The problem is with the Sino-Soviet Split both the Soviets and Chinese had to pour aid and supplies into various nations to gain influence. With North Vietnam, it became an issue where the Soviets couldn't really back away from leaving them to rot but completely at the mercy of having to supply China via railroad, who sabotaged their aid. while the Chinese were more than happy to aid the North Vietnamese, provided they never said anything good about the Soviet Union. What you need to do is make the U.S "win" Vietnam earlier, and maybe no Cuban Missle crisis to help.

LBJ fucked up royally in Vietnam when left Westmorland in command which shows why a technocratic approach to war is risky. Westmoreland and I think Mcnamara believed that if you took a mathematic approach to war you could win if you killed enough of the enemy then they could afford, that there would be a turnover point. This led to the strategy of the body count where the only metric of success was how many were enemies, which left many young officers trying to get enough dead for one tour of duty either inflating numbers or killing civilians, coupled with the fact Diem was unpopular lead to lots of resistance against South Vietnam. If JFK is alive he could send in Creighton Abrams and have them pacify South Vietnam, along with possibly getting Diem in line, it could send the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table.

Tensions would ease, allowing for an improvement of Soviet-U.S relations.
 
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The only way I can see this happening is if the USSR gets replaced by a leader that seeks a more favorable relationship with the US and China gets more hostile with the US and the West. Perhaps if the Gang of Four were to retain their power and somehow dispose their opponents (including Deng) and if someone like Kosygin takes over the USSR, then maybe that would do the trick.

This was beyond Kosygin's capabilities, and frankly, any post Stalin leader. He killed or cowered everyone so that the survivors lack the intellectual capacity and/or courage to do this.
 
Unlikely. China even today lacks the military piwer projection or soft power to truly constitute a threat to the US, more than fifty years later. At the time, the US rightfully viewed the USSR as the only potential threat to its interests and even its existence. China, by comparison, was barely even able to fight the US to a standstill in its own periphery.

Correct. The best way around this would be be for Mao to go apeshit with nukes and become The Greater Evil, however that has a high probability of triggering your standard Sino-Soviet nuclear curb stomp.
 
Now, it's certainly possible to imagine the USSR collapsing as OTL much earlier, and then the US forming an alliance with the rump successor against a still-hardline Mao. That's basically the only way I can see it happening.
 
Agree with Just a Rube.

China and Russia fight a major war, and the Chinese win! Nukes and all. China is now the greater threat.

Maybe the Yalu offensive goes much, much better for the Chinese than IOTL and the wipe the Americans, Koreans, and their Allies out in Korea?
 
With a PoD not before the end of the Korean War, make the USA become friendly to the USSR and hostile to the PRC.

That actually seemed to be the tendency around 1963 (with the US and USSR agreeing to the limited nuclear test ban treaty and other steps toward détente, and China denouncing Khrushchev as a sell-out).

Granted, it wasn't actual *friendship* with the USSR, but at least relations seemed much better than with the PRC.
 
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