Cold War Heats Up; WWIII in the 60's-70's

DaHound22

Banned
So I want to write a timeline about a WWIII in the 60's-70's between communism and capitalism, I.e. USSR and Co. Vs. USA and Co., but I have a few questions and I'd like some input. First and foremost let me just say that I would like to avoid an unconventional or nuclear war between the nations, as the only result of nuclear war is total destruction and in the end that really isn't that interesting. So...

#1. How should the war be set in motion? I've been thinking something along the lines of the superpowers getting more involved in the Six-Day or Yom Kippur Wars in the Middle East, due to the importance of oil and the Holy Land. How could this happen? Or do I need a different POD

#2. What would the sides be? I imagine an "allied" side of France, USA and UK and a "Marxist" side of Russia and China. Is that accurate? Who else would be involved and to what extent?

#3. What would be the fronts? I can see Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe being huge battlegrounds, but where else in the world would the war have been fought? Which nations would be most effected and which if any could stay neutral?

Bonus Question: With the rise of the counterculture in the 1960's, and the Marxist beliefs that many of them had, would it at all be possible for the counterculture to become violent, receive soviet funding, and revolt in areas where they were strong such as the west coast?
 
You're going to struggle with the non nuclear thing, nuclear weapons were integral to the strategies of both sides.
 
You're going to struggle with the non nuclear thing, nuclear weapons were integral to the strategies of both sides.

I agree. Especially post Vietnam and with the effects of the transition to the all-volunteer force in the 1970s the US armed forces are arguably at their nadir from a conventional standpoint. Any central Europe conflict in this timeframe would see NATO losing unless special weapons were used, not that that would be any sort of win.

Re: point number 2. This timeframe is post split so China would likely be neutral at best and depending on circumstances might join the fight against the USSR.

You could go the proxy war route. I think it would be hard for either superpower to back down if they ever came into direct conflict - the high risk of escalation and possible strategic exchange is shy they took pains to avoid it.

Good luck with the timeline!
 

DaHound22

Banned
You're going to struggle with the non nuclear thing, nuclear weapons were integral to the strategies of both sides.

Could the belief of M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) keep them from attacking each other with nuclear weapons? Even if it meant no one could win the war?
 

DaHound22

Banned
I agree. Especially post Vietnam and with the effects of the transition to the all-volunteer force in the 1970s the US armed forces are arguably at their nadir from a conventional standpoint. Any central Europe conflict in this timeframe would see NATO losing unless special weapons were used, not that that would be any sort of win.

Re: point number 2. This timeframe is post split so China would likely be neutral at best and depending on circumstances might join the fight against the USSR.

You could go the proxy war route. I think it would be hard for either superpower to back down if they ever came into direct conflict - the high risk of escalation and possible strategic exchange is shy they took pains to avoid it.

Good luck with the timeline!

About the part with the proxy wars, do you think it's possibly for the proxy wars to get a point to where later historians could categorize the period as a "world war" type era?
 
Could the belief of M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) keep them from attacking each other with nuclear weapons? Even if it meant no one could win the war?

A high end conventional war in Western Europe, Middle East and Asia would be enormously destructive and if the Soviets were looking to overrun these areas the jump from conventional to nuclear would be somewhat smaller than we would think of it today.

This is why proxy wars were popular, the great powers can fight but not in a way that will put them in a position where nuclear release looks like a reasonable option.
 
It's going to be really hard to justify one side not breaking out the nukes the moment it looks like things aren't going their way.

In regards to your factions, China and the USSR by the mid-60's had fallen out and would be unlikely to assist one another in a major conflict with the West (by the late 60's they were at war on/off with one another).
 
About the part with the proxy wars, do you think it's possibly for the proxy wars to get a point to where later historians could categorize the period as a "world war" type era?

Probably depends on the number and intensities of the conflicts. In OTL Cold War there were quite a few proxies already - Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. You could definitely have a plausible TL with more and nastier conflicts by either worsening the OTL conflicts or devising new ones.

Maybe a USSR-PRC border war leads to a US-USSR conflict in the Asia theatre? If there was some tacit understanding to keep Europe quiet you may get some time to have the big boys trade blows before things get out of control.

I doubt it would be called "WW3" at the time if you go the proxy route, since that was reserved in the public consciousness as the "nukes fly, everyone dies" kind of direct East-West battle.
 

DaHound22

Banned
Probably depends on the number and intensities of the conflicts. In OTL Cold War there were quite a few proxies already - Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. You could definitely have a plausible TL with more and nastier conflicts by either worsening the OTL conflicts or devising new ones.

Maybe a USSR-PRC border war leads to a US-USSR conflict in the Asia theatre? If there was some tacit understanding to keep Europe quiet you may get some time to have the big boys trade blows before things get out of control.

I doubt it would be called "WW3" at the time if you go the proxy route, since that was reserved in the public consciousness as the "nukes fly, everyone dies" kind of direct East-West battle.

I like this idea. I feel like to get really nasty though, using the proxy war route at least, the conflict would have to stem from the Middle East (this is just my opinion). What are the odds that the soviets fund the Arabs enough for them to have a dragged out war with US allies in the region like Israel and Turkey and Saudi Arabia?

EDIT: Better yet, is is feasible to combine these two scenarios? A combination of two (or more) really nasty proxy wars in the Middle East and Southeast Asia maybe?
 
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DaHound22

Banned
Also what are the odds that the Counterculture gets violent? They already held a lot of Marxist ideals, and if the soviets could fund a civil war in the US then that'd be a way to get them (the superpowers) into conflict with each other, sort of. Right? How plausible is that
 
Some catalysts could be the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, an escalation of Vietnam, the Pueblo incident spirals out of control, the boarder conflict between the USSR and China escalates and obviously the Yom Kippur War.

With so many troops in Vietnam, the US would have a difficult time defending Western Europe conventionally. And the further into Vietnam you go the worse it gets. For that reason I agree with the prior commentators in that the war goes nuclear pretty quickly.

One final point, Leonid Brezhnev was a cautious individual. He's not someone whose likely to start WWIII unless its an accident.
 
except the early 80s just about any WWIII is going to be nuclear from the start. a possible way around this is maybe a series of proxy wars at once and one becomes a limited direct war (maybe). otherwise its just not a good window.
 
Just remember the UK and France have independent nuclear strike forces. Especially the French, who are not integrated in to NATO, may have different criteria for going nuclear - such as WP forces crossing the Rhine. Once any nukes start flying...
 

DaHound22

Banned
To be honest if I can't avoid going nuclear I think I'm just gonna scratch the whole thing. Nukes destroy all the interest in my opinion.
 

Archibald

Banned
Just remember the UK and France have independent nuclear strike forces. Especially the French, who are not integrated in to NATO, may have different criteria for going nuclear - such as WP forces crossing the Rhine. Once any nukes start flying...

As far as I understand it (I'm French) the trauma of 1940 was evidently very present and so there was no way France got invaded another time and humiliated like in 1940. Thus if the Soviets steamrolled NATO and reached the Rhine, nukes were to be used to wipe out any bridgehead. But maybe I understood wrong (I'm a space fanboy, not WWII expert)
 
I like this idea. I feel like to get really nasty though, using the proxy war route at least, the conflict would have to stem from the Middle East (this is just my opinion). What are the odds that the soviets fund the Arabs enough for them to have a dragged out war with US allies in the region like Israel and Turkey and Saudi Arabia?

EDIT: Better yet, is is feasible to combine these two scenarios? A combination of two (or more) really nasty proxy wars in the Middle East and Southeast Asia maybe?

https://www.alternatehistory.com/Discussion/showthread.php?t=371999


Basically, China and USSR dueling it out with America secretly funding and supporting China.
 
As far as I understand it (I'm French) the trauma of 1940 was evidently very present and so there was no way France got invaded another time and humiliated like in 1940. Thus if the Soviets steamrolled NATO and reached the Rhine, nukes were to be used to wipe out any bridgehead. But maybe I understood wrong (I'm a space fanboy, not WWII expert)

There is pretty good evidence that the French would have initiated tactical nuclear release if the Rhine was crossed by Soviet armored spearheads. In this time period the conventional disparity was such that the US/NATO forces would need tac nukes to have a hope of slowing the Red Army. I can't imagine that a Central Europe battlefield wouldn't end in nuclear annihilation, the stakes of either side losing were too high.

Asia is a better bet for a superpower conflict. The USSR will win an expanded border war against the PRC but the disparity of forces might increase the chances the US becomes a co-belligerent. It would be hard to limit US-USSR conflict to just Asia but it is possible.

Your scenario could be that the PRC gets frisky during Yom Kippur and makes a push for one of the border islands. This is post "Nixon goes to China" and maybe they get the wrong signal from Kissenger or someone else in State (ala Saddam and Kuwait 1991). So you have an active Arab/Israeli conflict (which already led to increased US-USSR tensions) added on to the USSR-PRC border skirmish and the Vietnam War in its closing stages.
 
It wasn't until the late 70s that the soviets caught up with the west in terms of nuclear numbers, meeting in about 1977 at around 25k each. This was a massive increase for the Soviets, up from about 12k in 1970.
 
I must say that the idea of 'the dog that didn't bark' (ie, a nuclear conflict in Asia whilst Europe remains locked in a cold war) is one that I've not seen before...
 
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