Conventional War Instead of Vietnam

Delta Force

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In my timeline about the jet age I am considering having the United States fight a conventional war in the 1960s against a communist state as an alternative to the Vietnam War. This allows for aerospace technology to show itself solving a conflict in a decisive manner, avoiding strategic bombers being replaced by missiles and avoiding the economic problems of the 1970s that helped kill the SST.

I was thinking that a Second Korean War or an invasion of Cuba would allow for a conventional conflict to happen. The problem is that the timeline goes on to the present day and I am worried those conflicts would lead to at the very least a limited nuclear war. I also want to avoid damaging the American or global economy too much because the gold standard is going to play a major role in the timeline later on (as it avoids the inflation, oil crisis, and stagflation of the 1970s and early 1980s). If it makes a major difference in the events of the war, Nixon is president from 1961-1969 and his vice president (in this timeline Rockefeller) is president from 1969 to 1973.

Any suggestions for this?
 
Syria has a more left government, and the Arab States nearly overwhelm Israel, the United States under Cmdr and Chief Nixon attack Syria with heavy airpower, with a strong threat against Jordan and Egypt. Neither concede and Israel begins to teeter, the USA deploys forces into the region to defend Tel-Aviv and possibly Jerusalem. Airpower destroys the economies of Syria, Jordan, and Egypt resulting in the US government funding more for aircraft and less for missiles.
 
Syria has a more left government, and the Arab States nearly overwhelm Israel, the United States under Cmdr and Chief Nixon attack Syria with heavy airpower, with a strong threat against Jordan and Egypt. Neither concede and Israel begins to teeter, the USA deploys forces into the region to defend Tel-Aviv and possibly Jerusalem. Airpower destroys the economies of Syria, Jordan, and Egypt resulting in the US government funding more for aircraft and less for missiles.

A brutally short, sharp war - and an excellent excuse for Qtubists to establish an Arab Islamic Union - I think the oil crisis will still happen - and then some.
 
If you want to avoid US involvement altogether, it would require a POD in French policy in 1945 plus avoiding the question of "who lost China?", which would likely cause to many butterflys for you.

Minimizing it instead, might work.

(However, you've got a bigger problem in having 5 (plus?) consecutive GOP presidential terms. Yes, FDR/Truman did it, but you'll have to have some equally exceptional circumstances for this to happen.)
 

Delta Force

Banned
If you want to avoid US involvement altogether, it would require a POD in French policy in 1945 plus avoiding the question of "who lost China?", which would likely cause to many butterflys for you.

Minimizing it instead, might work.

(However, you've got a bigger problem in having 5 (plus?) consecutive GOP presidential terms. Yes, FDR/Truman did it, but you'll have to have some equally exceptional circumstances for this to happen.)

I don't plan to avoid Vietnam, just avoid having it be the massive intervention it was in our timeline.

As for the long consecutive GOP rule, depending on when the war takes place there will likely be a big jump in popularity as there almost always is with American presidents at war. Perhaps something very controversial ends up happening during the war that ends up harming the administration, like a tactical nuclear attack? Israel also had something of a falling out with many American liberals during the 1970s, so perhaps American intervention in an Arab-Israeli conflict leads to something like OTL's hippie movement and a new administration for 1968.
 
Um, just out of curiosity: how does the USA not adopting missiles instead of bombers keep the USSR from going to missiles instead as a means to counter the USA which this USA would be not very well prepared to counter?
 
Cubas out unless you want a nuclear war. Anywhere in the Middle East the conventional fight would be over in days but would lead to a prolonged insurgency. Provided they start the fight first and without the backing of either Russia or China then North Korea is the most likely candidate. I suppose Yugoslavia is also an option in theory, but thats likely to bring in the Warsaw Pact. There's also Indonesia but Britain and the Anzacs are already engaged there in Borneo. If the confrontation developed into a full blown war with Indonesians attacking Malaysia from Java Sumatra then I suppose the US would be drawn in. Though the Indonesians weren't communists.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Um, just out of curiosity: how does the USA not adopting missiles instead of bombers keep the USSR from going to missiles instead as a means to counter the USA which this USA would be not very well prepared to counter?

I guess I worded that awkwardly in the OP. What I meant to say was that the US adopts both missiles and improved bombers. The difference is that spending on bombers is greater than in our timeline where they were regarded as largely obsolete and useless in modern warfare during the 1960s and 1970s, leading to a string of bombers being canceled (XB-70, FB-111, B-1A).
 
Cuba is out. The USSR made Cuba a tripwire state.

At what date?

Substituting or following up Bay of Pigs with a conventional invasion would see a Cuba that doesn't have any missiles. How substantial were the numbers of Russian advisers available to get killed through collateral damage?

Could an earlier intervention, on the order of 1959-early 1960, not be engineered?
 
In my timeline about the jet age I am considering having the United States fight a conventional war in the 1960s against a communist state as an alternative to the Vietnam War. This allows for aerospace technology to show itself solving a conflict in a decisive manner, avoiding strategic bombers being replaced by missiles and avoiding the economic problems of the 1970s that helped kill the SST.

I was thinking that a Second Korean War or an invasion of Cuba would allow for a conventional conflict to happen. The problem is that the timeline goes on to the present day and I am worried those conflicts would lead to at the very least a limited nuclear war. I also want to avoid damaging the American or global economy too much because the gold standard is going to play a major role in the timeline later on (as it avoids the inflation, oil crisis, and stagflation of the 1970s and early 1980s). If it makes a major difference in the events of the war, Nixon is president from 1961-1969 and his vice president (in this timeline Rockefeller) is president from 1969 to 1973.

Any suggestions for this?

If you really want to avoid the VIetnam War, then your POD has to be in early 1954 BEFORE Dien Bien Phu. I would suggest Eisenhower pressuring the French to grant formal independence to a United Vietnam and then Ally with President Ho Chi Minh. In other words, give Mihn what he asked the U.S> for i nthe first place. Then instead of Vietnam becoming a dangerous domino, you have a Vietnam that is a strong democratic bulwark. a sort of Vietnam war might happen, but it would be, largly conventional as we would help a united and Free Vietnam defend itself fro mthe likes of the PRC/ NKorea, and other Asian Com clients.
 
I don't plan to avoid Vietnam, just avoid having it be the massive intervention it was in our timeline.

As for the long consecutive GOP rule, depending on when the war takes place there will likely be a big jump in popularity as there almost always is with American presidents at war. Perhaps something very controversial ends up happening during the war that ends up harming the administration, like a tactical nuclear attack? Israel also had something of a falling out with many American liberals during the 1970s, so perhaps American intervention in an Arab-Israeli conflict leads to something like OTL's hippie movement and a new administration for 1968.

Using a tac-nuke against an aligned client state would escalate and using one against a non-aligned would would be a political and FP disaster that would most likely result in the GOP's loss in the next election.

If you really want to avoid the VIetnam War, then your POD has to be in early 1954 BEFORE Dien Bien Phu. I would suggest Eisenhower pressuring the French to grant formal independence to a United Vietnam and then Ally with President Ho Chi Minh. In other words, give Mihn what he asked the U.S> for i nthe first place. Then instead of Vietnam becoming a dangerous domino, you have a Vietnam that is a strong democratic bulwark. a sort of Vietnam war might happen, but it would be, largly conventional as we would help a united and Free Vietnam defend itself fro mthe likes of the PRC/ NKorea, and other Asian Com clients.

Uncle Ho as an ally would require a POD well before 1954. You'd either have to avoid his being communist or "who lost china".
 
Using a tac-nuke against an aligned client state would escalate and using one against a non-aligned would would be a political and FP disaster that would most likely result in the GOP's loss in the next election.



Uncle Ho as an ally would require a POD well before 1954. You'd either have to avoid his being communist or "who lost china".

Might have to go as far back as Versais in 1918.
 
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