DBWI: Able Archer attack never happens?

We all know how this one event in which was a mere exercise by NATO in 1983 convinced the Soviets that it was a ruse for an invasion by NATO and ironically invaded much of NATO and some neutral countries in the process, thus kicking off the 5 year long Third World War and we all know how devastating that was (especially in regards to White Tuesday and the Red Holocaust*). Yet evidence from the days of the Politiburo suggested that the leadership could have held off from launching the Red Dawn attacks by that time, perhaps if someone were to show them evidence that the Able Archer exercise is just an exercise and nothing else. But knowing how deranged the Soviets were, I really find that unlikely, but let's say this happens sometime before November 9th, and the Soviets held off on the attacks and just let the exercise continue peacefully. How would this effect the state of things in the West as well as the entire world? would this Cold War still have lasted to this day? I'm really curious.

OOC: I'm pretty sure you get the idea of how this ALT world came to be, but yet I like to try my hand on this DWBI thing.

*And in case people ask, White Tuesday is when the nuking part happens but is limited in scale but still devastating and the Red Holocaust can be summed up as what it is to the Soviets and the Holocaust is to the Nazis, i.e. the moral event horizon of the USSR.
 
Last edited:
Then perhaps, Europe, Russia, the USA would not have suffered so much devastation and so many irreparable treasures would not have been lost, its is fascinating examining the events of 70 years ago; it is almost comparable to dark ages Britain, we as historians have a fairly firm understanding of the world before 1983, we know that the USA was engaged in the so-called Cold War with the Soviets and both powers blocs had alliances with respective client states in both the east and the west. But important details such as whether the United Kingdom was a favoured partner of the United States or a power in its own right, and why exactly was Chinese communism different from the Soviets has been lost. Most put this down to the exchange 'the Red Holocaust', but I'd say that it was the period of reconstruction that followed it, we know almost nothing about the 1990s because of the pressure of surviving those years. Likewise it would be until about 2005-19 that the first survivor states would start forming, so it was not until about the 2020s and 30s that serious consideration would be given to analysing what had happened. There was still a great deal of post atomic shock from my grandparents generation, none really wanted to accept what had happened and so analysing it would make the horrors real. But by the 2040s enough of a post atomic generation had built up to give serious and unemotional thought on the past, plus technological advances had caught up by then and the establishment of the internet had long distance communication viable again.

The 'five day' war was devastating, but good for us, it demonstrated to the most horrifying extent the deeps of paranoia and fear and how it could quite litteraly destroy everything and I think we have learned from that, the agreements to persue nuclear technology as a civilian means only and the commitment to sharing information have leed the global community to stand together. Though we have lost much, we have gained a greater understanding of ourselves, our smallness and our fragilit, that if we don't try to get off this rock and take better care of it we will not survive. We lost the great cities of the past, London, Moscow, New York, Beijing, so that we could start again in another place. We lost the art works, and learned how to create again. We lost our past, so we could set out to regain it. Something's have survived though, the States and the Kingdoms are still United, if distant, China is still considered as one, despite not being one and people go on, dreaming and fighting as ever.

Luath
 
Then perhaps, Europe, Russia, the USA would not have suffered so much devastation and so many irreparable treasures would not have been lost, its is fascinating examining the events of 70 years ago; it is almost comparable to dark ages Britain, we as historians have a fairly firm understanding of the world before 1983, we know that the USA was engaged in the so-called Cold War with the Soviets and both powers blocs had alliances with respective client states in both the east and the west. But important details such as whether the United Kingdom was a favoured partner of the United States or a power in its own right, and why exactly was Chinese communism different from the Soviets has been lost. Most put this down to the exchange 'the Red Holocaust', but I'd say that it was the period of reconstruction that followed it, we know almost nothing about the 1990s because of the pressure of surviving those years. Likewise it would be until about 2005-19 that the first survivor states would start forming, so it was not until about the 2020s and 30s that serious consideration would be given to analysing what had happened. There was still a great deal of post atomic shock from my grandparents generation, none really wanted to accept what had happened and so analysing it would make the horrors real. But by the 2040s enough of a post atomic generation had built up to give serious and unemotional thought on the past, plus technological advances had caught up by then and the establishment of the internet had long distance communication viable again.

The 'five day' war was devastating, but good for us, it demonstrated to the most horrifying extent the deeps of paranoia and fear and how it could quite litteraly destroy everything and I think we have learned from that, the agreements to persue nuclear technology as a civilian means only and the commitment to sharing information have leed the global community to stand together. Though we have lost much, we have gained a greater understanding of ourselves, our smallness and our fragilit, that if we don't try to get off this rock and take better care of it we will not survive. We lost the great cities of the past, London, Moscow, New York, Beijing, so that we could start again in another place. We lost the art works, and learned how to create again. We lost our past, so we could set out to regain it. Something's have survived though, the States and the Kingdoms are still United, if distant, China is still considered as one, despite not being one and people go on, dreaming and fighting as ever.

Luath

OOC: I'm referring to a war that lasted conventionally then went nuclear on a limited scale near the end yet the northern hemisphere isn't turned into some Fallout-esque wasteland yet the USSR collapsed and ended up looking like Metro for a while. It's similar to Giobastia's take on the third world war, even though it lasted a lot shorter than mine. And that the Red Holocaust refers to the Soviet atrocities committed on the scale of WWII's Nazi Germany during that time, White Tuesday is when the nuclear attacks happened.

But at least you did capture that grim feeling of how much we would lose if TTL's WWIII's nuclear attacks really did go full scale.
 
OOC: I'm referring to a war that lasted conventionally then went nuclear on a limited scale near the end yet the northern hemisphere isn't turned into some Fallout-esque wasteland yet the USSR collapsed and ended up looking like Metro for a while. It's similar to Giobastia's take on the third world war, even though it lasted a lot shorter than mine. And that the Red Holocaust refers to the Soviet atrocities committed on the scale of WWII's Nazi Germany during that time, White Tuesday is when the nuclear attacks happened.

But at least you did capture that grim feeling of how much we would lose if TTL's WWIII's nuclear attacks really did go full scale.

Ooc: Oh right, I read it as 'five days' war, for the record I wasn't trying to go for fallout, my character was supposed to be typing in 2056, by what time we've recovered to a roughly 2005-10 tech level. Still what you have sounds interesting, though I don't think the Soviet would do anything like the Nazis, though I could be wrong.

Luath
 
Ooc: Oh right, I read it as 'five days' war, for the record I wasn't trying to go for fallout, my character was supposed to be typing in 2056, by what time we've recovered to a roughly 2005-10 tech level. Still what you have sounds interesting, though I don't think the Soviet would do anything like the Nazis, though I could be wrong.

Luath

Eh, well you can have your character type in the present year of 2016, just for simplicity's sake. And the war I'm referring to is the one that happened in a TL I'm currently making:http://kubocaskett.deviantart.com/art/Metal-Slug-Houfuku-World-Map-Revised-635067832 (and yes it is based on the games of the same name, it's a long story).
 

chankljp

Donor
OCC: Just a quick question, how would an average person in the post-Able Archer world knew that the attack was triggered by the Soviets misinterpreting the NATO military exercise as a preparation for an attack? Wouldn't the all records of this be kept top secret by the Soviet leadership during the 5 year long war, if not outright lost in the nuclear exchange?
 
OCC: Just a quick question, how would an average person in the post-Able Archer world knew that the attack was triggered by the Soviets misinterpreting the NATO military exercise as a preparation for an attack? Wouldn't the all records of this be kept top secret by the Soviet leadership during the 5 year long war, if not outright lost in the nuclear exchange?
Let's just say it's newly found evidence that had been dug up from the ruins of the Politburo for the sake of our argument.
 
Well I know I wouldn't be answering this in my bombed out bunker as I drink my canned water and government cheese ration - that's for sure.
 
Top