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While there have been extensive discussions on the possibility of the USSR lasting longer than it did, I often wonder how the world would be different with a Soviet Union that collapsed sooner. I'd suggest that the biggest reasons for the collapse were, in no particular order:
#1 - Losses in Afghanistan.
#2 - Poor harvests in the Ukraine.
#3 - Inability to deal with internal nationalist aspirations.
#4 - A really flawed economic model.
#5 - A leader who tried to loosen control, but ended up simply causing it to fly apart.

#2-#5 could happen any time, but in order to have a collapsing Soviet Union, you need that "failed foriegn adventure". I'm looking at one of three options:

#1 - Big ground/conventional war with the Chinese circa 1965 over Siberia.
#2 - Africa?
#3 - Into Afghanistan in the 1960's rather than the 1980's.

I'm hoping to engineer a Soviet collapse in the late 1970s rather than the early 1990s. I'm leaning the hardest for a Chinese/Soviet confrontation, because it would create some interesting side effects. First, the big war up there leaves little to support the little war in Vietnam. This gives the Americans a free hand to easily crush the North. Instead of a Huey fleeing from Saigon as the lasting image, that same Huey is photographed unloading airmobile troops as part of the fall of the North Vietnamese government.

Now, without the defeat in Vietnam, there are benefits and drawbacks to the US. First, they are not forced to re-evaluate and re-build their military strategy and doctrine. Second, the lack of the defeat in Vietnam does not shape and colour the entire US strategic conventional doctrine as it has. Unlike now, the first question isn't "Will this turn into another Vietnam?", but instead they'll be operating from the same playbook they carried in WW2. Lastly, this would put the resulting drawdown of the US forces in the hands of Carter, not Clinton. That's assuming that the Reagan/Bush years even happen, as there isn't an "Evil Empire" for Ron to fight.

Thoughts?
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