How hot can the Cold War get without turning into full on nuclear war.

All Rounder

Gone Fishin'
Nuclear annihilation is nearly inevitable if even one is launched. But I would say a more U.S and Soviet involved Afghan War, and a Macarthur like strategy is concocted in the Korean war, resulting in a war with China, but I think that's stretching it. I am ignoring the Cuban Crisis as it was as tension filled as possible, make it worse and you're looking at WW3.
 
I guess US/Soviet forces in direct conflict with conventional weapons would be the worst case without going nuclear.
 
Keep it out of Europe where Warsaw Pact plans involved use of nukes as SOP. Somewhere in a war of proxis where both NATO and WAPA decide to intervene directly without it triggering war in Europe!
 
Nuclear annihilation is nearly inevitable if even one is launched.
Break the no-nuclear-use taboo early (Korea) or avoid it being established at all (DOWNFALL) and that consequence isn't so inevitable.

Realistically, you want more disputes of Cuban grade - not sure how to achieve that - and intense jockeying for position at sea and in the air. As it was, submarines effectively went to war when they dived in every respect apart from actually firing weapons, and the occasional reconnaissance aircraft got shot down. That can be scaled up, probably to the level of submarines intruding too closely being deliberately sunk. Basically keep the losses low enough and over trivial enough issues that nobody goes to war over them. Lots of proxy wars too in Africa, South America and southern Asia too - Iran springs to mind, along with further prolongment of misery in Indochina.
 
The USSR could pile some more help into North Vietnam, likely without declaring war formally. Anything more than that seems too risky.

- BNC
 

nico223

Banned
We shall soon see how hot war will go to nuclear

Clinton as president is 100 percent about the great war .
No options otherwise.
 
If fighting breaks out in Europe or the Middle East then a full nuclear exchange is almost inevitable. It's possible that you might get direct exchanges taking place in proxy wars or in conflicts seen as strategically peripheral but the politics would become very difficult for either side to back down. On the other hand, they don't necessarily become so difficult for the 'change' power in the local scenario as to justify the severe risk of a full nuclear exchange. What would happen though if, say, the Soviets withdrew from some Africa post-colonial conflict that the Americans became engaged in (for sake of argument), is that the US would become much more assertive elsewhere, both in local theatres (some of which would have been of primary strategic interest to the USSR), and in direct bilateral relations.
 

nico223

Banned
Only one party begins to increase the combat readiness of its troops

The second side sees it, too, does.
The first sees it and strengthens its military readiness.
Race fear.

War is not needed for this
 
We shall soon see how hot war will go to nuclear

Clinton as president is 100 percent about the great war .
No options otherwise.

Better Clinton standing up to international bullies than Trump bending over whilst his muscle buddy Putin has his way.
 

nico223

Banned
oh I know, the whole world belongs to the United States

No problems
but not Russia
It remained a huge chunk of the world for the US
 

nico223

Banned
The deployment of US troops in the world
 

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James G

Gone Fishin'
We shall soon see how hot war will go to nuclear

Clinton as president is 100 percent about the great war .
No options otherwise.

Only one party begins to increase the combat readiness of its troops

The second side sees it, too, does.
The first sees it and strengthens its military readiness.
Race fear.

War is not needed for this

For example, if the Soviet Union begins a large military exercise

oh I know, the whole world belongs to the United States

No problems
but not Russia
It remained a huge chunk of the world for the US

Americans can be masters of the world but not Russia


The deployment of US troops in the world
Hitler nothingness

Do you know that you could have created a thread in Chat for this nationalistic, evil-Western-conspiracy-against-Russia male bovine manure?
 

nico223

Banned
I do not understand what the base
You do not like it if Russia is free?
What's wrong doing for your country Russia?
 
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missouribob

Banned
Fighting breaks out in Germany, tactical nukes are used, somehow (very low chance that this part happens) both sides decide to stop while they are ahead. Germany now glows.
 
Does it matter who goes hot? What if the Sino-Soviet border skirmishes ramp up into a full-blown war short of using nuclear weapons, that or the Korean War going south seem more likely?
 
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