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How long could World War III circa 1985 - 1987 actually last? Most estimates I’ve seen limit the duration of the conflict to somewhere between two weeks to maybe two months, as production would not be able to replace the massive amount of equipment that would be lost during the opening weeks of the war.

A few assumptions going in:

1. No use of nuclear weapons by major powers.
2. All countries involved have had roughly one year of sufficient warning to prepare for war (moving troops around, tooling up factories for production, etc.)
3. War will not stop until one side or another achieves victory.
4. Victory for NATO & cobelligerents is defined primarily as defeating a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe and limiting expansion of Soviet influence elsewhere; conversely, victory for the Warsaw Pact is defined as establishing Soviet dominance of Eurasia by conquering Western Europe to the French border, limiting the influence of the United States as much as possible, and (in scenario 2) neutering the People’s Republic of China as a military force
5. Aside from the “no nukes” rule, the war cannot be prolonged by artificial means, such as limiting combat to a certain area or extended ceasefires that break down.

Two scenarios to work with:

Scenario 1 - “Limited” War: NATO vs Warsaw Pact only. Hostilities largely “limited” to a ground war in Europe and Turkey, with worldwide naval hostilities. Everyone else sits around eating popcorn and watches the giants try to kill one another.

Scenario 2 - Total War:
Everyone with a beef with someone decides to have it out once war breaks between the United States and the Soviet Union. The great armies of NATO and the Warsaw Pact do battle in Western Europe. China joins the war on the side of NATO, invading Vietnam and clashing with the USSR along the Sino-Soviet border. The LACOMs raise hell in Central and South America. The US and Cuba fight it out in the Gulf of Mexico. The Middle East is set aflame as the Arab-Israeli conflicts, the Lebanese Civil War, the Iran-Iraq war, etc. are all absorbed into the worldwide conflict. Africa, too, erupts into warfare as Egypt and Libya clash, the Front Line States invade South Africa, etc. The ANZACs and Japan are drawn into the mess, North Korea invades South Korea, and India declares on both China and Pakistan. Et cetera, et cetera; basically every power that could have been drawn into a Third World War is.
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