How Long Could the Cold War Have Lasted?

From 1947 to 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union were the reigning superpowers of the world. One was a republic that championed free market capitalism, the other a far-left polity that sought global communism. Naturally, this brought the two colossi into a multi-decade standoff; proxy wars and militarization, coups and rigged elections, and spying and subterfuge characterized the long, potentially world-destroying tension now known as the Cold War.

Fortunately, the immediate threat posed by such conflict dissipated on December 25, 1991--the USSR peacefully dissolved into separate states that more-or-less gave up on communism. Those born after its collapse never knew a world where the Bolshevik boogeyman threatened their nation, their future, or their way of life. But could they have?

How long could the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union have lasted, and what would it take to make that so? Furthermore, what would result from continued tensions in a world where communism possibly remains a dominant competitor into the 21st Century?

Thank you in advance,
Zyobot
 
Going from 2 extreme options:

-minimum changes (as compared to OTL), mainly political: not much longer, the weight of economic & technological prowess is simply stacked against the USSR & Warsaw pact, especially with the electronic revolutions that was starting in the 1980s. Even if the USSR doesn't dissolve and kept the Warsaw pact, it's military will gradually slide into irrelevancy as the US & NATO goes advance their tech at a faster rate (SDI would still have been fantasy in the 80s and even 90s, but imagine doing that in the 2010s)

-Maximum changes (as compared to OTL), political, economic, and militarily: Pretty much well into the 21st century, assuming no sino-soviet split (probably need Mao to die in the 1950s), Khrushchev/Deng levels of economic reforms to occur anywhere from the the post war period to 1970s, sensible limits of spending on military (nuclear and conventional) as in enough to deter USA & NATO (which is close to ASB since the mentality required for such thought is incompatible with a war of ideologies, which the cold war is). The end result would mean that the Soviet bloc will at least have a comparable amount of population and GDP to compete.

And of course there's everything in between (so think of it as a sliding scale).
 

Anchises

Banned
From 1947 to 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union were the reigning superpowers of the world. One was a republic that championed free market capitalism, the other a far-left polity that sought global communism. Naturally, this brought the two colossi into a multi-decade standoff; proxy wars and militarization, coups and rigged elections, and spying and subterfuge characterized the long, potentially world-destroying tension now known as the Cold War.

Fortunately, the immediate threat posed by such conflict dissipated on December 25, 1991--the USSR peacefully dissolved into separate states that more-or-less gave up on communism. Those born after its collapse never knew a world where the Bolshevik boogeyman threatened their nation, their future, or their way of life. But could they have?

How long could the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union have lasted, and what would it take to make that so? Furthermore, what would result from continued tensions in a world where communism possibly remains a dominant competitor into the 21st Century?

Thank you in advance,
Zyobot

Possibly until today. The Soviets played their cards unwise.

Option a): The Brezhnevites don't go "soft". When problems start in the 80s, instead of reform we get a cracking of the whip and a hardline General Secretary. In the Satellites tanks start rolling and Solidarity and other movements are drowned in blood.

Due to the economic difficulties this hardline SU wouldn't have made it until today as a serious CW enemy. An increasingly North Korea like SU might still exist, but when the Western tech lead kicks into overdrive in the 90s and 2000s the Cold War would de facto end. This TL would basically be porn for gearheads, because NATO gets showered with money. Imagine what they would do.

Option b): Some new economic policy is pushed through in the 50s or 60s. Eastern economies are still inferior but they manage to avoid the horrific stagnation of OTL.

In TTLs 2018 the Eastern Bloc is probably unravelling increasingly fast, the NATO tech lead is too big, the low oil price wrecks the finances yet again and economic damages are starting to take a SERIOUS toll on the Eastern Bloc.
 
Would recognizable internet, personal computers and smart devices develop ITTL? If so, how would the USSR handle it?

Surely, they can't let the West score such an overwhelming technological victory.
 

Anchises

Banned
Would recognizable internet, personal computers and smart devices develop ITTL? If so, how would the USSR handle it?

Surely, they can't let the West score such an overwhelming technological victory.

The tech would be developed but would be held back longer as a military secret.

The Soviets would probably steal it, only to realize that they have no way of proudcing this stuff in appropriate numbers. Soviets being Soviets would probably still attempt that in cooperation with the GDR, leading to a horrible project that needs Western hard- and software to produce inferior and unreliable Soviet models, at an insane price.
 
Would recognizable internet, personal computers and smart devices develop ITTL?
Probably, though much less globalized, and much less useful in terms of information (entertainment might be another thing altogether). It will still exist, except there will also be a much more visible military datanet (more visible as in it's something that exists) which would be completely separate on a fundamental level from the civilian internet.
If so, how would the USSR handle it?
Anywhere between OTL PRC and OTL DPRK, depending on which path it took to survive/reform...
Surely, they can't let the West score such an overwhelming technological victory.
Depending on their economic situation, they might not have a choice in the matter...
Conway's all the World's Fighting Ships 1947-1995 said:
Industrial productivity has never been altogether satisfactory, particularly in such new fields as electronics. By the early 1980s many new warships were going to sea without key electronic systems, and sometimes even without portions of their armament. The Soviets did continue to develop innovative prototypes, and sometimes they were able to acquire electronic components from the West. Overall, however, it seems unlikely that the system could compete with the Western powers in the ongoing electronic revolution. Unfortunately, the Soviets had no Khrushchev who could envisage some radical military reaction comparable to the 'revolution in military affairs'. The post-Khrushchev settlement, in which all segments of the Soviet system were allowed to develop much as they liked, precluded that. In effect, the costs of maintaining standing forces and building the sort of forces already in production, could not be sustained.

Of course an economically better & less repressive USSR (i.e. closer to OTL post 80s PRC) wouldn't be such a bind to begin with.
 

kernals12

Banned
The tech would be developed but would be held back longer as a military secret.

The Soviets would probably steal it, only to realize that they have no way of proudcing this stuff in appropriate numbers. Soviets being Soviets would probably still attempt that in cooperation with the GDR, leading to a horrible project that needs Western hard- and software to produce inferior and unreliable Soviet models, at an insane price.
The internet was not a military secret. When Arpanet first started on October 29, 1969, the link was announced in the UCLA student newspaper.
 
You could argue that since the Russian annexation in Crimea, the Cold War has restarted.
Only as a technicality, at most. The atmosphere of fear and ideological fervor simply doesn't exist this time around.

e6f.jpg


The point illustrated by the image (besides looking for an excuse to interject a bit of humor) is that people are taking it far less seriously, which is something that is integral in a cold war scenario.
 

Anchises

Banned
The internet was not a military secret. When Arpanet first started on October 29, 1969, the link was announced in the UCLA student newspaper.

Not the Internet per se, but I don't see smart devices happen as IOTl, because GPS won't be available. And a lot of companies will be preoccupied with huge military contracts, so there won't be as much capacity for civilian developments.

And I could imagine that some hard- or software would be deemed as "sensible". I just think that military tech would be more advanced, while the civilian sector would be subjected to more oversight, regulation and exposed to juicy concurrence from fat military contracts.

Well if the Cold War is still going on the oil price isn’t gonna be the same

Sure, but large scale trends are probably the same. Fracking is still going to happen. So at some point in the 2000s or 2010s we would probably see a downward development of the oil price. Assuming that we don't have some large war in the ME.

Only as a technicality, at most. The atmosphere of fear and ideological fervor simply doesn't exist this time around.

e6f.jpg


The point illustrated by the image (besides looking for an excuse to interject a bit of humor) is that people are taking it far less seriously, which is something that is integral in a cold war scenario.

I think it was Kissinger who wrote that Marxism-Leninism gave the boundless Russian expansionism a solid justification and ideological foundation.

Without an ideology that drives Russia towards achieving a World Revolution, what we are currently seeing is not a CW but a Great Power conflict in the periphery of the Russian sphere of influence.

Nuclear war still is a possibility sure, but even the Russian presence in Syria is mainly political leverage to score influence points for negotiations in Europe.

What we are seeing now is Russian Nationalism/Irredentism. Not even Panslavism.
 

kernals12

Banned
Not the Internet per se, but I don't see smart devices happen as IOTl, because GPS won't be available. And a lot of companies will be preoccupied with huge military contracts, so there won't be as much capacity for civilian developments.

And I could imagine that some hard- or software would be deemed as "sensible". I just think that military tech would be more advanced, while the civilian sector would be subjected to more oversight, regulation and exposed to juicy concurrence from fat military contracts.
President Reagan made GPS free for civilian use after KAL 007 was shot down in 1983.
 

Anchises

Banned
President Reagan made GPS free for civilian use after KAL 007 was shot down in 1983.

"Selective Availability", degrading the signal to a degree, was in effect until 2000. And dual-use as a policy goal was issued by Clinton in 1996.

If we have hardline Stalinists running amok in the Eastern Bloc, I don't see that happening.
 
You could argue that since the Russian annexation in Crimea, the Cold War has restarted.

Yeah, but it’s not nearly the same. While the modern Russian Federation is a formidable military threat, no doubt, it’s nowhere near the military monster that was the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact at the zenith of their military power. It also lacks the allies and worldwide influence that the Soviets had. The modern-day “Axis of Resistance” (my term for the loose alliance of sorts spearheaded by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea), also commonly called the “revisionist powers”, are a squabbling bunch of nations with disparate ideologies and goals, loosely unified by their opposition to the US/EU-dominated world order that has been in place since 1991. While the Soviet’s allies weren’t all one big happy family, they were far more unified in their goals and ideologies than their modern counterparts could ever hope to be.

As for the topic, it certainly could have. It’s actually almost surprising that the Cold War ended like it did, with the total yet peaceful (relatively; while there definitely was bloodshed in Romania, t could have been a lot worse) collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and Russia. I doubt that many people sitting in either the US or the USSR in 1981 would have seriously thought that the latter nation would simply cease to exist in just ten years.

It wouldn’t have been at 1980s levels all the time, though. That level of military buildup was hard to sustain. You’d have peaks and valleys; periods of heightened tensions, heated rhetoric, and military buildup followed by periods of relaxed detente, and so on.
 
Something else to note is that the ideological nature of the cold war meant that economic growth (and continuous rising standards of living, both sides promised that) means technological advances making their way into civilian usage is an inevitability (at least the the west, and in the communist bloc if they want to survive and be relevant long enough).

Ironically, the ideological nature of the cold war meant that there isn't a purely military solution to the problem, and in fact capped military spending to a certain degree (both sides claiming that they will win through their ideology's innate virtues, rather than pure military might).
If we have hardline Stalinists running amok in the Eastern Bloc, I don't see that happening.
If we have hardcore stalinists flailing around (which even in a best case scenario that's what they'll end up), they wouldn't be relevant as a competing bloc by the early 21st century, simple economics (and everything else that flows from that, including military power and technological advancements) would see to that.
 
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