Joint US-Soviet actions Cold War era.

ar-pharazon

Banned
So the Us and the USSR were of course opposed to each other throughout the late 20th century.

How can we have military operations in which the US and the Soviets work together?

Besides the war against Iraq in 1991-which I always likened to everyone bowing on stage at the end of the play(a sort of final to the drama of the 20th century).

But how can we have joint Soviet US military action? And who would it be directed against?
 
A very open genocidal action by a country that neither side likes very much AND neither side sees any prospect of allowing the other to gain from.

Perhaps Natal secedes from South Africa in 1961, resulting in the US and UK siding with Natal against the South African Republic. South Africa tries to some particularly heinous/nasty stuff and the US and USSR decide to intervene.

Some sort of joint humanitarian effort elsewhere in Africa?

Islamist Iran hated the Soviets and the Americans, so maybe something could be done there. The issue is that even though the Islamic Republic didn't like the US very much, the US still didn't put it too high on the priorities list given how they still de facto were part of Soviet containment due to their anti-communism.
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
Maybe the Iranians overrun Iraq(I dunno saddam has a stroke and his generals fight over the country) while at the same time causing trouble in Central Asia-perhaps even stirring revolts.

Both the US and the Soviets would be alarmed and so might directly intervene to crush the Iranians.
 
Perhaps Iranian Islamists conduct terror attacks against the Soviet Union in the early 1980s.

The US brokers a deal that involves joint military action and a joint or divided occupation of Iran as an alternative to either letting the Soviets occupy all of Iran or fighting WW3 to stop them?
 
You need three factors in order to get a joint US-Soviet military action.

1. It needs to be done by a regime that is neither ideologically-aligned with either of the Superpowers, or politically subserviant to them.
2. Yet, it needs to also be dire/major enough that one Superpower (who is the target or first to act) decides that reaching out for assistance/joint action is worth the risk of appearing too weak/not confident enough to handle the issue unilaterially (Which is the reason I don't think this works with Iran: the U.S or Soviets would either be launching competing interventions to establish friendly regimes or be able to defeat the nation unilaterially)
3. Take place during a period of Detente between the USA and USSR.

The only possability that springs to mind is China going a bit crazy; possibly launching an invasion of Taiwan during a hot point during the Sino-Soviet split.
 
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