This would likely avert the neocon-realist split. Both schools had similar Cold War-era outlooks but after the “end of history” realists became less inclined to intervention than their neocon counterparts.
Neither present Russia or China are trying to export an ideology, merely to advance their positions within an existing system, they are not in a Cold War with the US, not quite at leastThis is what I'm saying - why do you think that's the case? Imagine if the Soviets had cut their military spending but not let up on the Cold War in other ways. Do you really think the US would have launched a surprise attack once it was far enough ahead? Think of the tension between the US and Russia or China today - obviously the US has a far stronger military, but there's no concern that they might take advantage of that fact to fight a winning war with either country. A few hundred nukes like China has currently is plenty of deterrence. Besides protection from an attack (and pork projects for the military bureaucracy) what did the Soviets really need that huge military for anyway?
Neither present Russia or China are trying to export an ideology, merely to advance their positions within an existing system, they are not in a Cold War with the US, not quite at least
The US would not have launched a surprise attack. However the US would be able to use its hard power much more freely against Soviet interests elsewhere, which constrains the Soviet use of soft power. USSR can influence a country all it wants, but if the USSR cannot deter the US from taking military actions against that country, the US has the ultimate trump in relations with that country, and the USSR won't risk nuclear war over a third party. Not to mention that if they cut back on military R&D and fall further behind NATO, well they lose a source of forex as no one will want their military exports, and lose quite a bit of soft power there. So USSR is guaranteed to fall behind in the Cold War if it can't keep up militarily with NATO, basically Cold War ends, NATO wins if the USSR stops trying to compete
Everything? It was also very much a zero sum game, with the end game of erasing the other system and everything they stood for.What's the significance of the ideological angle you bring up?
Because the point is to force the other side to park the bulk of there forces (for both sides, in Europe) while shenanigans happen in the rest of the world. Every ally and potential ally counts, if nothing else to gain a trade partner while at the same time deny the other side one, thus economically strangulate the other side bit by bit.Was Soviet military power really deterring US aggression in the third world? It certainly didn't keep them out of Vietnam or Korea! On the other side I don't think the US would be willing to attack a country with an explicit military alliance with the Soviets even with American military superiority. As I keep saying a few thousand nukes is quite sufficient deterrence, especially if all the US would stand to gain is a victory in some minor colonial squabble rather than the world domination on offer if they could take down the USSR.
They would be irrelevant much faster if they didn't attempt to keep up with the USA in something (in hindsight, it was a lost cause, as from the starting point (1945) the USA had bigger population, more allies, bigger (and more intact) economy, and a bunch of other advantages).If anything the USSR would be a much more effective ideological force if it wasn't so focused on the military competition, both in terms of being able to do useful things with the resources freed up, and getting the propaganda win from the US being the obviously more militaristic party.
Everything? It was also very much a zero sum game, with the end game of erasing the other system and everything they stood for.
Because the point is to force the other side to park the bulk of there forces (for both sides, in Europe) while shenanigans happen in the rest of the world. Every ally and potential ally counts, if nothing else to gain a trade partner while at the same time deny the other side one, thus economically strangulate the other side bit by bit.
They would be irrelevant much faster if they didn't attempt to keep up with the USA in something (in hindsight, it was a lost cause, as from the starting point (1945) the USA had bigger population, more allies, bigger (and more intact) economy, and a bunch of other advantages).
The US had every ideological reason to see the collapse of the communist system and worked to that goal, and a part of that means keeping military pressure on the soviets (everything from protecting allies to picking off the odd government that might begin to lean soviet).Haha could you be more specific than "everything"? I mean what's the significance of the ideological angle to the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence? It seems like you're implying that the US would have had an ideological motivation to attack the Soviet Union if it thought it could win the resulting war, which just does not pass my smell test.
It's not as if the constraint on American militarism was the need to keep too many of its troops based in Europe. Post-Vietnam it was much more about domestic public opinion than anything to do with the Soviet Union. Direct military force isn't really the main factor in the quest for more allies and trading partners anyway.
Let's say the Soviets had even done a much larger military drawdown immediately after WWII. Stalin really was paranoid that the West would storm in and try to crush the USSR in the name of defeating global communism, which was never really something that was on the table, despite some loose talk from Patton and his ilk. There wasn't really much else to justify the massive Soviet military spending from that era onward from a national security standpoint.
Present day China and Russia aren't exactly interested in exporting their ideology to the US and major Western nations, the USSR was, so the West had more to lose, ergo competition was more heatedWhat's the significance of the ideological angle you bring up? The Cold War certainly had more of that going on than your average great power conflict, but I don't think it effects the fundamental logic of deterrence much.
Was Soviet military power really deterring US aggression in the third world? It certainly didn't keep them out of Vietnam or Korea! On the other side I don't think the US would be willing to attack a country with an explicit military alliance with the Soviets even with American military superiority. As I keep saying a few thousand nukes is quite sufficient deterrence, especially if all the US would stand to gain is a victory in some minor colonial squabble rather than the world domination on offer if they could take down the USSR.
If anything the USSR would be a much more effective ideological force if it wasn't so focused on the military competition, both in terms of being able to do useful things with the resources freed up, and getting the propaganda win from the US being the obviously more militaristic party.
The US had every ideological reason to see the collapse of the communist system and worked to that goal, and a part of that means keeping military pressure on the soviets (everything from protecting allies to picking off the odd government that might begin to lean soviet).
The large US forces in Europe during the cold war was absolutely necessary to defend against the expect large ground forces of USSR & Warsaw pact.
Direct military forces, at least the threat of them, was absolutely needed to keep trade networks and partners, especially for maritime hegemonies like the USA and the British empire before it. "Free trade" happens (and generally crowed about) when the biggest beneficiary (almost always the biggest country) force almost everyone else to buy into the same scheme.
The USSR did massively demobilized right after WWII, simply because they took all the manpower from the economy to the military and that shit ain't sustainable.
Who is going to believe the USSR will go nuclear over someplace that is not the USSR, especially if it is in Africa, the Americas or South-East Asia? That the USSR would court Armageddon over a few dozen/hundred dead Russians on the other side of the world?
A smaller soviet military means more flexibility for the US to its assets elsewhere, things like better funding of more allies, stirring more discontent at soviet satellites, etc.But the US did everything it could to undermine the Soviets / communism generally even IOTL! What's the difference in the context of a smaller Soviet military if it's not more direct military confrontation?
Think of it more as a game of chicken, you pull out first, you lose. Thus both sides had to keep up piling up more military forces there.It's a fantasy to imagine the Soviets were ever considering invading Western Europe during the Cold War - just the Western equivalent of Soviet paranoia that the West would invade them. Either side could easily have drawn down their forces significantly without suffering any harm beyond outraging their own military-industrial complex.
It's more plausible than that they would go nuclear from the outset, it was thought*. Of course it could not be relied on to stay conventional, that was one big reason why NATO would not risk it. However it is more likely that there would be escalation if nuclear weapons are merely the culmination of a process that includes a spectrum of conventional options, than if the choices are strongly worded letter-nuclear first strikeWhereas it's plausible they would have started a conventional war? Which would somehow be relied on not to go nuclear?
Think of it more as a game of chicken, you pull out first, you lose. Thus both sides had to keep up piling up more military forces there.
But the side that won has more freedom of action, more prestige, and more bang for their buck from soft powerI think this line is the core disagreement between us (and between me and RamscoopRaider). I'm just not seeing what the practical consequences of such a "loss" would be. Sure it would mean the other side could do something else with its resources besides piling ever more of them into the arms race, but so could your side! If anything it's the party that "won" the game of chicken that would be put at a disadvantage because they'd be the one wasting extra resources on military buildup rather than doing something more useful with them.
It's a fantasy to imagine the Soviets were ever considering invading Western Europe during the Cold War - just the Western equivalent of Soviet paranoia that the West would invade them. Either side could easily have drawn down their forces significantly without suffering any harm beyond outraging their own military-industrial complex.
But the side that won has more freedom of action, more prestige, and more bang for their buck from soft power
If the Strongest and the 7th Strongest military both offer some minor 3rd world country the same terms, and choosing one will piss off the other, who is that third world country going to choose? So the weaker nation will have to offer much better terms to get what it wants, for fear to get overwhelmed by greed
With a [relatively] much weaker military then the foreign aid might as well be pissing into the wind, since without hard force backing (or even merely enough threat of) nothing really prevents the other side from backing a coup and simply taking said aid.Sure having a weaker military is a disadvantage, but there's no reason it would be a crippling one. For example by having way more resources to throw at supporting your foreign allies...
With the USSR vis a vis the US, that might at most bring them up to parity, which means massive inferiority given the advantages a less constrained US can do with hard powerSure having a weaker military is a disadvantage, but there's no reason it would be a crippling one. For example by having way more resources to throw at supporting your foreign allies...
Well the obvious example is Syria and Egypt in 1973, the USSR threatened to intervene and that stopped Israel right there. Guarantee is less against the US, more against the neighbors that might get US equipment and permission. Other examples would be Imperial Iran not pressing on after it beat Iraq during the border clashes in the 70's, and the US not invading Cuba (since the US thought that the nukes weren't ready until after the crisis was over, it was the thought that fighting with conventional USSR forces in Cuba would escalate things) to start withWhat is this guarantee of protection you find so important? Besides Cuba there weren't really any third world regimes kept in power by some guarantee of Soviet military support, and very clearly it's nuclear rather than conventional support that mattered in the case of Cuba. The US wasn't constrained by the Soviets at all in its interventions against third world leftists OTL - the reason such interventions were more often covert than military was an issue of cost effectiveness and public opinion, not concern that use of military force would cause a war with the USSR.