Reagan sends troops to Afghanistan

I was watching Reagan and Eisenhower speeches earlier today. While i was watching the evil empire speech it got me thinking. What if a few years after the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan Reagan manages to get public and congressional support to intervene and sends soldiers to help the afghanis to show he is tough against communist? How would the Soviets respond (no ww3)? How long would the conflict go on? Also lets say Gorbachev was still not in power yet.
 
No way in hell. Vietnam syndrome was in full effect. Congress wouldnt even let him intervene in Nicaragua or El Salvador where at least you could argue that by virtue of proximity that there was legitimate American interest. Afghanistan!?!?! Not happening.
 
P
No way in hell. Vietnam syndrome was in full effect. Congress wouldnt even let him intervene in Nicaragua or El Salvador where at least you could argue that by virtue of proximity that there was legitimate American interest. Afghanistan!?!?! Not happening.
So should be in ASB?
 
What you are asking is what would happen if there was a war between the soviets and Americans, well how do you not expect that to escalate.
 
Okay. Thanks for clearing that.

Your POD would have to be something that causes public and congressional sentiment to shift such that they support an intervention. What type of event causes that? That is what determines whether this is ASB, at least at the start. I honestly cannot think of a scenario that this happens although there probably is one. The ASB method is that Reagan is so charismatic that both the public and congress go along with his proposal, which virtually requires the use of magic to pass through the TV as he is speaking to the country. So if you dont want to explore the POD and just want to look at the how it plays out, then yes, its ASB.
 
Your POD would have to be something that causes public and congressional sentiment to shift such that they support an intervention. What type of event causes that? That is what determines whether this is ASB, at least at the start. I honestly cannot think of a scenario that this happens although there probably is one. The ASB method is that Reagan is so charismatic that both the public and congress go along with his proposal, which virtually requires the use of magic to pass through the TV as he is speaking to the country. So if you dont want to explore the POD and just want to look at the how it plays out, then yes, its ASB.
A more warmongering congress gets elected or maybe the American people still want to stick it to the Soviets after the Vietnam war.
 
weirdly enough, at one point, the Soviets kinda claimed we did. I remember at one point that the Soviets were complaining that we had several SF troopers running around Afghanistan and acting like Lawrence of Arabia (their words, IIRC)... always wondered if that was true...
 
weirdly enough, at one point, the Soviets kinda claimed we did. I remember at one point that the Soviets were complaining that we had several SF troopers running around Afghanistan and acting like Lawrence of Arabia (their words, IIRC)... always wondered if that was true...
Just as equally true as Soviets being in Vietnam. This was a well known fact by everybody involved, which is why there was insane bombing restrictions like SAM sites under construction could not be targeted. Why would you wait to bomb a SAM site until it's fully operational you ask? Because Soviet engineers were present at the construction sites and Washington was terrified if they were killed Vietnam would turn into WWIII.

It's all a delicate balancing act of plausible deniability with MAD hanging in the background.
 
Top