Prologue: The Cold War, 1945-1983.
I've been working on something new for a while and today I feel ready to post the first small piece of this TL. The topic is the outbreak of a Third World War in 1983, escalating into a full nuclear exchange between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
After the Second World War, the Cold War quickly began: a period of geopolitical tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The conflict was based on the ideological, economic, military and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, after their temporary alliance came to an end with their joint victory over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. The term Cold War referred to the fact that between 1945 and 1983 tensions never went hot, i.e. there was no direct military confrontation between East and West. Instead they each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts which became proxy wars.
But there was more to the Cold War than just armed struggle for influence. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events such as the Olympic Games, and technological competitions such as the Space Race which had resulted in successes like the first manned spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin in 1961 and the American lunar landing in 1969.
The United States led Western bloc, consisting for the most part of First World liberal democracies, founded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO, a defensive military pact, in 1949. Additionally, six European countries initiated a process of economic integration by founding the European Coal and Steel Community, an international organization based on supranationalism (these six countries were West Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg). Tied to this bloc was a network of often authoritarian Third World countries, many of which were former European colonies.
The Eastern Bloc was led by the Soviet Union and its Communist Party, which had an influence across the Second World and was also tied to a network of dictatorial states. The Soviet Union had a command economy and installed similarly totalitarian regimes in its puppet states. The European communist countries in Eastern Europe were organized into Comecon and the Warsaw Pact, i.e. communist equivalents to the ECSC and NATO. Through these organizations the USSR cemented its hegemony over its Eastern European satellites. Before 1983, the Pact was only ever mobilized once to keep an unruly member in line: Czechoslovakia in 1968.
The US government supported anti-communist and right-wing governments and uprisings across the world, while the Soviet government funded left-wing parties and revolutions around the world. As nearly all the colonial states became independent in the period from 1945 to 1960, many became Third World battlefields in the Cold War. Vietnam is a prominent example: after gaining its formal independence from France in 1954, the communists fought the Western backed government in the south and later the US when they intervened directly.
Historians have divided the Cold War into phases marked by either increased tension or by détente. The first phase from 1945 to 1962 was tense. Major crises in this period include the 1948-’49 Berlin Blockade, the 1945-’49 Chinese Communist Revolution, the 1950-’53 Korean War, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the 1956 Suez Crisis, the 1961 Berlin Crisis and finally the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Every one of these had the potential of snowballing into another World War, but didn’t because every time cooler heads prevailed. Given what happened at the dawn of the 1980s, there are some who regret that the United States didn’t take action against the Soviet Union early in the Cold War when a conflict would’ve been relatively bloodless compared to what happened in 1983. During the Berlin Blockade the Soviets had no nuclear weapons, which was why Stalin backed down in the first place. Another opportunity would’ve been the Korean War, during which the Soviet stockpile of nuclear warheads and its bomber fleet were so small that perhaps no bombs would’ve fallen on the continental United States at all. The US and the USSR competed for influence in Latin America, the Middle East, and the decolonizing states of Africa, Asia and Oceania. Examples include the early involvement of the United States in Vietnam to support the pro-Western south against the Soviet backed north, the Congo Crisis and the US and UK instigated 1953 coup in Iran.
A second phase began after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which was probably the closest the world had come to thermonuclear war until then (not long thereafter, the politburo got rid of Khrushchev because of his failed brinkmanship foreign policy, replacing him with Brezhnev). The new phase began with the Sino-Soviet Split, which led to a series of border skirmishes but not open war. Dissent occurred within the Warsaw Pact when Czechoslovakia’s new leadership wanted to pass reforms amounting to democratization and decentralization of the economy. This prompted a Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968 known in the West as the Prague Spring. In the Western bloc France under President De Gaulle demanded greater autonomy of action, eventually resulting in France leaving NATO’s military integrated command structure in 1966. The US experienced turmoil from the civil rights movement and opposition to the war in Vietnam. In the 1960s and 70s an international peace movement arose which included movements against nuclear weapons testing and in favour of nuclear disarmament, with large anti-war protests.
By the 1970s, both sides had started making allowances for peace and security, ushering in a period of détente that saw the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the US opening relations with the People’s Republic of China as a strategic counterweight to the USSR. A number of self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist governments were formed in the second half of the 1970s in developing countries, including Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua. The world seemed to be settling into an equilibrium and leaders on both sides seemed to see the benefit of limitations to their nuclear arsenals. Many historians view this as a period during which the world could’ve been saved. The Cold War, or Second Interbellum as it’s also known, would come to an end in 1983. An apocalyptic conflict would result from a tragic and completely avoidable series of events and poor decision making.
Seven Days to the River Rhine: the Third World War
Prologue: The Cold War, 1945-1983.
Prologue: The Cold War, 1945-1983.
After the Second World War, the Cold War quickly began: a period of geopolitical tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The conflict was based on the ideological, economic, military and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, after their temporary alliance came to an end with their joint victory over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. The term Cold War referred to the fact that between 1945 and 1983 tensions never went hot, i.e. there was no direct military confrontation between East and West. Instead they each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts which became proxy wars.
But there was more to the Cold War than just armed struggle for influence. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events such as the Olympic Games, and technological competitions such as the Space Race which had resulted in successes like the first manned spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin in 1961 and the American lunar landing in 1969.
The United States led Western bloc, consisting for the most part of First World liberal democracies, founded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO, a defensive military pact, in 1949. Additionally, six European countries initiated a process of economic integration by founding the European Coal and Steel Community, an international organization based on supranationalism (these six countries were West Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg). Tied to this bloc was a network of often authoritarian Third World countries, many of which were former European colonies.
The Eastern Bloc was led by the Soviet Union and its Communist Party, which had an influence across the Second World and was also tied to a network of dictatorial states. The Soviet Union had a command economy and installed similarly totalitarian regimes in its puppet states. The European communist countries in Eastern Europe were organized into Comecon and the Warsaw Pact, i.e. communist equivalents to the ECSC and NATO. Through these organizations the USSR cemented its hegemony over its Eastern European satellites. Before 1983, the Pact was only ever mobilized once to keep an unruly member in line: Czechoslovakia in 1968.
The US government supported anti-communist and right-wing governments and uprisings across the world, while the Soviet government funded left-wing parties and revolutions around the world. As nearly all the colonial states became independent in the period from 1945 to 1960, many became Third World battlefields in the Cold War. Vietnam is a prominent example: after gaining its formal independence from France in 1954, the communists fought the Western backed government in the south and later the US when they intervened directly.
Historians have divided the Cold War into phases marked by either increased tension or by détente. The first phase from 1945 to 1962 was tense. Major crises in this period include the 1948-’49 Berlin Blockade, the 1945-’49 Chinese Communist Revolution, the 1950-’53 Korean War, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the 1956 Suez Crisis, the 1961 Berlin Crisis and finally the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Every one of these had the potential of snowballing into another World War, but didn’t because every time cooler heads prevailed. Given what happened at the dawn of the 1980s, there are some who regret that the United States didn’t take action against the Soviet Union early in the Cold War when a conflict would’ve been relatively bloodless compared to what happened in 1983. During the Berlin Blockade the Soviets had no nuclear weapons, which was why Stalin backed down in the first place. Another opportunity would’ve been the Korean War, during which the Soviet stockpile of nuclear warheads and its bomber fleet were so small that perhaps no bombs would’ve fallen on the continental United States at all. The US and the USSR competed for influence in Latin America, the Middle East, and the decolonizing states of Africa, Asia and Oceania. Examples include the early involvement of the United States in Vietnam to support the pro-Western south against the Soviet backed north, the Congo Crisis and the US and UK instigated 1953 coup in Iran.
A second phase began after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which was probably the closest the world had come to thermonuclear war until then (not long thereafter, the politburo got rid of Khrushchev because of his failed brinkmanship foreign policy, replacing him with Brezhnev). The new phase began with the Sino-Soviet Split, which led to a series of border skirmishes but not open war. Dissent occurred within the Warsaw Pact when Czechoslovakia’s new leadership wanted to pass reforms amounting to democratization and decentralization of the economy. This prompted a Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968 known in the West as the Prague Spring. In the Western bloc France under President De Gaulle demanded greater autonomy of action, eventually resulting in France leaving NATO’s military integrated command structure in 1966. The US experienced turmoil from the civil rights movement and opposition to the war in Vietnam. In the 1960s and 70s an international peace movement arose which included movements against nuclear weapons testing and in favour of nuclear disarmament, with large anti-war protests.
By the 1970s, both sides had started making allowances for peace and security, ushering in a period of détente that saw the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the US opening relations with the People’s Republic of China as a strategic counterweight to the USSR. A number of self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist governments were formed in the second half of the 1970s in developing countries, including Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua. The world seemed to be settling into an equilibrium and leaders on both sides seemed to see the benefit of limitations to their nuclear arsenals. Many historians view this as a period during which the world could’ve been saved. The Cold War, or Second Interbellum as it’s also known, would come to an end in 1983. An apocalyptic conflict would result from a tragic and completely avoidable series of events and poor decision making.
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