Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during WW2

or just before it. What if the Soviet Union occupied or invaded Afghanistan some 40 years earlier ? What would be the effects on WW2 ?
 
Why would USSR do that? Is Russia even able to commit such act when it failed in OTL?

And I don't think that Brits would be very happy about that.
 
What if the Soviet Union occupied or invaded Afghanistan some 40 years earlier ? What would be the effects on WW2 ?

Why would USSR do that? Is Russia even able to commit such act when it failed in OTL?

And I don't think that Brits would be very happy about that.

if the USSR joined the Axis the consensus is they would invade Iran or at least seek a warm water port there?

do not think Afghanistan would be FIRST target, possible they have favorable governments in Iran and Afghanistan (from Soviet viewpoint) and forced to invade to counter British?
 
What economic advantage would Russia gain by invading Adghanistan?
Would Russia gain a warm-water port?
How good were Afghan railroads in 1940?
Did Afghan railroads connect all the way to ports on the Indian Ocean or Persian Gulf?
 
Paradoxically Stalinist USSR would most likely succeed better in quelling the Afghan resistance than the Soviets did decades later. The Red Army had a lot of recent and directly applicable combat experience from crushing the Basmachi movement in Central Asia, and population transfers and general ruthlessness would enable them to create a situation where the new government of People's Republic of Afghanistan mimics the OTL fate of Baltic states and either votes to join to the USSR directly, or becomes a Mongolia-styled puppet regime. But the gains they'd get from such a move before WW2 begins are minimal compared to the diplomatic difficulties, and in OTL Stalin deemed it preferable keep Afghanistan as a harmless buffer state between British India and Soviet Central Asia.

But if such an occupation happens just before WW2 breaks out, this makes Britain extremely nervous about the security of British Raj and complicates the diplomatic relations between Moscow and London considerably. If it happens at the same time as the joint invasion of Iran and under the same pretext of alleged German influence, then the British war-era reaction will be less severe because they are obviously preoccupied by the war and not in a position to do anything drastic.

The British government would still most likely demand post-war Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and it wouldn't be inconceivable that Truman would enforce these demands just like he did with northern Iran in OTL.
 
if the USSR joined the Axis the consensus is they would invade Iran or at least seek a warm water port there?

do not think Afghanistan would be FIRST target, possible they have favorable governments in Iran and Afghanistan (from Soviet viewpoint) and forced to invade to counter British?

What economic advantage would Russia gain by invading Adghanistan?
Would Russia gain a warm-water port?
How good were Afghan railroads in 1940?
Did Afghan railroads connect all the way to ports on the Indian Ocean or Persian Gulf?

meant Iran for warm water port and (any) invasion of Afghanistan a distant second objective (albeit unlikely)

the only plausible reason would seem to be preempt the British.
 
Soviet troops in Afghanistan would make both New Delhi and London extremely anxious. As Karelian said, however, the timing would be the key factor in determining just how soiled the undergarments of the collective ICS would become.
 
Paradoxically Stalinist USSR would most likely succeed better in quelling the Afghan resistance than the Soviets did decades later. The Red Army had a lot of recent and directly applicable combat experience from crushing the Basmachi movement in Central Asia, and population transfers and general ruthlessness would enable them to create a situation where the new government of People's Republic of Afghanistan mimics the OTL fate of Baltic states and either votes to join to the USSR directly, or becomes a Mongolia-styled puppet regime. But the gains they'd get from such a move before WW2 begins are minimal compared to the diplomatic difficulties, and in OTL Stalin deemed it preferable keep Afghanistan as a harmless buffer state between British India and Soviet Central Asia.

But if such an occupation happens just before WW2 breaks out, this makes Britain extremely nervous about the security of British Raj and complicates the diplomatic relations between Moscow and London considerably. If it happens at the same time as the joint invasion of Iran and under the same pretext of alleged German influence, then the British war-era reaction will be less severe because they are obviously preoccupied by the war and not in a position to do anything drastic.

The British government would still most likely demand post-war Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and it wouldn't be inconceivable that Truman would enforce these demands just like he did with northern Iran in OTL.

Stalin's ROE's of let's take the population to Siberia and let them die wasn't exactly moral, but didn't leave an insurgency or anything else behind.
 
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