I've been wondering, after reading AV's Cuban Missile War Timeline...
The Soviets were badly outmatched in terms of nuclear weapons up into the 1960s. And there certainly were a large number of incidents that could have triggered some kind of war between the USA and the Soviet Union.
How plausible would it be for the Soviets to recognize after nuclear weapons are being used tactically that an all-out exchange will result in some damage to the rest of the world but it will result in their own country getting wiped off the map, so...
They instead opt to unconditionally surrender to NATO? How possible is that, and what would NATO do if the Soviets threw in the towel like that?