1. Let's say China does not go full communist during the Civil War. Maybe the KMT saves All of China, save for Manchuria, which is communist. The Korean War goes like OTL.

2. Then, Vietnam goes OTL or just unstable in the 1960s (you can diverge if you want). AFAIK, the Soviets were the main aiders, and the Vietnamese and Chinese were not in good terms.

3. Then, Indonesia becomes communist during the September 30, 1965 Movement. CPI Chairman Dipa Nusantara Aidit becomes the new ruler of Indonesia.

What would be the effect on the Red Scare in the US? Would the Cold War be more intense or not?

P.S. What would happen to Truman's career? To Nixon's (1950 Race)?
 
The Korean War couldn't have gone as OTL without the Chinese going Communist. The Chinese intervened while the UN/US forces were on the Chinese border. North Korea had been all but defeated with Pyongyang having fallen.

A Communist Indonesia would arguably present a better case for US military intervention than Vietnam or Korea. The country is in a genuinely strategic location astride shipping lanes between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is also far more populous. The British, concerned about Singapore, would take a Communist Indonesia very seriously. However, Indonesia has all the potential in the world to be a military disaster unless your sole focus is to stick to the main islands and keep the shipping lanes and straits in friendly hands. The country is composed of thousands of islands. Indonesia is also Islamic, and I suspect there would be a concern about having a Muslim nation go Communist lest the contagion spread to the rest of the Islamic world. But you'd have to conquer Java, which is half the population and fairly large. So it would still be militarily difficult once you get into the interior.

As for the Red Scare, it had been up and running before China fell. You might see it be a bit less intense, but between allegations of Soviet spying both founded and unfounded and the Soviet acquisition of The Bomb, some sort of Red Scare was likely in any event. Remember, too, that the Berlin Crisis of 1948 occurred before China, so you will still have tensions over Europe.
 

Pangur

Donor
A communist Indonesia would be at the time Australia's worse nightmare so involvement for the US via the ANZAC treaty is possible
 
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