The Red Flag - Pre-TL Discussion

I'm in the beginning stages of a TL involving the USSR winning the cold war and the collapse of the US as a superpower (which is supposed to be similar to the OTL Soviet collapse), and I have several questions:

1. What would be a useful (and plausible) POD for the purposes above?
2. If America disunited (for whatever reason), what nations would be most likely to secede?
3. What would be the immediate after-effects of the USSR's victory?

I don't intend for nuclear war or WW3 to happen during the TL, as I consider it cliché. So, what POD should I use (I'm thinking of setting it during WW2) and what should I take into account?
 

Teleology

Banned
During the Oil Crisis the Soviets use Siberian oil not to buy off the US for permission to later invade Afghanistan, as is what more or less happened in real life (fearing Soviet intervention without American protection is why the Arab OPEC states eventually gave in and started selling to the US) but instead team up with the Arab states (before invading Afghanistan the Soviets were still only the "Little Satan") to agree to sell oil only to nations that break from US influence.

In OTL the NATO countries and Japan were already trying to distance themselves from the US to get at Arab oil during the embargo, so this plan is more likely to work in this beefed up version of the situation then you think.

NATO is gradually replaced by a European organization not interested in anything other than protecting Europe, China comes back to the informal fold of the USSR for cheap oil, the US gets bogged down in a costly occupation of Saudi Arabia to satisfy it's oil needs.

The US and USSR end up going to limited nuclear war over Syria and the US, in poorer shape at the time and always with a much weaker Civil Defense plan, comes out in pieces while the Soviets are damaged but intact.

The Europeans and Japanese take the opportunity to imperialize the former US to secure remaining farmland and raw materials.

Weakened by the nuclear attack, the Russians grow closer to the Chinese and Indians and scuffle with the Europeans over Argentinean grain and Congolese resources.

The Europeans, with a free hand West of Egypt in North Africa, are the first to get off of petroleum with nuclear energy, solar farms, and investments in tidal generators.

The Japanese develop their own nuclear weapons with materials and scientists rescued from the former US, and Asia basically chooses between the Communists or the Japanese (having to decide which they hate more/less).

So the USSR DOES win the Cold War with the US and the US does collapse as a superpower, but the result is another Cold War between the Europeans-and-Japanese and the Soviets-Chinese-Indians.
 
So, what POD should I use (I'm thinking of setting it during WW2) and what should I take into account?

I'd suggest Soviets not getting out of Northern Iran in 1946, later installing a puppet regime in Tehran and blocking Hormuz. That would lead to a quite different distribution of oil resources, slower growth in Western world and more bargaining power for Soviets in their dealings with third-world countries.

This cannot happen in one rush however, as in 1946 British were in Southern Iran, too. Instead, step-by-step development with elements of OTL Korea scenario could be more plausible.
 

world

Banned
Stalin invades Japan in 1945 and makes it part of the USSR.
He also makes Inner and Outer Mongolia and Manchuria into Soviet Republics.
Finland, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech rep and Albania are made part of the Soviet Union.
Yugoslavia is absorbed also with Kosovo going to the Albanians and Macedonia staying Bulgarian.
Bosnia is split between Serbia and Croatia who each become Soviet Republics.
Montenegro and Slovenia become Socialist Republics.
Kurdistan and Azir Iran become part of the USSR too.
Occupation of Afghanistan in the late 1940's.

No Gorbachev in the 1980's and a much bigger USSR may well still exist sat on a huge pile of recourses and made up of about 400 million people.
 
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