Twilight 1984: Realistic and prolonged WWIII

(2) If you think Carter looked like a chickenshit after the Iran Hostage Crisis, Nicaragua, etc he’s going to look much, much worse TTL.

It's always dump on Carter day! :p

I wonder if the Soviet armies will ever get to Beijing [1]: the logistics won't be fun (it's over 800 miles even straight line from there to Vladivostok - only about 340 to the Mongol border, but I'm not sure if Mongolia has internal communications good enough to allow a full-scale attack through it into China).

[1] Assuming, of course, direct US-USSR fighting doesn't break out before then
 
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Ah, miscommunication. By "too dystopic" I meant "too grimdark", not "like a dystopian society." The Soviet union being bombed back literally to the Dark Ages or beyond (no understanding of the situation inside the former USSR, even decades later [1]) doesn't have good implications for the survival of most northern hemisphere states.

[1] Of course, we can attribute this to exaggeration on Yuri's part

USSR is not, quite, bombed into the dark ages. China (and Vietnam) are. Yuri is stuck in China/Macao and there's no real way to get back home- not while the war is still going on and NATO is blockading the EastBlock.

I will say that the original Twilight 2000 TL is pretty much the definition of GrimDark, even though the peronal narratives it presents are relatively optimistic. States do stupid things for stupid reasons (Germany outright declaring war on the USSR with no early NATO backing, Italy declaring war on NATO (!!!), Mexico invading U.S.A, etc, etc), every military action stalls and becomes a quagmire, and nuclear weapons are used with abandon and for the most trivial reasons by all actors. Aim at somewhat greater realism TTL- which does not, of course, mean that the end result is much better. Just that the road to hell is paved with understandable intentions rather than sheer stupidity and recklessness.
 
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