What If Sino-Soviet War (69)?

What if we forget the nukes, and the Russians just go for conventional weapons? Assume that the Russians are smart enough not to antagonize the US by dropping nukes, and are confident that they can gain air superiority quickly enough to prevent China from using theirs. If their goal is to reduce China to utter chaos, not hold ground, it sounds like they'd have a pretty good shot.
Given the political chaos in China at the time, its doable. Mao would almost certainly be removed from power by some cabal, but whether that group would be able to consolidate power is uncertain. Of course a few years down the road the PRC is going to get back on its feet and be very upset about having lost Manchuria, but as long as the Soviet Union hasn't fallen there's no real way of getting it back.
 
What if we forget the nukes, and the Russians just go for conventional weapons? Assume that the Russians are smart enough not to antagonize the US by dropping nukes, and are confident that they can gain air superiority quickly enough to prevent China from using theirs. If their goal is to reduce China to utter chaos, not hold ground, it sounds like they'd have a pretty good shot.

So basically the Eastern Front of WWII all over only instead it's the Soviets playing the role of the Germans and the Chinese playing the role of the Russians. And Mao is playing the role of Stalin.

Logistics will be a nightmare for the Soviets and I'm not sure they can bring about enough firepower to stop the Chinese masses without using nukes. It's not like they can pull out of Eastern Europe either. A Chinese collapse is possible but then so was a Soviet collapse in 1941.

I think it goes nuclear pretty quickly.
 
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