What if the Cold war never ended?

RousseauX

Donor
By this logic the Yeltsin-era Russian Federation (which was much weaker economically and more corrupt than even the late period USSR) would have collapsed in the late 90s, but it didn't.
The Russian federation didn't have nearly as much of a nationalities issue as the USSR did, the USSR was I think 50-55% ethnic Russian, Russia itself is something like 80% ethnic russia: there was limited ways in which a Russia nation-state can collapse because even if the economy goes to crap there is the bonds of blood and soil holding the nation together. And even then in the 90s you did see flickers of splintering in the Chechen wars and there was the real fear that Russia would collapse like Yugoslavia did.

That being said, the ussr probably still survives if the soviet government never does any political liberalization.
 

RousseauX

Donor
The USSR is more likely to go full on Yugoslavia with a chaotic civil war between hardliners, reformists, and various third party anti-Soviet groups and so fourth. (Add in NATO and China sending troops into the burning Motherland and airstrikes to take out nuke sites.)

Cue Moscow, Stalingrad, and Leningrad going up in atomic fire.
No it wouldn't, the Communist regime was stable and would have being stable as long as nobody tries to do political reforms
 

RousseauX

Donor
There are plenty of ways to achieve this, including some PODs in the 1980's (namely Andropov living longer to implement his reforms, my personal pick).

And frankly there are many ways a continued Cold War could effect the world by 2018; for one the arms race would still exist and that both militaries would be investing into various technologies and strategies to counter each other (and that proxy wars would still exist). That and the threat of communism being relevant instead of mostly just a yesteryear thing, especially with groups like the Red Army Faction possibly still a threat as of TTL's 2018.
The USSR would have being knocked out of superpower status eventually

By the late 70s-80s Soviet economy was shrinking relative to America economy because American economy was growing a lot faster thanks to productivity increases.

China was growing too and eventually would have eclipsed the Soviet economy, putting further strains on the Soviet defense budget as they now have to devote even more military resources to keep up with both China and the US

eventually they have to give up conventional parity and rely on nuclear deterrence, and eventually they are going to have to choose whether to embrace globalization and supply chains and productivity gains from de-stabilizing technologies like the internet and computers. If they don't they start going the way of north korea. If they do it's a really good question what happens if the Soviet Union is enters the globalized economy and things like sanctions from America really really hurts it.
 
The Russian federation didn't have nearly as much of a nationalities issue as the USSR did, the USSR was I think 50-55% ethnic Russian, Russia itself is something like 80% ethnic russia: there was limited ways in which a Russia nation-state can collapse because even if the economy goes to crap there is the bonds of blood and soil holding the nation together. And even then in the 90s you did see flickers of splintering in the Chechen wars and there was the real fear that Russia would collapse like Yugoslavia did.

That being said, the ussr probably still survives if the soviet government never does any political liberalization.

The nationality situation in the USSR wasn't as cut and dried as "the Russians wanted to keep the Union, the other nationalities didn't" though (not that I necessarily am implying you are saying this, but it's a common misperception). For example, in the 1991 referendum, many of the non-Russian republics voted more in favor of keeping the union than the RSFSR itself did. The RSFSR's vote total in favor of preserving the Union was in fact the second lowest (71 percent) out of all the republics that participated, while the Central Asian republics all voted over 90 percent in favor.
 

RousseauX

Donor
The nationality situation in the USSR wasn't as cut and dried as "the Russians wanted to keep the Union, the other nationalities didn't" though (not that I necessarily am implying you are saying this, but it's a common misperception). For example, in the 1991 referendum, many of the non-Russian republics voted more in favor of keeping the union than the RSFSR itself did. The RSFSR's vote total in favor of preserving the Union was in fact the second lowest (71 percent) out of all the Republics that participated, while the Central Asian Republics all voted over 90 percent in favor.

The russians -didn't- want to keep the union, neither did the Ukrainians nor the balts. You are right the central asian republics voted to stay in the union because they liked their subsidies from Moscow.

The nationalities issue here is twin-fold: you have some non-russian republics like estonia wanting to leave, but you also had a powerful force in the Russian Republic wanting to ditch the union because the average russian don't want keep subsidizing "the browns" in central asia. The driving force behind the fall of the Soviet Union by 1991 was in fact Russian nationalism.
 
I don't see why you need the development of the internet to get a recognizable USSR. Really just avoiding Gorbachev will do it.

Exactly his. This whole talk about 'internal rot' or anything completely misses the point. There was not more corruption in the 80s Soviet Union than say in the 50s, 60s or 70s, and in any case less than in Yeltsin or even modern day Russia. The USSR even had a higher economic growth than the USA in the 80s (the Soviets had aroumd 5% GNP growth, while the US had 3% to 4%). Yes, its true that there was some Stagnation in the Soviet economy (8% GNP growth in the 60s ; 5% in the 80s), but that was due to a higher focus on extensive economic growth than intensive ones. The Soviets just believed after the 60s, it was not worth it to invest too heavily in new technologies (not that they didn't have them, though), but that more extensive growth would pay off in the long run. So this was a rational decision, and nothing that couldn't be changed.

In fact, the communist government had the highest approvement rate of all time in 1984 (despite pollitical conflict inside of the CPSU). So it was really Gorbatchevs rise to power and the systematic destruction of socialism and the economy, through so called 'Perestroika' and 'Glasnost', that destroyed the USSR and the eastern bloc.

And the collapse of the USSR was so incredibly unlikely. Think about it: In 1984, the communist party has the highest support rate of all time. In 1985, Gorbatchev is elected under a liberal-communist agenda. Then he forms a clique of opportunists (which later stabbed him in the back alá Yeltsin) and systematicly destroys the country and the ideology, and it takes untill 1991, 6 years later, untill someone actively does something against this (with the August Coup). And even after socialism fell, 75% of the Soviet (not only russian) people voted to preserve the Union in March of 1991. And then it was dissolved a few months later, the same year by exactly the opportunists who once backed Gorbatchev.

This was incredibly unlikely, so a continued Cold War is a very easy thing.
 
The russians -didn't- want to keep the union, neither did the Ukrainians nor the Balts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_referendum,_1991

73% of the Russians voted to keep the Union.

71% of Ukrainians voted to keep the Union.

And we don't know out the Baltics, because they left the Union before the refferendum, and never made one of their own.

Overall, as I said above, 75% of the Soviet people voted to keep the Union. A few months before it was abolished from above. So actually the USSR never collapsed. It was just disbanded by some polliticians, signing a paper at Alma Ata, against the obvious will of their own people.
 
Ummmm. Don't think so...
I have and idea that USSR sponsoring terroristic attacks on USA

Actually had things remain the same but the Warsaw Pact versus Nato I think you would have seemed less terrorist attacks in the western world. For the main reason the Soviets would be using their network of agents to help track down terrorists. Because if something happens like 911 they want to make sure that they are not blamed. One thing to be said about the Cold War it was relatively safer than the world today because you don't have all these different actions and terrorism excetera. Also the Soviets have been having terrorist attacks on there soil mostly to the best of my memory since the breakup of the Soviet Union but some were before.
 
The USSR would have being knocked out of superpower status eventually

By the late 70s-80s Soviet economy was shrinking relative to America economy because American economy was growing a lot faster thanks to productivity increases.

China was growing too and eventually would have eclipsed the Soviet economy, putting further strains on the Soviet defense budget as they now have to devote even more military resources to keep up with both China and the US

eventually they have to give up conventional parity and rely on nuclear deterrence, and eventually they are going to have to choose whether to embrace globalization and supply chains and productivity gains from de-stabilizing technologies like the internet and computers. If they don't they start going the way of north korea. If they do it's a really good question what happens if the Soviet Union is enters the globalized economy and things like sanctions from America really really hurts it.

One of many issues that hurt the Soviets where the fact they thought they were the equal of the United States. True they could nuclear weapons destroyed as much as the United States could that's about it everything else they were way behind but trying to keep even so to speak cost way too much and their economy couldn't support it. So the people paid 4 illusions of grandeur. Because other than the nuclear weapons they were not a first world country at best they second in some ways they were 3rd.
 
Exactly his. This whole talk about 'internal rot' or anything completely misses the point. There was not more corruption in the 80s Soviet Union than say in the 50s, 60s or 70s, and in any case less than in Yeltsin or even modern day Russia. The USSR even had a higher economic growth than the USA in the 80s (the Soviets had aroumd 5% GNP growth, while the US had 3% to 4%). Yes, its true that there was some Stagnation in the Soviet economy (8% GNP growth in the 60s ; 5% in the 80s), but that was due to a higher focus on extensive economic growth than intensive ones. The Soviets just believed after the 60s, it was not worth it to invest too heavily in new technologies (not that they didn't have them, though), but that more extensive growth would pay off in the long run. So this was a rational decision, and nothing that couldn't be changed.

In fact, the communist government had the highest approvement rate of all time in 1984 (despite pollitical conflict inside of the CPSU). So it was really Gorbatchevs rise to power and the systematic destruction of socialism and the economy, through so called 'Perestroika' and 'Glasnost', that destroyed the USSR and the eastern bloc.

And the collapse of the USSR was so incredibly unlikely. Think about it: In 1984, the communist party has the highest support rate of all time. In 1985, Gorbatchev is elected under a liberal-communist agenda. Then he forms a clique of opportunists (which later stabbed him in the back alá Yeltsin) and systematicly destroys the country and the ideology, and it takes untill 1991, 6 years later, untill someone actively does something against this (with the August Coup). And even after socialism fell, 75% of the Soviet (not only russian) people voted to preserve the Union in March of 1991. And then it was dissolved a few months later, the same year by exactly the opportunists who once backed Gorbatchev.

This was incredibly unlikely, so a continued Cold War is a very easy thing.
I'm on my phone so I can't look this up but during the 80s when they had the boom-time so-to-speak were they still buying wheat from the US and other countries to feed their people.
 
I was thinking about this the other day but got bogged down in the POD. This is really the sort of thing that depends on the POD, which can occur literally at any time in the twentieth century. And any POD has a high likelihood at getting into the conspiracy stuff that is frowned upon here, given the high importance (and budgets) of the intel agencies during the Cold War.

So this thread may be not doable. But no American victory in the Cold War makes most of the "globalization" program impossible, particularly if China is not opened, and makes American sponsored "regime change" impossible as well. No globalization and the environmental situation starts to look very different.
 
The USSR could allow an all-Soivet Internet, essentially an internet that only people inside the Union can access, this would pose less of a security benefit than the USSR allowing it’s people to use a global internet, but give the same economic benefits. This would allow the USSR to buy it’s self time.

Then when 9/11 happens the US if forced to stop suppling the Taliban, in Afghanistan, and instead aid the Soviet backed government, allowing the USSR to finally win the Afghan War. Than the USSR would convince the US to invade Iran. Invading Iran IOTL would be very hard for the US, because of Iran’s Naval and Air Dominance over the Persian Gulf, but the US could it with the help of the USSR, and invade directly from the USSR’s boarder with Iran, American interventions alwayse dream of invading Iran, but are militarily unable to do it, now that they can do it they will.

The invasion of Iran will massively destabilize the Middle East, and cause Muslim nations to stop trading oil with the US and the Soviets because they see them as Christian/Atheist crusaders. And this is why the Soviets will let America use there land to invade Iran, because if America and Western Europe can’t buy oil from the Middle East, they will have to buy it from the USSR. However this would likely lead to the end of the Cold War. I highly doubt that NATO would want to go to war with there supplier of oil. The Cold War was bound to end eventually, the question is how?
 
Then when 9/11 happens
I don't see why this would happen, specially with the USSR still existing and thus providing an alternative target. Moreso, Islamic terrorism agains the US only began after the US deployed troops in Saudi Arabia to launch Operation Desert Storm, which probably would never happen due to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait being butterflied away.

The Cold War was bound to end
Also this. Why would that happen? A bipolar system is the most efficient and balanced way to distribute power. And woth the USSR still existing, while there could be a Detente, the Cold War would still go on, mainly because inevitably one superpower will try to overcome the other.
 

samcster94

Banned
I don't see why this would happen, specially with the USSR still existing and thus providing an alternative target. Moreso, Islamic terrorism agains the US only began after the US deployed troops in Saudi Arabia to launch Operation Desert Storm, which probably would never happen due to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait being butterflied away.


Also this. Why would that happen? A bipolar system is the most efficient and balanced way to distribute power. And woth the USSR still existing, while there could be a Detente, the Cold War would still go on, mainly because inevitably one superpower will try to overcome the other.
An alt 9-11 being attempted in the USSR would be interesting, if much harder.
 
I don't see why this would happen, specially with the USSR still existing and thus providing an alternative target. Moreso, Islamic terrorism agains the US only began after the US deployed troops in Saudi Arabia to launch Operation Desert Storm, which probably would never happen due to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait being butterflied away.
How would the first gulf war be butterflied away? Saddam loosing, the Iraq-Iran war still has the motives to invade Kuwait, the US would still protect Kuwait as they did IOTL, thus placing US troops in Saudi Arabia.
 
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