What if the Soviet Union Survived?

While not divided into ethnic SSRs like the Soviet Union, China has separatist movements in Tibet and Xinjiang at least as dedicated as those that existed in the USSR in the 1980's. It was glasnot that allowed those groups to organize, without glasnot ethnic separatism would have remained mostly latent, and any outbreaks of rioting could be dealt with by security forces, while censorship would minimize the outcry. Worked for China in 2008.

Violence on the periphery is simply not going to topple the central committee unless there is some kind of army insurrection, which would be unlikely unless the protesters they were ordered to fight were ethnic Russians.

Well, you're also neglecting the war in Afghanistan, where the soldiers fighting were Muslims from the periphery states. That gives a lot of people military training and presuming Khomeini shows up as per OTL in charge of Iran the USSR's still going to go batshit towards any sign of dissension among its Muslims. That really could trigger a civil war. And any victory for the Soviet state in that war would be hollow.
 
Well, you're also neglecting the war in Afghanistan, where the soldiers fighting were Muslims from the periphery states. That gives a lot of people military training and presuming Khomeini shows up as per OTL in charge of Iran the USSR's still going to go batshit towards any sign of dissension among its Muslims. That really could trigger a civil war. And any victory for the Soviet state in that war would be hollow.

You know, the 'stans managed to largely suppress all that all by themselves after the breakup. And the 'stans voted to stay in the Union. It could be worse if the religious uprising becomes a nationalist uprising, but it's not a very obvious outcome at all.
 
You know, the 'stans managed to largely suppress all that all by themselves after the breakup. And the 'stans voted to stay in the Union. It could be worse if the religious uprising becomes a nationalist uprising, but it's not a very obvious outcome at all.

After the breakup being the key words. The issue is how to preserve the USSR, which showed not the least bit of interest in issues on the periphery.
 
I'm not worried (much) about Seoul, I'm worried about the average Korean on the street who, you'll recall, still remembers Japanese occupation and what it meant.

Really? 39 years later? The map is of 1984.

I'd actually hate to guess what Koreans in 1950 would prefer - the as-yet unknown problems of communism, or the known problems of Japanese troops on their soil. For that matter, without UN aid, would there even BE a South Korea?

The idea here is that with the US withdrawal from Asia in the 70s, Japan seriously stepped up to try and replace it as a viable anti-Communist military force, while South Korea worked extremely hard to get the AEAN up and running as fast as possible.

Pyongyang would invade South Korea standing alone in a heartbeat. But South Korea with immediate Japanese forces waiting to counterattack, and Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand ready to move quickly as well?

Meanwhile the North couldn't count on Soviet support, since the Soviets were busy with internal reforms, and the PRC, meanwhile, is quite happy with not having a unified Korean peninsula - and more importantly, wasn't sure how to move forward with the US' sudden withdrawal and not knowing whether or not the Soviets might want to target them next and put them back to where they were before the Sino-Soviet Split.
 
Really? 39 years later? The map is of 1984.

Sorry, I confused the POD here with the "isolationist US after WWII" thread, and was assuming the US wasn't involved in the Korean War, instead having the Japanese stepping in when N. Korea invaded.

Though I'd note that in OTL the US still made sure to put S. Korean and Japanese teams in the Sandbox on opposite sides of a base as late as 2009.
 
Sorry, I confused the POD here with the "isolationist US after WWII" thread, and was assuming the US wasn't involved in the Korean War, instead having the Japanese stepping in when N. Korea invaded.

Though I'd note that in OTL the US still made sure to put S. Korean and Japanese teams in the Sandbox on opposite sides of a base as late as 2009.

Really, the tensions between Japan and S. Korea are still that high even almost sixty years after WWII? You'd think that by now the most they would have to bicker over is competitive video game leagues.
 
Really, the tensions between Japan and S. Korea are still that high even almost sixty years after WWII? You'd think that by now the most they would have to bicker over is competitive video game leagues.

Yup. Over 60 years now, actually, though things HAVE improved.

AFAIK, the tension is mostly at the individual/cultural level, not political/diplomatic.
 

tqm111

Banned
The USSR could've survived. Gorby wasn't the guy to get it done.

Look at Cuba. Look at North Korea. Things are hard there. Nightmarish. But in each you have regimes holding onto power brutally.

Look at Tienamen Square. Look at the Iranian demonstrations in 2009.

Regimes can survive if they're willing to be brutal. The Eastern Europe regimes collapsed because there wasn't the political will at the top (especially in Moscow) to go Tienamen on people when they turned out in the streets.

It was political weakness at the top of the Soviet Union that allowed the system to collapse.

If someone other than Gorby was there, a hardliner, they might have prevented the US from doing Desert Storm. When Iraq invaded Kuwait the price of oil went way up. If Bush didn't stop Sadaam, and he walked into Saudi Arabia, the oil price would've spiked way way up, and it could've sustained the USSR.

They also could've enacted reforms, PRC style, and began to thrive the same way.
 
1964, an error in a computer system causes a squadron of strategical bombers to receive their orders to attack the Soviet-Union.

Most are shot down with anti-aircraft missiles, some equppied with nuclear warheads. One bomber is merely damaged, with no chances of coming back, it is hovewer able to escape the anti-aircraft missiles by flying at an extremely low altitude.
It reaches central Moscow, the bombs are detonated. The US president convinces the Soviets that the attack was accidental, by detonating a 20 megaton bomb some 3000 meters above the Chrysler Building, WW3 is avoided.


In the aftermath, Leningrad becomes the new capital of the Soviet-Union. A new regime emerges, one with younger, stronger and in general, less unwholesome members.
Krushnev´s remaining cronies are definitively purged and Krushnev himself is sent to Siberian retirement in 1965. The following prime ministers are subordinated to the Supreme Soviet in peacetime, to the generals in wartime.

Gorbatchev does not come to power in the mid-80s, different political situation in the mid 80s and the fact he received rather bad sunburns in 1964. In 1983, Boris Yeltsin was arrested during a visit to the USA for being caught in the act of abusing a 10 years old boy, he was thrown into a jail cell with 20 other innmates. The Soviet governement, embarassed by the whole affair, did not dare to protest to Washington as to what happened next.
 
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The USSR could've survived. Gorby wasn't the guy to get it done.

Exactly! It is nice to think that there was some kind of democratic zeitgeist going around Eastern Europe and Russia in 1989, but the fact was that the political leadership in those countries blinked, while the political leadership in Beijing did not.

The USSR could still be around today as North Korea writ large. Only unlike in the case of North Korea, it would still be intellectually respectful to defend it on American campuses.
 

tqm111

Banned
The other thing is that the Gulf War would've played out differently.

The Soviets might've vetoed action against Iraq in the UN Sec council.

And the 1990s and foriegn policy would play out differently.
 
1964, an error in a computer system causes a squadron of strategical bombers to receive their orders to attack the Soviet-Union.

Most are shot down with anti-aircraft missiles, some equppied with nuclear warheads. One bomber is merely damaged, with no chances of coming back, it is hovewer able to escape the anti-aircraft missiles by flying at an extremely low altitude.
It reaches central Moscow, the bombs are detonated. The US president convinces the Soviets that the attack was accidental, by detonating a 20 megaton bomb some 3000 meters above the Chrysler Building, WW3 is avoided.

Fail Safe! Possibly the most ironically titled book ever...
 
I think, as Jan Niemcyzk's rather excellent "The Last War" on TBOVERSE shows, defence spending throughout the West would remain markedly higher, especially in countries that made more dramatic cuts, which come the recession and financial crisis that most of the world is currently in, means one of maybe two or three things (assuming butterflies don't change things):

1)Greater public expenditure means national debt even higher than it is now, especially in the US and UK (I would guess this would be the most likely outcome, although how much defence spending in the UK would increase is questionable)

2)Spending in areas such as the NHS doesn't reach the stratospheric levels seen in the last decade or so, as resources are arguably more urgently needed for defence(Unlikely, although butterflies may prevent everyone's favourite chancellor holding power)

3)The greater industrial base in countries such as the UK supported by increased defence spending would lead to less reliance on the financial sector, thus making the situation not as bad as it is now (What I would personally like to happen)

Looking at it from the perspective of the UK's armed forces, primarily the Royal Navy, I think several things might change;
-there would be at least the 12 T45s originally promised (maybe more, TLW shows a Navy with 14),
- the new carrier/s design would likely be different- I think that if the Navy's primary role continued to be ASW in "the big one", then Invincible-esque "through-deck crusiers" would be more likely than bigger strike carriers (Although we could get both :cool:),
-at least 8 Astutes would be ordered
-the frankly moronic decision to cancel the Nimrod MRA4 would not go ahead
-the design of HMS Ocean might be different-I've always understood it to be that the use of commercial features is one of the reasons the ship is so "tired", there might be 2
-less Type 23s and 42s would be retired
-The Upholder class would not be sold without replacement
-Older platforms, such as the Harrier, Sea King etc might be replaced sooner

In conclusion, I think the Navy would be much healthier in this scenario. It would still have a well-defined role the public could "get", and there wouldn't be as much inter-service squabbling, which the RN always seems to come out of badly. I'm afraid I can't share Jan's optimism regarding procurement though( 6 Astutes, 10 T45s and 10 T46s ready on schedule without massive delays?!?)
 
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