FieldMarshal
Banned
I've posted before about Operación Soberanía, an offensive war that was to be launched by Argentina against Chile in 1978 over the disputed Beagle channel. War was averted only six hours before combat operations were due to begin thanks to a sudden storm.
However, the disputes with Argentina were far from Chile's only worries. To the north lay Peru, under the control of leftist military dictator Juan Velasco Alvarado. Backed by Cuba and the USSR, Velasco built the Peruvian military into a formidable force with Warsaw Pact weaponry. He evidently made plans for a massive invasion of Northern Chile in order to reconquer land that Peru had lost to Chile in the War of the Pacific in the 1880s, though it is disputed as to how seriously he actually considered acting on such plans.
Chile, meanwhile, was under the control of US-aligned dictator Augusto Pinochet. The Chileans evidently feared a Peruvian invasion enough to twice consider launching a preemptive war to prevent any such attack.
So, what if war had erupted between Chile and Peru in early 1975? Who would have won? It seems that, considering how militarized the two countries had become, that both sides would have incurred major losses no matter what the outcome. Some Chilean generals (see the article above) seem to indicate that a preemptive strike on Peru might have resulted in a Peruvian victory and the destruction of the Chilean Air Force, while Pinochet himself evidently indicated in a 1999 interview that a Peruvian offensive in the mid-70s could have gotten halfway to Santiago.
I feel like such a conflict would have a greater potential to become a Cold War proxy conflict than a potential Chile-Argentina war, given that this scenario pits a US-aligned capitalist military dictatorship against a Soviet-backed leftist military dictatorship (as opposed to two US-backed military dictatorships duking it out).
Might the US intervene in some fashion if the Peruvians look too close to winning, or does the ongoing collapse of South Vietnam across the Pacific preclude that? How does Cuba respond? Does it forgo the massive deployments to Africa of the OTL 1970s and 1980s in favor of aiding the Peruvians in taking down Chile?
However, the disputes with Argentina were far from Chile's only worries. To the north lay Peru, under the control of leftist military dictator Juan Velasco Alvarado. Backed by Cuba and the USSR, Velasco built the Peruvian military into a formidable force with Warsaw Pact weaponry. He evidently made plans for a massive invasion of Northern Chile in order to reconquer land that Peru had lost to Chile in the War of the Pacific in the 1880s, though it is disputed as to how seriously he actually considered acting on such plans.
Chile, meanwhile, was under the control of US-aligned dictator Augusto Pinochet. The Chileans evidently feared a Peruvian invasion enough to twice consider launching a preemptive war to prevent any such attack.
So, what if war had erupted between Chile and Peru in early 1975? Who would have won? It seems that, considering how militarized the two countries had become, that both sides would have incurred major losses no matter what the outcome. Some Chilean generals (see the article above) seem to indicate that a preemptive strike on Peru might have resulted in a Peruvian victory and the destruction of the Chilean Air Force, while Pinochet himself evidently indicated in a 1999 interview that a Peruvian offensive in the mid-70s could have gotten halfway to Santiago.
I feel like such a conflict would have a greater potential to become a Cold War proxy conflict than a potential Chile-Argentina war, given that this scenario pits a US-aligned capitalist military dictatorship against a Soviet-backed leftist military dictatorship (as opposed to two US-backed military dictatorships duking it out).
Might the US intervene in some fashion if the Peruvians look too close to winning, or does the ongoing collapse of South Vietnam across the Pacific preclude that? How does Cuba respond? Does it forgo the massive deployments to Africa of the OTL 1970s and 1980s in favor of aiding the Peruvians in taking down Chile?
