WI the Sino-Soviet border conflict escalates?

There is a scenario by Forrest l Lindsey in 'Cold War Hot' on this, in 1968 the SU invades China, gets bogged down and after a few months uses chemical and battlefield nuclear weapons with China responding in kind. Just as it looks like there is going to be an all out city busting exchange with the West itself at DEFCON 2 a Havard Professor by the name of Kissinger suggests a political solution which actually works.
 
Given how Siberia is underpopulated, there might be less risk of escalation than a NATO-USSR war.

I remember in the film "The Day After," there's a TV report about a nuclear strike on the NATO HQ in Brussels. Given how Brussels is a big city that just happens to have a big military target in it, that could trigger retaliation against a civilian city in the Soviet sphere and begin the escalation phase from tactical to strategic.

(Yes, I know it's fiction. I'm saying the scenario is plausible.)

Unless the Chinese nuke a military HQ in Vladivostok or Irkstsk (sp?) or the Soviets hit a command center in one of China's bigger northern cities, it might be escalate like that.
 
Quite possibly, but the USSR has a most definite conventional advantage as well, which ought to make it less eager to make a first strike.
Depends on how certain the Soviets are that they can manage a disabling first strike. Why risk letting China keep their nukes if you're reasonably certain you can knock them all out on the ground? Considering their conventional edge, trying to destroy China's nuclear weapons seems like a very sensible measure.

Maybe, but a Chinese first strike only really makes sense as a threat to bargain a compromise peace when they are facing total conventional defeat. With such an unbalance, and limited Chinese delivery capability, a PRC first strike outside the "blackmail" option makes limited sense: the Chinese can inflict significant but ultimately limited damage to the enemy, take out Irkutsk, Vladivostok, the Transiberian Railway, and kill a sizable chunk of Soviet troops in the RFE, but Soviet retaliation would push China back into Dark Ages warlordism and annihilate the Maoist regime. The USSR can "win" a nuclear exchange.
You're not taking the risk of a Soviet first strike into account; it is well within Soviet capacity to destroy China's nuclear forces on the ground. That will create a "use them or lose them" mentality for China regarding their nukes.

The whole reason the US and USSR built up such insanely massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons was to avoid this very issue; even if 90% of the US's nukes were destroyed in a successful Soviet first strike, the US maintains MAD. China doesn't have that insulation from a first strike, so if they don't strike first they might not be able to strike at all.

Unless the Chinese nuke a military HQ in Vladivostok or Irkstsk (sp?) or the Soviets hit a command center in one of China's bigger northern cities, it might be escalate like that.
The Trans-Siberian railroad is probably going to be a top target for any nuclear exchange, given that it's the backbone of Soviet supply lines in any conflict with China. Of course, the trans-siberian railroad is also where a large chunk of the population of siberia lives...
 
I think the Korean War analogy is a good one.

The Soviets are never going to fully take out every Chinese nuke and in the process will force the Chinese into using their surviving weapons.

This war is going to be short and bloody neither the Chinese or the Soviets can advance deep into enemy territory immediately and neither will be willing to launch a pre-empitve strike.

I think that the Soviets will win it but if they're clever they'll quit while they're ahead.
 
Depends on how certain the Soviets are that they can manage a disabling first strike. Why risk letting China keep their nukes if you're reasonably certain you can knock them all out on the ground? Considering their conventional edge, trying to destroy China's nuclear weapons seems like a very sensible measure.

Yes, but the question is where these weapons are. According to Infallible Wikipedia, the first Chinese nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles were fielded in 1971. So in 1969 the only method of delivering a nuclear strike for the Chinese were the H-6 bombers (Chinese version of Tu-16) and the original Tu-16 sold to China before. There are not a lot of them either as the domestic H-6 production started in 1968. So there are probably also older bombers capable of delivering nuclear payload, but these are easier to intercept.

So we have the entire Chinese bomber force (a dozen H-6 resp. Tu-16, with probably 2-3 bombs each) plus possibly older aircraft in the air, on permanent patrol. Meanwhile the Soviets are fueling up their few ICBMs and also getting their entire bomber force ready as well. The Soviets just fielded their first Backfire (Tu-22M) which is probably able to outrun anything the Chinese have.

So now we have both forces on trigger alert. China is in first line interested in preserving their nuclear weapons for a second strike, while preventing exactly this is the main goal of the Soviets. What happens?


The Trans-Siberian railroad is probably going to be a top target for any nuclear exchange, given that it's the backbone of Soviet supply lines in any conflict with China. Of course, the trans-siberian railroad is also where a large chunk of the population of siberia lives...

The Trans-Siberian railroad also runs through enormous amounts of empty space, with bridges, tunnels etc. which can be blocked/destroyed by Chinese conventionally. This will delay the supplies coming through. A destruction of marshalling yard in a big city, presumably with a lot of war materiel with it, would result in more delay but as a de facto countervalue first strike it would immediately lead to countervalue bombing by the Soviets... with a bit of one-sided result. The Chinese would probably delay such a strike but will this make sense AFTER a Soviet counterforce attack?

Waiting for suggestions...
 
Assuming this happens prior to 1973, how does this effect American involvement in Vietnam?
I would imagine the Vietnamese will lose at the least a significant chunk of their aid from the USSR for a time; the Soviets probably won't have the resources to spare on aiding foreign Communist movements while they're rebuilding the war damage.

Also, assuming the war goes nuclear, there's a fair chance North Vietnam has to deal with some amount of fallout and probably gets a fair number of Chinese refugees.
 
I wonder if that would effect the outcome of the war? As it was cutting off the North from Soviet supplies by mining Haiphong helped defeat the Easter Offensive in '72. A Sino-Soviet war would cut them off much more completely and maybe earlier if the war occurs during the intitial Sino-Soviet break in the late 60s.
 
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