WI: Yom Kippur War

When Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, CIA Director William Colby, and White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig asked that Anwar Sadat drop his request for Soviet intervention into the Yom Kippur War he accepted and it ended there. The US went from DEFCON 4 to 3 while the Soviets seven airborne divisions on alert, an airborne command post was set up in the southern Soviet Union, and several air force units were also alerted. Reports also indicated that at least one of the divisions and a squadron of transport planes had been moved from the Soviet Union to an airbase in Yugoslavia. The Soviets also deployed seven amphibious warfare craft with some 40,000 naval infantry in the Mediterranean.

So what if Sadat didn't drop it and the Soviets did intervene? How does the US react?

Full wiki article here.
 
it would of been amazingly dumb of them to do that, the US will dash about trying to get them to stop, lots of threats, this is the worst time for this to happen, its the middle of Watergate so Nixon is living in a cloud of booze, in OTL when asked what we should do about this very matter he drunkenly said "nuke 'em all, sons of whores" through the whole crisis Kissinger was running the White House, but there comes a point where the President does have to make a call and idk if at any point Nixon will be sober enough to make the right call, its like Cuba in 1962, but LeMay is President :eek:
 

Cook

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Reports also indicated that at least one of the divisions and a squadron of transport planes had been moved from the Soviet Union to an airbase in Yugoslavia.

I’m sorry; what?:eek:

Yugoslavia was not a member of the Warsaw Pact and wasn’t on overly close terms with the Soviet Union at the time. More information on this would be appreciated.

BTW, can anyone recommend a good book on the Yom Kippur War?
 
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I'm not sure how many people realize just exactly how bad this could have been. Nixon put the entire military on high alert in the middle of the night. I was at Offutt Air Force Base (SAC Hq), and there were a LOT of faces white with fear when they realized what was happening. The B-52s were in the air and circling over the Arctic with full nuke bomb loads. Various Army units were gearing up for transport to Israel. If Soviet troops had moved into the Middle East, it would have gone bad very very quickly.
 

CalBear

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Nixon put the U.S. nuclear forces on their highest alert level since the Cuban Crisis (a level not seen again until 9/11). SAC had half its crews sitting IN their bombers. He moved Sixth Fleet carriers into the Eastern Med to intercept any Soviet aircraft coming from the Ukraine/Black Sea region. Those same carriers had A-6 Intruders on Ready 15 with B-61 NUCLEAR WEAPONS aboard. The U.S. stripped Reforager supplies from West Germany to resupply the IDF.

The Soviets push the issue in 1973, odds are pretty good none of us are around today to discuss it.
 
Ok so it's pretty obvious this would go to war. I don't think it would go straight to nuclear however. Neither country is stupid enough to start glassing the other right off the bat, despite how intoxicated Nixon was. None of the advisers would let him start launching nukes unless things we extremely bad.

So assuming it doesn't start off nuclear how does the conventional war go?
 

Cook

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Neither country is stupid enough to start glassing the other right off the bat...

Actually that was Soviet military doctrine against NATO at the time, despite the No first Use declaration. Soviet forces were equipped and trained to fight an NBC war.
 

The Sandman

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Ok so it's pretty obvious this would go to war. I don't think it would go straight to nuclear however. Neither country is stupid enough to start glassing the other right off the bat, despite how intoxicated Nixon was. None of the advisers would let him start launching nukes unless things we extremely bad.

So assuming it doesn't start off nuclear how does the conventional war go?

Does it matter?

The instant it goes badly for one side (and it will go badly for one side or the other), it goes nuclear.

And IIRC Soviet strategy at this point was based around the idea that since this would inevitably happen in the event of any war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, they might as well just start off by going nuclear and thus slightly improve the chances of the Soviet Union surviving as something resembling a coherent nation.
 
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