DBWI: No Sino-Soviet War

[colonel]

Maybe Hubert Humphrey might have done it, but then he would be hearing the shill cries of commie.

Could Humphrey have prevented the war?

Well there was a rumor that before the war the Soviets asked the US through a back channel what they would do if the USSR dropped a nuke on the PRC. Instead of responding directly Nixon, at Kissinger’s urging, used another back channel to let the Chinese know what the Soviets were asking. The supposed hope was the Soviets would back down, and the US could use the incident as a means of opening a dialogue with the Red Chinese. Assuming this is correct it backfired and may be what made Mao think he needed to fire first. Of course we’ll likely never know for sure. If it is true, maybe Humphrey just ignores the question (although unlike Nixon, Humphrey was notorious for not being able to keep a secret).

OOC: This did happen except in our timeline it had the effect Kissinger and Nixon wanted.

 

[Bookmark1995]

Well there was a rumor that before the war the Soviets asked the US through a back channel what they would do if the USSR dropped a nuke on the PRC. Instead of responding directly Nixon, at Kissinger’s urging, used another back channel to let the Chinese know what the Soviets were asking. The supposed hope was the Soviets would back down, and the US could use the incident as a means of opening a dialogue with the Red Chinese. Assuming this is correct it backfired and may be what made Mao think he needed to fire first. Of course we’ll likely never know for sure. If it is true, maybe Humphrey just ignores the question (although unlike Nixon, Humphrey was notorious for not being able to keep a secret).

A Cold Warrior making a deal with Red China? But then again, life is always stranger than fiction, so who knows how that could've gone.

 

[colonel]

A Cold Warrior making a deal with Red China? But then again, life is always stranger than fiction, so who knows how that could've gone.

Too bad he just didn’t sit on the info - If only Nixon hadn’t gone to China!

 

[Johnrankins]

Too bad he just didn’t sit on the info - If only Nixon hadn’t gone to China!

Personally I think it is just an Urban Legend.

 

[Rfl23]

How about the Pakistani Civil War? Many believe without the Sino-Soviet War East Pakistan would have sought Independence earlier than 79. Too bad for the East Pakistani's that the bomb West Pakistan used against them didn't have the issues the bomb they tried against India did. Still the mere fact that they used it undermined the argument they should remain a single country & Bangladesh was born. The outcry over this bomb at least led to UN reform in the 1980s.

Well if they havent use the bomb the islamabad will stay in power unlike what happen in the 80s when a us sponsored coup made pakistan a staunch us allies to this day and certainly the south african civil war gonna reform the un if the pakistani civil war didny happen

 

[colonel]

1. 1969 - Soviet retaliatory strikes (multiple launches, after both sets of PRC launches). Obviously this is asking if, without the Chinese making a first strike, would Moscow have made a first strike of its own.
2. 1969 - PRC second strike (multiple launches). This assumes that Moscow made a first strike - would Mao go nuclear in response? I think this is an obvious yes.
3. 1978 - Pakistan tries to launch a nuclear weapon against India. The weapon does not perform as designed and essentially acts like an enormous dirty bomb. The Pakistan launch (like the earlier PRC launch against the USSR) was based in large measure on the assumption that their enemy was going to launch against them. Were it not for the earlier precedent would they have launched?
4. 1978 - India retaliatory strike. Given they used what amounted to only a tactical nuke, essentially saying to Pakistan “ours work.” In my view this is the least likely strike to have occurred without a prior nuclear attack.
5. 1979 - West Pakistan’s launch against East Pakistan. Most agree this was done because West Pakistan already saw Bangladesh independence as a fait accompli, and was cynically done to show India it had perfected it’ own bomb.
6. 1981 - Iraq’s strike against the coalition opposing the invasion of Kuwait by nuking Teheran. Considering the weapon, along with the other 3 devices found after the Iraqi surrender were of Soviet origin, this was unlikely with no earlier Sino-Soviet War.
7. 1981 - Iran’s retaliatory strike (never acknowledged, but commonly believed to have been an Israeli weapon). Doesn’t happen with no Iraqi first use.

 

[Bbone91]

We’d ironically have fewer nuclear power plants in the U.S, due to the lack of an oil crisis caused by the ‘81 Iraq War. With the Saudis and Gulf Coast countries going into panic mode, we in the U.S had to start making more efficient electrical cars. We also wouldn’t have as efficient wind turbines, but probably better solar panels due to the lack of a nuclear winter.

 

[colonel]

If there had been no nuclear exchanges more conventional wars were very likely. When you think about it there have been no nuclear strikes in forty years, over a quarter century since the UN had to deploy its fast reaction force (Rwanda), and a almost two decades since the last peacekeepers were withdrawn (Bosnia and South Africa). It came at a huge price, but the UN reforms coming out of the exchanges, combined with the remaining major powers being democracies acting in unison, has brought a remarkable era of peace (knock wood) and if not prosperity at least the sense that things are improving. Without the nuclear strikes, the US and other major powers would still have large conventional forces and nuclear stockpiles, NATO and other military alliances would still exist, and you probably wouldn’t have the shared sovereignty agreements for Jerusalem, Northern Island and the Falklands.

 

[Bookmark1995]

If there had been no nuclear exchanges more conventional wars were very likely. When you think about it there have been no nuclear strikes in forty years, over a quarter century since the UN had to deploy its fast reaction force (Rwanda), and a almost two decades since the last peacekeepers were withdrawn (Bosnia and South Africa). It came at a huge price, but the UN reforms coming out of the exchanges, combined with the remaining major powers being democracies acting in unison, has brought a remarkable era of peace (knock wood) and if not prosperity at least the sense that things are improving. Without the nuclear strikes, the US and other major powers would still have large conventional forces and nuclear stockpiles, NATO and other military alliances would still exist, and you probably wouldn’t have the shared sovereignty agreements for Jerusalem, Northern Island and the Falklands.

Is it fair to say the Sino-Soviet War was a necessary evil in the creation of a better world, or does that belittle those who had to suffer the hellscape of post-nuclear China?

 

[colonel]

I wouldn’t say that, for the reasons you cite, and because so many are still suffering the ill effects. You may in a few years see the competing areas claiming to be the government for all China come to an accommodation, but it will be much longer before mainland China as a whole approaches where they were in 1969, never mind being on a par with her neighbors. The former Soviet controlled areas are better, but only marginally so.

 

[colonel]

We’d ironically have fewer nuclear power plants in the U.S, due to the lack of an oil crisis caused by the ‘81 Iraq War. With the Saudis and Gulf Coast countries going into panic mode, we in the U.S had to start making more efficient electrical cars. We also wouldn’t have as efficient wind turbines, but probably better solar panels due to the lack of a nuclear winter.

Interesting in 1969 nuclear plants accounted for just over 2% of US electricity generation. Now it accounts for almost 75%. Where do you think it would be without the war?
OOC: it is currently just under 20% andhas been there for awhile.

I’m personally surprised that the close calls in three separate plants in the Soviet Union in the 1980s didn’t turn people off to nuclear power, but the International Atomic Energy Agency was able to allay fears by using its enhanced powers so aggressively after the war. Putting experts in every nuclear facility worldwide starting in 1982, and giving them the power to shut down any plant likely prevented at least one nuclear disaster.

Of course they have gone overboard on occasion - shutting down plants in the US, France and Japan for days with no notice, likely just to show they weren’t afraid of the big powers (but better safe than sorry). The IAEA really earned their pay and respect when they stayed on station in every facility in the old Soviet Union during their Civil War.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

Seriously, Mao got full-on Mussolini-ed. My Modern China College Class covers his last days, and it's NOT pretty.

Really? Tell us about it.

 

[Bassoe]

...and we all know how well that worked out for him after the dust settled.

Seriously, Mao got full-on Mussolini-ed. My Modern China College Class covers his last days, and it's NOT pretty.

Oof yeah i remember the picture of him in the square getting changed with his corpse (hanging upside down too) after they captured him trying to escape the city

Really? Tell us about it.

He encountered an angry mob, all of whom had lost friends and family to his war and who had received sufficient radiation poisoning they wouldn't last a week, so they had nothing to lose. Including many of his guards. This ended predictably.

 

[Rfl23]

He encountered an angry mob, all of whom had lost friends and family to his war and who had received sufficient radiation poisoning they wouldn't last a week, so they had nothing to lose. Including many of his guards. This ended predictably.

I know but the fact that the navy and air force refused to rescue him when the fact that they are capable and has patrol boats and helicopter along the river is quite shocking i then again they are the one who suffered the most during the war

 

[Ascendant Warrior]

He encountered an angry mob, all of whom had lost friends and family to his war and who had received sufficient radiation poisoning they wouldn't last a week, so they had nothing to lose. Including many of his guards. This ended predictably.

Yep, Karma got the man quickly once his hold on China collapsed, and it's ugly. There's a reason that despite the gulfs in relative 'success', Mao and Mussolini are regularly put next to eachother.

I know but the fact that the navy and air force refused to rescue him when the fact that they are capable and has patrol boats and helicopter along the river is quite shocking i then again they are the one who suffered the most during the war

There is a running theory that part of that might have something to do with both the 'Great Leap Forward' and the MASSIVE civil strife that China was experiencing before the war due to the disasterous 'Cultural Revolution'(as many Fanatics that survived the war called it). Mao had a one-two punch of screwing over China even before the war, and it's believable that elements high in the Navy and Air Force had people effected by One/The Other or Both and decided to let the Red Dumpling burn.

 

[colonel]

Yep, Karma got the man quickly once his hold on China collapsed, and it's ugly. There's a reason that despite the gulfs in relative 'success', Mao and Mussolini are regularly put next to eachother.


There is a running theory that part of that might have something to do with both the 'Great Leap Forward' and the MASSIVE civil strife that China was experiencing before the war due to the disasterous 'Cultural Revolution'(as many Fanatics that survived the war called it). Mao had a one-two punch of screwing over China even before the war, and it's believable that elements high in the Navy and Air Force had people effected by One/The Other or Both and decided to let the Red Dumpling burn.

Some even theorize Mao initiated the border dispute with the Soviets to distract the masses from the excesses and failures of the Cultural Revolution. It has to be the biggest miscalculation in the history of the universe.

 

[Rfl23]

Yep, Karma got the man quickly once his hold on China collapsed, and it's ugly. There's a reason that despite the gulfs in relative 'success', Mao and Mussolini are regularly put next to eachother.


There is a running theory that part of that might have something to do with both the 'Great Leap Forward' and the MASSIVE civil strife that China was experiencing before the war due to the disasterous 'Cultural Revolution'(as many Fanatics that survived the war called it). Mao had a one-two punch of screwing over China even before the war, and it's believable that elements high in the Navy and Air Force had people effected by One/The Other or Both and decided to let the Red Dumpling burn.

Not surprising one of their submarine defected to the american in okinawa and even got pressed into service as uss peking (one of their tyoe 035) but for the air force to deny his extraction is like a punch in the gut i heard he even cried and wept for the helicopter pilot to land and evacuate him but the only thing the pilot say is "goodbye" and dropped a bible (the pilot was christian)

 

[Bookmark1995]

Some even theorize Mao initiated the border dispute with the Soviets to distract the masses from the excesses and failures of the Cultural Revolution. It has to be the biggest miscalculation in the history of the universe.

The asshole basically said "we can survive with half our population."

That half of the population that lived told him "we can survive without you."

 

[colonel]

Another thing worth noting is how without either China or the USSR to support them, the Viet Cong quickly collapsed due to the advantage South Vietnam had with all its support.

Likewise no such war likely butterflies Cuba's eventual uprising against Castro after he bit off more than he could chew in terms of picking a fight with Jamaica. Much less Castro trying to fiddle with Jamaica in the first place.

The most likely outcome for Vietnam without the Sino-Soviet War was what happened to the Korean Peninsula. I doubt the South could have taken the North without the collapse of the North’s communist allies, and there is no way the US would have let the North prevail over the South.

As for Cuba, the Sino-Soviet War may have slightly accelerated Castro’s demise. While without Soviet sponsorship Castro had to create the Jamaica is a threat myth to justify seizing ships heading to and from his island neighbor, even without the war the communists last until 1975 at the latest.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

The most likely outcome for Vietnam without the Sino-Soviet War was what happened to the Korean Peninsula. I doubt the South could have taken the North without the collapse of the North’s communist allies, and there is no way the US would have let the North prevail over the South.

As for Cuba, the Sino-Soviet War may have slightly accelerated Castro’s demise. While without Soviet sponsorship Castro had to create the Jamaica is a threat myth to justify seizing ships heading to and from his island neighbor, even without the war the communists last until 1975 at the latest.

And the Jamaica factor wasn't helped because Jamaica still had strong ties to the British Commonwealth despite its 1962 independence. Hell, I hear stories about how the Aussies were already planning to send their ships through the Panama Canal to Kingston.