what if the cold war did not end

[rip89]

This is a question that has always fascinated me. What if the cold war did not end?
For this to happen you would have to have a hardline communist take over in 1985. The fall of the communist bloc was precipitated by Gorbachevs attempts to reform a system that was unreformable, the little bit of openess that he introduced caused the entire system to implode.

If somehow the USSR and Warsaw pact still existed what would the world be like to day,

Militarily what equipment would be used?
Could the USA have continued its 80s defence build up?
Without a united Germany would the EU still develop along the same lines? (I dont think so, but maybe im wrong).
Yugoslavia what would have happened? If it still broke up could this have caused world war 3?

One interesting point, I think the west might have sponserd islamic militants, within the USSR , think of all the "stans" that existed within the USSR, which leads to my final question, would terrorism still have developed like in our OTL?

 

[Jay]

Terrorism would have rose, but the would most likely gone after USSR to help free the brothers in the Stans. It also would not have a large foundation in Afghanistan with the Soviet Union bordering. It is easier to attack USSR than USA cost wise but Soviet Union would be more strict on security

Correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Electric Monk]

The USSR would be like in Neuromancer.

Broken down, broke, and thoroughly incapable of bothering anybody. Assuming the Russian Mafia didn't take off, then somebody else would have moved (yakuza, the triads, whatever) and the big corporations would loot the rubble because the Russians would be too desperate for hard currency to do anything about it. Maybe a last ditch very brief attempt to seize Europe or the Middle East which results in an internal coup if they try to go nuclear when they've already lost.


Or did you mean the USSR magically reforms, follows the ChiCom lead, and is somehow still a major player? Because that would take a heck of a POD back in the '60s or—maybe—the '70s.

 

[Berra]

This is more about the effects on the military, right?

The thing is, I get the impression the reason the US spent a lot of money on the military in the 80's was that they didn't do it during the Vietnam and the post Vietnam era. Well, the Vietnam war was expensive but that's just the point, the rest of the military had to stand back to the great costs.

Anyway, the military gets a lot of money during the 80's, it has what it needs in the 90's and need newer stuff again in the 00's. Something like that.

And I think Star Wars gets built.

 

[rip89]

The USSR would be like in Neuromancer.

Broken down, broke, and thoroughly incapable of bothering anybody. Assuming the Russian Mafia didn't take off, then somebody else would have moved (yakuza, the triads, whatever) and the big corporations would loot the rubble because the Russians would be too desperate for hard currency to do anything about it. Maybe a last ditch very brief attempt to seize Europe or the Middle East which results in an internal coup if they try to go nuclear when they've already lost.


Or did you mean the USSR magically reforms, follows the ChiCom lead, and is somehow still a major player? Because that would take a heck of a POD back in the '60s or—maybe—the '70s.

No I simply meant gorby does not take over, some old hardliner takes over, and the ussr continues, personaly I also think they slowly decline, which could lead to them lashing out (you know the old we will distract the poulation from there problems with a war scenario).

 

[rip89]

This is more about the effects on the military, right?

The thing is, I get the impression the reason the US spent a lot of money on the military in the 80's was that they didn't do it during the Vietnam and the post Vietnam era. Well, the Vietnam war was expensive but that's just the point, the rest of the military had to stand back to the great costs.

Anyway, the military gets a lot of money during the 80's, it has what it needs in the 90's and need newer stuff again in the 00's. Something like that.

And I think Star Wars gets built.

Yes the military and politics of this scenario interest me, will we see a hundred odd B2s in service for example?

 

[Electric Monk]

If we're just talking military than it's pretty simple.

The USSR builds as many Akula subs (maybe some improved Typhoons as well) as possible before going broke, maybe stealing some additional technology for them. They probably get some Su-27 improved versions and if they finish a carrier or two then some naval versions of those. Maybe they get the fighter bomber varient (Su-32 or 34, I can't recall) into production and perhaps they fit them on their carrier(s). Tank wise I imagine they transition to the T-90.

The Americans don't do that much different. After the "peace dividend" didn't much happen IOTL (would anyone imagine in 1988 that the US military budget IOTL only goes up and up two decades after the only major conventional opponent is gone?) and what there was of it was shortly reversed.

So the B-2 is still halted because it's super expensive and of limited utility. Naval construction (I hope) slows because, outside perhaps a dozen Akula's and a dozen boomers and a few modern surface ships, the Russian Navy sucks and would continue to suck. However one could probably see some additional Seawolfs built and if we're really lucky we don't get one called the Jimmy Carter.

Maybe the Super Tomcat goes through instead of the Super Hornet but the A-12 and the naval ATF are still doomed. The USAF still focuses on the ATF and possibly the JSF.

The Army might come off best—they had a ton of projects cancelled and the Future Combat Systems project is a total joke. So updated artillery (the Crusader, though they'd be more sensible to buy the AS-90 or the German PzH2000) and some fancy new shells they only ever got a handful of OTL. The Airborne might their new light tank (M8 AGS) and perhaps the AH-56 Cheyenne gets built after all if it comes into service before UAVs come around.


But really, the USSR breaks down into a decrepit hulk by the 1990s unless they conduct drastic reforms and still keep their population under their thumb.

 

[CanadianGoose]

There would be no Internet as we know it (a lot of OTL development had been powered by brains which would be snapped by military contractors and would be toiling on weapons development ITTL) and arms of today would be as advanced comparing to arms of 1990 as those were comparing to the stuff USA used in Viet Nam.

 

[General Mung Beans]

If 9-11 or some similar attack happens the Soviet Union might decide to invade Afghanistan with joint US support.

 

[Leistungsfähiger Amerikan]

If 9-11 or some similar attack happens the Soviet Union might decide to invade Afghanistan with joint US support.

Something 9/11 would probably happen to the USSR before the USA. The USSR was even worse in the terrorists eyes for being athiest.

 

[Zyzzyva]

There would be no Internet as we know it (a lot of OTL development had been powered by brains which would be snapped by military contractors and would be toiling on weapons development ITTL) and arms of today would be as advanced comparing to arms of 1990 as those were comparing to the stuff USA used in Viet Nam.

I doubt it. PCs took off perfectly well in the 80s despite your "military brain drain", and throwing extra money at defense contractors will only do so much for tech advancement.

If 9-11 or some similar attack happens the Soviet Union might decide to invade Afghanistan with joint US support.

Doesn't work that way - the whole point of the Cold War was that there were only two sides, Us and Them. Western European Democrats? Genocidal Juntas? Wahhabi Jihadists? If they're anti-Them, they are, by definition, pro-Us.

 

[Berra]

The Soviets where inventive when it came to developing military designs. IFVs, the Hind helicopter and stuff like that. Things that didn't nessesary required new high tech to the same thing as they always did but rather putting things together creating a slightly different beast.

Could they develop a new weapons system/idea?

 

[rip89]

Some thing that I was thinking, with a heightend threat due to an ongoing cold war, I think we would see an earlier into service date for weapons, so for instance we would see the Eurofighter enter service 5-6 years earlier than OTL. Its delays were almost all down to politics and financing not technical issues, as well as the fact that we would not see the debate around whether its necessary.

Also would there be a chance of any new countrys joining NATO or the WP ie Ireland in NATO?

 

[lord of war]

there would still be the german reaufication so that would count and then we would see new machines like the t-95 tank

 

[Mark E.]

There would be no Internet as we know it (a lot of OTL development had been powered by brains which would be snapped by military contractors and would be toiling on weapons development ITTL) and arms of today would be as advanced comparing to arms of 1990 as those were comparing to the stuff USA used in Viet Nam.

In the eighties, the US kept up in the arms race with plenty of talent to spare for civilian technology (e.g., the Internet). IT technology, though, was credited with bringing down the USSR. In the late eighties, US commentators reminded us that the Soviets would soon face a choice: either open up to computers or fall into the third world.

With a lingering cold war, the Internet would no doubt be somewhat more regulated. The upside there would be more control over fraud and spam.

 

[Urban fox]

Why dose everyone say a continuing USSR would be a moribund hulk? As if western nations the time didnt suffer their own economic problems.

Soviet GDP was still growing in the 80's by 1 or 2% that's pretty low but it's still growth they hadn't fallen into a deep recession.

Also the idea the USSR couldn't carry out some degree of reforms is just crass stupidity the Soviet economic system had undergone many reforms since 1917.

There's no intrinsic reason the USSR cant recover. The fundamentals of the USSR's economic power were still strong. At the very least without Gorby's fuck-ups Moscow may have had considerable time to deal with it's major problems without major political changes rocking the syestem.

The best bet for this is if Yuri Andropov lives longer, until the early 90's then the USSR would have likely rode out the worst of the storms that hit it during the 80's without overt instablity.

Gorby had some good ideas but lacked toughness. Andropov an ex-KGB boss didnt have that problem. (Think Putin)

 

[superkuf]

Why dose everyone say acontinuing USSR would be a moribund hulk? As if western nations the time didnt suffer their own economic problems.

Soviet GDP was still growing in the 80's by 1 or 2% that's pretty low but it's still growth they hadn't fallen into a deep recession.

Also the idea the USSR couldn't carry out some degree of reforms is just crass stupidity the Soviet economic system had undergone many reforms since 1917.

There's no intrinsic reason the USSR cant recover. The fundamentals of the USSR's economic power were still strong. At the very least without Gorby's fuck-ups Moscow may have had considerable time to deal with it's major problems without major political changes rocking the syestem.

The best bet for this is if Yuri Andropov lives longer, until the early 90's then the USSR would have likely rode out the worst of the storms that hit it during the 80's without overt instablity.

Gorby had some good ideas but lacked toughness. Andropov an ex-KGB boss didnt have that problem. (Think Putin)

Nope.

During the 80s the eastern block was cracking. Poland had Solidarity, dissidents everywhere. Everyone from the Pope and down was working on it. Even parts of the Soviet Union (the baltic states) wanted to be free, but were of course discreet about it. The workers paradise hadn't delivered the promised goods, and the believers had died off. The rest wanted out. This trend would almost need ASB to stop.

The Soviet Union had gigantic problems by the time Brezjnev died. Demograficly soviet males drank themself to death, and soviet women didn't have children. The non-russian population of Soviet grew. The economy was a tragedy that no one could control or even knew (a rumor is that GOSPLAN at the end used CIAs data on the Soviet economy, since they didn't trust data from their own countrymen). Corruption was huge and growing. Since the oil price fell Soviet lost a lot of hard currency. A Soviet car was worth less than the raw materials that were used in the production of the car.

By 1980 "industry" was so much more complicated than "industry" by 1930 that the planning system didn't work. A lot of inerta, improvisation and ignorance let the system drag on for a decade more - but it couldn't survive and couldn't adapt (unless the planning system was abandoned)

Star Wars showed that Soviet couldn't compete with high tech. They had fallen behind in computer science research, had nothing like Silicon Valley or MIT with the result that both military and civilian industry lagged behind - and would fall even more behind during the 90s. I guess that satellite dishes to recieve CNN would have been a big black market problem during a "Soviet survives".

Not to mention another trend: during the 70s and 80s party bosses started to travel abroad, and realised that the auto mechanic in West Germany had higher standard of living than themselves back in Soviet Union. Better healthcare, better washingmachine, well sorted grocery stores, nicer homes - for someone five steps below themselves on a social scale. Why work for a system that keeps them in ugly housing and non-working washinmachines?

 

[johnm]

If the POD was going to be simply the existence of a more hardline Communist premier, you would have to keep in mind how that premier would react to all of the things mentioned above. Ironically, probably taking a reactionary stance to the changes that were going on- crackdowns in the republics and throughout the bloc, which would probabyl cause various crises that might tempt Western involvement given the increasingly apparent weakness of the USSR... such a conservative premier would also be very unlikely to alleviate any of the fundamental problems with the economy, since that would involve drastic change and all...

-John

 

[CanadianGoose]

Something 9/11 would probably happen to the USSR before the USA. The USSR was even worse in the terrorists eyes for being athiest.

USSR was "the little Satan" and USA "the Great Satan" for ayatollahs. Besides, USSR was a much harder target, especially in tense world of cold war. An attempt to hijack a Soviet airplane with boxcutters would likely result in bloody combat between highjackers and plane crew and passengers.

I doubt it. PCs took off perfectly well in the 80s despite your "military brain drain"

Look, military contractors did scale back drastically in 1990s, and to deny that people they didn't hire play a role in Internet revolution is to deny several hundred thousands IT workers creativity. Besides, million of Soviet programmers who immigrated to USA, Israel, Canada, Germany do count for something too.

IT technology, though, was credited with bringing down the USSR. In the late eighties, US commentators reminded us that the Soviets would soon face a choice: either open up to computers or fall into the third world.

As someone who saw this situation from the other side of the Curtain, I can only quote Mark Twain. "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated".

 

[Blochead]

USSR was "the little Satan" and USA "the Great Satan" for ayatollahs.

Yes, but ayatollahs are Shia Iranians. They are representative of a minority of Muslims and their opinions have no truck among the Sunni takfiris who attacked the United States on 9/11.

The Sunnis were notably more anti-communist, and the more religiously-motivated they were the less tolerant of communism they were (the Sunni majority countries most friendly with the USSR were also the most secular).

Given the primary Soviet motivation for the invasion of Afghanistan was to prevent a wider threat to the Central Asian SSRs, Moscow too was wary of the threat Islam posed to its territorial integrity. Unlike the US the USSR had a large population of Islamic citizens, who could be susceptible to radicalization in a decaying USSR.

The violence would not be large scale terrorist attacks, but insurgencies in affected regions. It makes far more sense to extrapolate Islamic opinions on the USSR from Sunnis who make up the vast majority of Muslims (and rallied to fight against the USSR in Afghanistan) than from the Iranian clerical regime which does not represent the opinions of Sunnis and was controversial even among the Shia religious leadership.