I suppose, I am not all that familiar with background to break in TBH.
America Be Watching With The Popcorn: A Sino-Soviet War TL
- Thread starter theflyingmongoose
- Start date
I do wonder what else Nixon would want to get done on both the home front and abroad.
I am not sure. He’s kind of just made himself one of the best US presidents ever.
You might see the guaranteed minimum income plan for families he pushed actually pass, and some sort of healthcare reform as well - there were a couple of different attempts by either the Nixon White House or Congress during his time to reform health insurance or establish a national healthcare program, some more progressive than others (including some bipartisan single-payer proposals from the Senate) but all much more expansive than anything else proposed or passed until at least Obamacare.
Interesting. I wonder how that would change things here in the states.
Nixon may have an unprecedented chance to bring more countries into the fold just due to simple fear of the Soviets and the fact they just spent a lot of material and money fighting China. Brezhnev may have won the war but for many he will, to paraphrase Dr. Strangelove, “go down in history as the greatest mass-murderer since Adolf Hitler.” I do wonder whether he’ll be encouraged/forced to step down simply from a PR standpoint. Not sure if Yuri Andropov would be the one to step in or not; if so then his reign will be disastrous for the Union within and without.
True. With one communist superpower going down the drain and the other bankrupted and demonized who knows how many countries will be brought into the fold. Or how many resistance movements around the world will fail from the lack of Soviet supplies and them becoming super unpopular.
And I don’t know anything about Andropov, what would make him disastrous?
Likely a more progressive society than OTL, more akin to Europe. If he doesn’t give people a reason to distance themselves from him and his policies a la Watergate then the changes from Reagan will be greatly diminished or even non-existent. The OTL spending that went to defense will likely be directed to social services instead so the deficit may still go up a bit but not running away like OTL. The economy wouldn’t be running its constant boom-bust cycle with a widening wage gap thanks to trickle-down economics staying in the trash pile of bad ideas from the Gilded Age.
At least that’s my hope.
Something tells me the defense spending wouldn’t be going away quite that quickly. Afterall the Cold War is still going on and either do the scares from the use of nukes will keep it up. Or the belief that they’ve got the upper hand so they can’t get distracted will keep a lot of that defense spending around. Although post cold war I can see that happening.
Not sure if that would butterfly away Reagan or conservatism. Likely just change it a bit. If these things work then they just won’t go after them, if they don’t it’ll just bolster their support.
He was the head of the KGB and was behind a lot of purges of dissidents and supposed dissidents by submitting them to “psychiatric hospitals” as well as being a raging anti-Semite. He was heavily involved in crushing the Hungarian Uprising and Prague Spring and advocated for extreme measures, though to be fair he came to regret these decisions advocated a lighter touch for Poland. He also cracked down on the economy by basically calling workers lazy and punished workers for being late and the like. Finally he vastly increased defense spending to counter Reagan despite knowing the economy was stagnating but refused to allow anyone but a select few even know what the budget looked like.
Damn he sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen. The Asian powers are gonna be in a for a wild ride though.
I assume Latin American nations go into the fold due to not wanting to be mince meat by the USSR. If they were crazy enough to destroy another communist superpower through nuclear flame than who knows what’ll be next. Africa probably has more Western backed nations since the USSR needs some time to recover after the war. Plus old communist Countries are probably sweating.
Nixon was paranoid
He knew what he did to win in 1968 and he knew that if it had come out he not only wouldn't get reelected but would probably lose his primary
McPherson
Banned
After the mess we see here ITTL, he may be Kruscheved or he may "disappear", but Brezhnev is cooked. Not even a hardliner will support the results of this geo-political fiasco. (Insert colorful language here.)
He... was a creature of the KGB. There are two Russian views of him, that he accelerated the economic catastrophe that led to the Russian empire's breakup, or that he carefully managed the dangerous transition to modern Russia and encouraged the rise of his protégé, Gorbachev, who completed his program of reforms. I do not agree with either interpretation. He was a thug, who extemporized and reacted to events which went beyond his understanding and control.
In Russian.
The Russians just murdered ITTL, at least 150,000,000 people over an island boundary dispute. Orbital laser battle stations, American ones, here we come!
You might see a "slight increase" in American military spending.
The evil empire has just lived up to its billing. Never mind the "reality" behind Moscow's decisions. the "appearance" of the rogue regime of genocidal maniacs is an easy Hollywood Movie product, now.
"Pass the Popcorn, Hiram. How's that orbital laser battle station coming?"
"We launch in 1976."
@BrockSampson @McPherson Well. This Andropov fella sure sounds like he’s a nice guy. All sunshine and rainbows. Sounds like he could push the USSR into an earlier and possibly far worse collapse.
Something tells me that between the fear/disgust of the Soviets nuclear attacks will push lots of nations away from them. Or cause lots of revolutionary groups to fail without their support, thus preventing various governments from taking control.
The best way to look at him is like this: Andropov was an old-school Stalinist who struggled to change with the times. He had a lot of health problems and died 2 years into his office from kidney failure all the while trying to deal with Reagan doing everything he could to make the Soviets look weak.
That being said, karma’s a b*tch.
God what have I done...
Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Nixon.
Also now we have Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Brezhnev
I doubt anyone will believe it though.
"What do you mean he sabotaged the Vietnam negotiations? He won the war?" -Every American