In my opinion, the whole spiel with China can only do one thing: reduce Pact forces in Central Europe, so the war draws out, because it never reaches full intensity and thus a first use of tactical nukes by NATO on German soil. China is a tool to reach that goal of a high-intensity war in Europe that goes nuclear late and does so in Poland, not Germany. China is the place Pact divisions go to be out of the game. Other than that, China is of no use and so not too many details should be put into that. But explaining why and how Pact nations help the USSR is important, yes.

They would. And the only logical way to play it safe is "to not play the game". If NATO, and that means the Bundeswehr especially, twitches too hard or too close to the border, everyone plays a session of "Global Thermonuclear War". So, in order to play, but not to play that game, the situation needs to be muddy, no long planning possible, no cabals, no secret talks for weeks or months. This stuff always gets out, especially in the Eastern Bloc. It needs to happen quickly and everyone needs to try to stop it and thereby make it worse.

Regarding The Sino-Soviet War in the Twilight Era it sort of relies on the world lurching back to 1957. The Soviets were tiring of their empire at this time and the PRC were no longer doing odd Mao-type things over "who gets to be the top guy in the Kommunist Klub" but were instead making wads of cash.

On the whole, Twilight 2000 never acknowledges that Stalin and Mao are dead and so are their systems. The USSR had given up "World Communism" when Stalin chased away Trotsky (and then had him brutally murdered but Trotsky was no saint either) and had thrown up the sop of "Communism In One Nation" which was more or less them owning up to the fact they couldn't pull it off because they knew the reality of this after the Entente let the German army go back and crush the German socialists who they couldn't do without.

To be frank, neither the USSR or the PRC were doing aggression any more, although like any great power if you let your guard down they'd take what they could. Instead they were busy oppressing their own shrinking spheres.

I think that I understand the broad generalization that you are trying to make, but I'm not sure that history supports that assessment. Both the USSR and the PRC engaged in numerous acts of aggression after 1957. In fact, they fought a 7-month long undeclared border war against one another in 1969 (and there were limited clashes before, and have been since).

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Yes, it was a neighboring country, but it was non-aligned, not a satellite, and culturally very different.

Both the USSR and the Soviet Union supported proxies in numerous internal and international conflicts around the world between 1957 and 1989. Although it was material support instead of direct military intervention, I would still consider supplying arms, intelligence, and advisory assistance act of aggression. Such was the nature of the Cold War.

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Keep in mind that Red Dawn came out about the time the game did - with this famous scene - so obviously the idea of a Soviet China War wasnt so far fetched- i.e.

"Matt Eckert: What about Europe?
Col. Andrew Tanner: I guess they figured twice in one century was enough. They're sitting this one out. All except England, and they won't last very long.
Eckert: Well, who is on our side?
Tanner: Six hundred million screamin' Chinamen.
Darryl Bates: Well, last I heard, there were a billion screamin' Chinamen.
Tanner: There were"

The Soviets invaded Afghanistan due to the Mujahedeen almost bringing down the government. This was funded by the Carter presidency for just that purpose, and the man that did it - Zbigniew Brzezinski - frankly admitted it in 1998 in the paper "Le Nouvel Observateur".
Quote:
“According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on Dec. 24, 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was on July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”

Robert M. Gates had already foreshadowed this two years earlier in his book “From the Shadows” (Simon & Schuster, 1996)
Quote:
“The Carter administration began looking at the possibility of covert assistance to the insurgents opposing the pro-Soviet, Marxist government of President Taraki at the beginning of 1979. On March 5, 1979, CIA sent several covert action options relating to Afghanistan to the SCC [Special Coordination Committee].” A meeting of the SCC “was finally held on July 3, 1979, and — almost six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan — Jimmy Carter signed the first finding to help the Mujahedin covertly.”

So it wasn't an invasion, that's just the usual Cold War story we were told.

700 Soviet troops including Spetsnaz occupied the government buildings in Kabul, destroyed the Afghan military’s communications and then killed the leader of the pro-Soviet government.

They then invaded with an airborne division, two motor rifle divisions, a motor rifle regiment, an airborne assault brigade and an air corps – with two more motor rifle divisions following up

It was 100% an invasion

An interesting factoid about the Spetsnaz who took down the Presidential Palace is that many of them were armed with Stechkins -- including some silenced Stechkins. (I have stats for silenced Stechkins as well as Stechkins with shoulder stocks on my site in Russian Pistols) --

http://www.pmulcahy.com/pistols/russian_pistols.htm

and they killed a heck of a lot of Afghans - this wasnt a bloodless operation - they lost 14 dead themselves and killed over 350 Afghanis including those who died by being executed after they surrendered

FYI for those looking for an interesting weapon for East Africa the Tanzanian Army also had the Stechkin - so you could encounter it in the hands of marauders or the PARA

In a nutshell, yes. But calling Hafizullah Amin pro-Soviet is an abbreviation of the more complicated relationship the USSR had with him. He had conducted a smear campaign against the Soviet ambassador in Afghanistan, kept a picture of Stalin on his desk and was criticized by the Soviets for being too brutal, because he modeled his rule on that of Stalin, voicing the opinion that the way Stalin built socialism was "the way" it's done properly. Ambassador Puzanov participated in an assassination attempt against Amin, which was (at least partially) sanctioned by his higher-ups. Moscow was wary that the way Amin handled Afghanistan was leading it straight into civil war, which was probably very likely to happen.

There should be no doubt here. All in all, this was somewhat similar how the US handled allied nations that became unreliable or actual liabilities in their backyard: swift, decisive military action. It's just that Panama or Grenada were easier to keep down than a country like Afghanistan. And of course the USSR was never as good in force projection as the USA were.

Still, Afghanistan and the history of its invasion by the USSR is multi-layered. Zbigniew Brzezinski was never modest about his own plans or the effects of things he allegedly had set in motion. Maybe his actions did their part in initiating Operation Shtorm-333, but that's even then that's nowhere near the same as saying Brzezinski single-handedly trapped the Soviet Union in its own version of Vietnam. Neither past nor history are monocausal strings of events enacted by individuals.