4e Alternative Twilight War Trigger Points
 

The following assumes the same starting point as that laid out by the official 4e timeline, until...

The Soviets move to retake the former Baltic SSRs by force (but before any of them can formally join NATO). At that point, understandably shaken Finland and Sweden make serious overtures to NATO re joining the alliance. The Soviets see this as a red line and decide to take preemptive action. The USSR attacks Finland and Sweden, eventually triggering a NATO response, thereby kicking off WWIII.

I came up with this almost a year ago, months prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I certainly hope life doesn't imitate art.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...s-to-join-nato

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So long as the nukes don't start getting thrown about, I don't think we have too much to worry in that space (of course, the nukes are the thing to worry about). With Russia's showing in Ukraine, it's become clear that they're wholly unprepared to deal with a modern NATO response. On top of that, Putin doesn't appear to have a whole lot left that he'd be able to throw at Scandinavia.

It certainly also makes one wonder, if they're using gear from 40-50 years ago that clearly hasn't been maintained since the early 90s at most recent, how their actual nuke stockpiles are holding up. Surely they have enough to still bring about the end of days, but I imagine a lot of those weapons would be non-functional these days.

Finally, there's some rumors circulating about Putin being very ill right now with some kind of blood cancer. They're still only rumors at this point, but hopefully this whole endeavor of theirs will be over before things can get more serious.