[Webstral]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

The big problem with this idea is that 1) [You’re] assuming [President Clinton] wouldn't have cut spending anyway. He ran on a pledge to do just that… This would probably be the primary reason Russia would be "emboldened" to try and rearm. To catch up with the US (who demonstrated their technological edge in the 91' Gulf War) while they were "resting on their laurels."

I think it’s worthwhile to remember that the political climate of the early 1990’s in the Twilight universe would have been very different than what we experienced in real life. While no one is obliged to cleave to such reimagined v1 chronologies as the Black Winter and The Gulf War in Twilight: 2000, the fact remains that an existing Soviet Union would have changed the US defense outlook completely from the reality we experienced. A smashing victory like the victory we achieved in Operation Desert Storm, combined with an apparent Soviet drawdown in the mid-1990s, would have softened our defense stance significantly from where we were in 1987. However, the Soviet threat still would have been present. Any crackdown on liberalizing trends like those observed in 1989 would have been on the minds of plenty of Americans and our European allies in the early 1990’s.

Were the Soviet Union still in existence after Operation Desert Storm demonstrated the potential of Western military prowess, the Kremlin would have been forced to shed some mass in order to make qualitative gains. The Soviet leadership would have seen itself as being obliged to strengthen its qualitative position whether the West was resting on its laurels or not. There were plenty of good lessons to be learned from Operation Desert Storm. Russia made a concerted effort to learn them, but the Russian economy went into a tailspin in the 1990’s in real life. Had the Soviet leadership successfully instituted some reforms in the interests of staving off collapse, which I have posited in some of my work on the subject, the Soviet military would have been in a significantly better position to fight in the West, the Middle East, or the Far East. While an overhaul of a military on the scale of the Soviet military would have been completely out of the question given the time and the means between 1991 and 1995, a reallocation of resources could have yielded real fruit in terms of manpower readiness.

Originally Posted by swaghauler

The second primary problem is with resources. We would have lost nearly 40% of our steel supply (the amount coming from China since 1992). The Russians would not let China continue to ship product from China or continue to receive product from other countries in order to cripple China's economy.

This is an interesting question. Obviously, it would be in keeping with Soviet interests for the Red Banner Pacific Fleet (RBPF) to interdict all maritime traffic between China and the outside world. Following Gorshkov’s reforms, the Soviet Navy was oriented towards denying the maritime powers of the West free access to the world’s oceans. I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Soviets had plans in place for isolating China from overseas markets. Once China began opening up to global markets in the 1980’s, Soviet planners would have recognized the opportunity to hurt the Chinese economy by strangling her maritime trade.

However, cost-benefit calculations would be reason for pause. Let’s remember that the initial Soviet invasion was not intended to conquer China. The Soviets responded to a border incident. They mobilized nothing like the required number of troops for the conquest and occupation of China. Like most wars, the Sino-Soviet War was launched by the aggressor for the purpose of adjusting the status quo. The Soviets would have announced that this was a limited war intended to redress certain specific injustices, etc. for the purpose of managing international opinion. The Soviets expected quick victory.

Within this paradigm, establishing a blockade of the Chinese coast would have carried certain real costs. Sinking merchant vessels flagged under any of the Western powers would have caused a very significant reaction in the West. Freedom of navigation is a cardinal tenet of American naval policy. The Soviets know this. They would also know that a blockade of the Chinese coast by the RBPF would be very difficult to maintain against the concerted efforts of Chinese and US naval assets operating from bases on the coast of China and southern Japan and the ROK, respectively. At the very least, a naval war against the US in the western Pacific would be a major distraction for the RBPC. If the object of the war was a quick victory over the PRC in Manchuria, what would be the gain in dragging the US into a related but separate naval war? Ideally, the war would be over before any significant quantities of materiel arrived in Chinese ports.

Once the Chinese counteroffensive of late 1995 (Operation Red Willow) put an end to any thinking about a short, decisive war, the question of a blockade would come up again. However, the problems associated with sinking Western shipping would still be in effect. Mining would not be a viable solution because the Western powers would see little difference between sinking ships by torpedoes or mines. I believe that the Soviets would have tried to get around the problem of sinking ships as a means of blockading China by attacking the port facilities. Stand-off PGM delivered by the Soviet strategic air arm would have a better chance of hitting and destroying the bottleneck assets in Chinese ports than at any time in the past. A dozen on-target strikes against the cranes at a major port would seriously restrict the ability of the port to load and offload materiel. Persistent lethal agents dispersed over the port facilities would greatly slow the operations of the surviving cranes until decon had run its course.

Relating this to naval operations, the Soviets would not want a major US presence off the coast China. I believe the Soviets would want to keep the sea approaches to Chinese ports open for use by their bombers and support aircraft. Bombers could fly from Vladivostok through the Korea Strait, then dogleg to whatever East China Sea port they wanted to hit in the early stages of the strategic bombing campaign (Operation Tchaikovsky II). War with the US would obviate the use of this passage. Granted, it would go without saying that the Allies (US, ROK, Japan) would notify China of the passage of Soviet aircraft through the Korea Strait, but notification of the Chinese air defenses along the East China Sea would be far preferable to interception by Allied air power. Even with warning passed to the Chinese defenders, Soviet bombers and support aircraft would have the luxury of hitting targets along a great length of the coast at a time of their choosing (within the limits of the endurance of the aircraft involved, of course).

I would expect Chinese ports on the East China Sea to be hit hard and kept out of action during the first half of 1996. The ports on the South China Sea would be a different issue. Reaching them would require a much greater effort on the part of bombers based on Soviet soil. Basing strategic bombers in Vietnam would be really, really important to the Soviets. Air power capable of knocking out port facilities in southern China would be far more lethal if based in Vietnam, where they would have the range to go out to sea around China’s land-based defenses, then dogleg in to hit a specific target. I haven’t done any thinking on the political dimensions of this option.

To get back to addressing the original point, I agree that the Soviets would see the value in blockading China once the war became protracted. However, I don’t believe they would exchange a temporary blockade for the cost of bringing the Western Allies into the fight—even if the fighting could be contained in the western Pacific. Rather, I think the effort would be on attacking Chinese industry, transportation hubs and choke points, and ports. A successful campaign in this regard would cripple Chinese war industry and economy, plus blocking imports of raw materials and finished products, while keeping the US and her Western allies sidelined.

One correction has to be issued: argon is the third most abundant gas in the Earth’s atmosphere, after nitrogen and oxygen. Separating argon from other gases requires cryogenic distillation, which is not something every country can do at the moment. Giving it away is rather like providing arms to a country that can’t make its own F-16s or nuclear energy equipment to countries that can’t produce the components domestically.

Originally Posted by swaghauler

I still believe that all of those pieces of military equipment you see parked all over America would be consigned to the local BOF or Electric Furnace for use in NEW Armored Vehicle Construction.

I concur that there would be significant pressure to recycle the material.

Originally Posted by swaghauler

I imagine rubber, plastic, oil, coal, wood and a number of other resources would also be in short supply with the war and a reduction in shipping.

I agree that there would be shortages of certain important materials. I don’t think coal is among them—at least not in the US. I do think prices would rise as the markets responded to uncertainty. This would create artificial shortages of materials.