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Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Absolutely. Even with the USSR and it's allies as powerful as they were in the game, there's no way they could maintain that level and number of multiple operations at once any longer. They NEEDED to close down at least one major front to give them a hope of surviving even as long as until winter.
Alaska, Korea, China, Middle East, Europe (and probably numerous other minor hotspots such as Mexico) were all draining resources and manpower faster than they could be replaced. Heavily nuking China was the best bad option they had and one I think many commanders would have taken in a similar situation.
Every other front had members of Nato (usually the US as the major opponent) fighting there and it would have almost immediately escalated into a full exchange. China had nukes, but no nuke armed allies. Any retaliation from China could be counted on to be limited and relatively ineffective.
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I agree completely with you - look at their delivery systems that they had - basically bombers that had very little chance of penetrating Soviet air space and if they Soviets got off their shots first most likely no surviving long range missiles - a few Soviet cities in the Far East might have been within their capabilities but no way do they hit the vital areas around Moscow or Kiev or Leningrad or Baku
and the only other nuclear power in Asia is the US - which you correctly argue was only basically responding in kind - and when the Chinese got nuked hadnt been touched yet on US soil - so who is going to risk LA trying to avenge Peking?