[Ursus Maior]

I really don't see India, Iran or even Syria join the USSR or China in a formal alliance. Syria would get immediate unwanted attention from Israel and thus the US. This is not in the interest of Hafze al-Assad, who was seriously ill since the 1980s and had his son and designated successor Bashar receive Western education, in London mostly. A Soviet-leaning neutrality, yes, that I could see, but an alright alliance seems highly unlikely. There is nothing to gain for Syria or the Assads from that, only preemptive strikes from Israel. Syria had learned its lesson after Yom Kippur and never challenged Israel directly afterwards, just through intermediaries. Stability and prosperity became Syrias goals and they were achievable. The USSR always wanted something from Syria, a naval base, ressources, selling weapons, but Syria needed little in return, mainly weapons and money, which it also got from Europe. Going into a full alliance would mean loosing that.

India is a different case, but essentially similar. Technological transfer, including money and weapons from the USSR and Europe would prohibit a wartime alliance with the USSR. You don't choose a side in a war, unless you have to, especially, if both sides want to sell you their stuff. India is also in no need to align with the Soviets and certainly unwilling to align with the Chinese. In the 80s, India is going through a liberalization and booms quite a bit; though not as much as the Tiger States do, which is why it's often forgotten.

Certainly, Iran was one of the states the US feared most to join the Soviet bloc. It was always highly unrealistic, though. The mullahs were as much opposed to the USSR as they were to the US. The one thing the Soviets had going for themselves was that the US had the more recent imperialistic past in Iran. But the agnostic to outright anticlerical Soviet policy was as much a no-go to Iran as was Soviet imperialism. For a Soviet-Iranian alliance to work, the Iranian communist Tudeh Party would have had to come to power. That's a nigh impossible thing to happen. In the 80s, the mullahs were in power through popular support and the sheer will to survive Iraqi aggression. The communists didn't help at all in the war, plus it didn't help them that nominally Iraq was aligned to the Soviets and a socialist state. A communist coup in Iran would have fared even worse than in Afghanistan.

Essentially, if you weren't allied to the USSR in peace, why join them in war? China I could see, because they have ideological mutuality (to some degree) and China has an axe to grind with the US after 1996 plus it's booming fast. The rest? Not so much, with caveats.

Now, all of these three states probably would take Soviet and maybe Chinese money. Some might even have joint exercises (India might), but why be drawn into conflicts that don't gain them anything? Being member of the "neutral bloc" worked historically, I don't see, why that would change.

Now, I could see Iraq join the Soviet bloc after 1991. The reason that didn't happen historically is certainly that the USSR was on its deathbed and never recovered. But if it would recover, foreign aid and arms exports would be all over the place in Iraq. The same might work for Eritrea, which has the power to close the Red Sea through its islands.

I see other potential candidates, too. Libya is one such country. Gaddafi was egocentric enough to put his ideas of amassing power before the people of Libya, so he might renew his partnership with a USSR hellbent on revisionism in during the 1990s. Benghazi was already used to seeing Soviet ships earlier in the Cold War, so releasing it, would be easy to manage.

Another country could be Yemen. Though communist South Yemen imploded in 1990 and reunified de jure with North Yemen into Yemen proper, the reunification process was halted during a brief civil war from 4 May to 7 July 1994. I could see the USSR intervene here on behalf of its former allies. It might be the first glance of things to come, in the Balkans or Caucasus, but less visible. If the Soviets play their hand correctly here, airmobile forces deployed from Iraq, Tartus (Syria) and Benghazi (Libya) would deploy swiftly, reinforced by marines landing several days later, who would sail in from Iraq.

There would be repercussions from the West, but only so much. Yemen is of little interest to most during these days and ending a civil war is always welcome. The US would probably put more troops into Saudi Arabia, but other than that, it's not a big thing in the media. Once the Twilight War nears, however, the USSR has bases in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, which would threaten the Persian oilfields and Israel, creating a third point of interest the US have to watch out for other than Europe.