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Originally Posted by Cdnwolf
One questions and this is to all... but why does it take 5 years for the world to go to hell in a hand basket? So far in my timeline I can do it in 3 years max and thats only because the Spanish Flu took so long to spread.
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Heck, we could do it in two months if we went with a huge Warsaw Pact invasion that blows through the Western Front and the only way to stop them is to deploy tactical nukes in West Germany or even the low countries. In that scenario, it was likely that the Sovs would start lobbing tac-nukes back at us and we'd be throwing theater nukes around in a matter of days. Then everyone in Washington and Moscow starts to panic that if they don't hit the button now 1/2 their birds will get caught on the ground if they wait. Then you get your strategic exchange... only problem is that the result is a northern hemisphere a bit too scorched and irradiated for interesting role-playing... at least for a couple hundred years.
The slow slide is the death of a thousand cuts for civilization. By inching forward by increments, civilization is worn down, rather that vaporized by a thousand suns. If it moves slower, the leaders have more time to consider their position and more time to react in proportion. Of course, a proportional reaction doesn't end the war, it just prolongs it as each side exchanges blows.
Frankly I like the 5 year schedule... the Sino-Soviet war (or Central Asian War in my time line) goes on long enough that it appears almost as distant as Vietnam or the Iraq War. Then when things break loose in Europe, its only a few months between the time the Sovs use tac-nukes on Pact soil, to the time the sneak attack during the peace negotiations in November.
After November of 1997, things fall apart over the next three years, not because the limited exchange was fatal, but because too much national effort is wasted continuing to fight the war.
A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing