[Raellus]

This debate's kind of flared up again in the Iraq thread and so I'd like to un-hijack that thread and revive the debate over here (if anyone's interested).

In order for the v1.0 alternative history to work, one must reconcile the collapse of the Soviet system/Union IRL with its survival in the v1.0 timeline.

I believe that an adequate explanation is a [hypothetical] discovery of large oil and natural gas deposits in the eastern USSR, along the frontier with the PRC, in the mid-to-late '80s. This would both allow the Soviet command economy to remain solvent (and perhaps add an influx of hard currency from exports) and create a causus belli for the canonical war with the PRC. An economic revival would also allow the Soviet military to modernize its major platforms and improve the training of its soldiers, sailors, and airmen. This would make the Red Army a more formidable force, more in line with what the v1.0 timeline describes.