Unrealistic/impossible/hard-to-believe aspects in the Twilight 2000 backstory

[John Farson]

The discussion on the "Your thoughts on the (canon) Presidential line of succession?" has once again made me think about this.

Before I start I'd like to reiterate that I'm a fan of T2k (as if my posting here didn't make it obvious ) and am not looking for a flame-war. I just feel that much as I like the world as described, I should also be honest and point out aspects that, to be charitable, likely wouldn't occur in such a scenario. Of course, I fully accept that what I might consider unrealistic would not be considered so by someone else. So, with that out of the way:

1) The collapse of the US presidential line of succession, the Joint Chiefs of Staff taking over and the US government and military divided between Milgov and Civgov.

As was pretty much said in the aforementioned canon line of succession thread, such a scenario would have been nigh impossible, as there were (and are) something to the effect of 60 people on the line of succession and all sorts of precautionary measures in place, many of which are likely still classified. Also, with the world on the brink of war, no way in hell would the Speaker of the House (or anyone else on the chain for that matter) be allowed to go on holiday in some remote and inaccessible location. Likewise, there would have always been at least one member of the line of succession being kept in a secure location, with rotations, just to prevent such a scenario from occurring.

From a game perspective, I understand why GDW wrote the scenario: in order for the United States to fall into anarchy, become divided between two rival governments, and make it more vulnerable to foreign invasion. However, it still doesn't make it any less of a contrivance for me.

Which brings me to my next point:

2) The Soviet/Russian invasion of Alaska and the Mexican-Soviet/Russian invasion of the southern United States.

Again, from a game-playing perspective I get it why GDW added this in. When T2k first came out in 1984 movies like Red Dawn were in vogue, and GDW was trying to cash in on the "America under siege" craze. Likewise I'm sure players wanted to re-enact the events of Red Dawn for themselves. That still doesn't make it any less difficult for me to comprehend. Why, with nuclear war imminent, would the Russians waste resources into some pie-in-sky invasion of Alaska and the Canadian west coast? Even with the war, wouldn't the Americans - and Canadians -still have enough naval assets to prevent such landings?

For that matter, why would the Mexican government - any government, whether run by the PRI or some other party - agree to let in the Soviet Division Cuba, knowing that any location where the division was placed might as well paint a giant bull's eye on themselves? And once the bombs had fallen, why on earth would the Mexican government risk America's wrath in a hare-brained invasion of Texas and other states on the border, when you consider that the US might - and definitely would - still have nukes in reserve, especially in the limited nuclear war scenario posited by T2k? In a situation where the nukes had already flown, where millions of Americans were dead, I would imagine that no US government would have any qualms whatsoever in using nukes to stop the Mexican invasion. Of course, the same goes for the Russians in Alaska.

The only situation where I could see the Mexicans deploy forces on the US side of the border would be if there was an uncontrollable flood of American refugees heading south towards Mexico. Even then, the Mexicans would only want to secure the border in the form of establishing some sort of buffer zone rather than advancing all the way to San Antonio or L.A. Of course, there would likely also be Mexican refugees fleeing north, so you might very well have a situation where both the US and Mexican armies would seek to establish a buffer zone for themselves and come to cross-purposes...

3. The limited nuclear war scenario.

Again, I understand why GDW wrote the Twilight War as having been a limited nuclear war. First of all, because it had originally been written as backstory for 2300, in which WWIII had been a limited nuclear war. Also, in the 1980s, before the fall of the USSR, there was all sorts of talk about how nuclear war didn't necessarily have to be a total exchange, that there could be a limited version as well. Finally, a full exchange scenario would just be another Gamma World.

However, with the fall of the Soviet Union and (some) opening of Soviet archives, as well as a more and more better understanding of Soviet (and Russian) nuclear doctrine over the past 20+ years, it's become more and more certain that any resorting to nuclear weapons in an East-West conflict would have rapidly escalated into a full exchange scenario. No one in Russia would wait to see what the other nuclear powers were planning to do, nuclear war doesn't work that way. It's all based on a strike plan that is pre-written, you simply don't have time to do much else. Probably 80-90% of the weapons would be used or lost in the first hour. Nowadays the relative reduction of land based weapons as part of the nuclear triad means that more weapons are likely to survive the first strike/counter-strike.

Even if the Russians used only against NATO, "direct allies" and the U.S. (and the PRC, there is ZERO chance that the PRC is left alone here, by either side), that leaves pretty much all of the Northern Hemisphere a smoking hole, along with the Persian Gulf Region. India would be likely, almost certain in fact, to be hit by the PRC and in return would strike back, usage against Pakistan is likely as well, with Pakistani response. If Russia goes after direct U.S. allies that would include Israel, putting the Israelis into the "use 'em or lose 'em" category.

This doesn't even go into the possibility of other WMDs being used, such as chemical and biological weapons...

A person in another forum that I frequent actually put all this very well. He explained that what is generally forgotten is that Nuclear War isn't really war at all. It is a matter of ensuring that you defeat the enemy more permanently than he defeats you. That means you go after as much potential supporting infrastructure as you can, even if the enemy doesn't own it. If the enemy could use it, you hit it if you can. That is where you get the irony of BOTH SIDES hitting some targets, simply to be sure the other side is denied them.

Nuclear War is not logical, it is impossible to limit, escalation is inevitable . There are far more than enough open source studies that demonstrate this. The birds fly, they all fly.

...

Again, I'm not looking for a fight. I'm just stating my opinions here, and explaining them as well as I can.