4th ed T2K

[Raellus]

One of the main criticisms leveled at v4's setting- IMHO, a legitimate, very fair one- is that the Soviet Union, without major allies, nearly steamrolls NATO in the Twilight War and, at the Death of a Division starting point, is considerably stronger than its Euro-American enemies.

I'm not sure that this can be explained/justified to everyone's satisfaction but here are some ideas that I hope go some way to reconciling v4's setting with real world circumstances, geopolitics, and strategic military balance of forces.

The first two ideas don't really require any modifications to the v4 timeline. The others do.

NATO overconfidence stemming from the Gulf War
One could argue that this happened, IRL. Coalition forces had very little trouble smashing Iraqi units equipped with Soviet weapons and following- roughly- Soviet doctrine. This easy victory gives NATO the mistaken impression that it can handle a Soviet invasion of central Europe with much less trouble than was anticipated pre-1991*. This leads to institutional complacency and a draw-down of forces (not as dramatic as what happened after the IRL collapse of the Soviet Union, but still a RIF).
*If you're interested, I go into much more detail regarding the fallacy of this way of thinking in this thread:

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=897

Economic drain of the former Warsaw Pact on NATO
Again, IRL, this was an issue that Germany had to deal with- East Germany's moribund economy was a millstone around the neck of W. Germany for at least a decade following reunification. Trying to incorporate the similarly weak economies of the other former Warsaw Pact nations into the European Union and/or NATO would put a strain on the democratic, capitalistic economies of Western Europe. This would likely result in a decrease in defense spending, regardless of the continued threat of the still-extant USSR.

Combine NATO overconfidence in its conventional military forces vis-a-vis the Soviet Union and the economic drain of trying to incorporate former WTO nations into the EU/NATO, and you have a recipe for a weaker NATO c.1995.

AFAIK, the following scenarios are not part of the v4 setting. In fact, very little mention is made of parts of the world outside of Europe in the current v4 materials.

North Korean Invasion of the ROK
If North Korea views rising tensions in Europe and the Middle East as an opportunity to make a play for forced reunification, it could take advantage by launching an attack on the South. This would undoubtedly draw away several US divisions that could otherwise be deployed to Europe. It is also likely that Asia-Pacific allies like Australia would also send forces to aid the ROK.

PRC Invasion of Taiwan
I see this as much less likely as a DPRK invasion of the ROK, given that the Chinese military was not nearly as strong c.1995 as it is today. However, if the US appears distracted by a major war in Europe and/or a war in Korea, the PRC regime may see an opportunity to regain its rebellious province by force. This too would likely draw US forces and perhaps those of its Asia-Pacific allies, to defend Taiwan.

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